Do you actually lose muscle when you start cutting?
If i think about it logically, why would your body ‘eat’ muscle first and then fat? When you need muscles more than fat.
Is losing muscle imposible when cutting as long as i maintain my protein intake?
Or can anyone explain this to me?
Everyone has covered the practical aspects: typically you will lose some muscle, but you will lose less: 1. the fatter you are, 2. the more protein you get, 3. the lower your caloric deficit is, 4. if you are doing resistance training- low intensity cardio and 1:1 HIIT help as well.
I'd add: 5. adequate sleep- people on the same diet that got 5.5 vs 8.5 hours lost 55% less fat.
You asked about the reason though:
Why does it scavenge from muscle when muscle is a requirement?
First, you don't need all the muscle you have- look at some modern hunter gatherers to get an idea how much is required to be a healthy active human. Especially if you aren't trained and have high body fat- obese people have low quality muscle, which is why strength is maintained when they diet and lose muscle mass- the remaining muscle can do the job fine after some remodelling.
What is required is essential amino acids for maintenance of various body processes and muscle is the best place to scavenge these. This is why consuming enough protein is important, to provide amino acids so they aren't taken from muscle.
At a deficit, the body is getting less energy than it needs. Therefore the balance needs to come from tissues.
Muscle is expensive to maintain energetically. So if the the body doesnt 'think' the amount of you muscle you have necessary, using amino acids from muscle for energy is a win win for the body. Keeping some inexpensive fat tissue around to burn later makes sense. This is why resistance training will help, so your body 'decides' more muscle is necessary to keep around.
Then again this is all hand waving that sounds logical, the same kind of thinking is used by keto advocates to say 'if you are running on fat instead of carbs all you will burn is fat' yet somehow low carb diets aren't much more muscle sparing than high carb as long as high enough protein is maintained. Whatever the real.underlying processes, the five points above are supported by evidence.