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On April 02 2023 20:06 Magic Powers wrote: Alcohol consumption is causing excess deaths mainly among Russian troops. Meanwhile outdated war doctrines from old Soviet days keep creeping into Ukrainian tactics.
Sounds like a good reason to keep training soldiers, not just in the use of weapons but also in general modern warfare.
Regarding the postponed Ukrainian counter-offensive: something similar also happened during the battle of Stalingrad. Russian generals postponed their counter-offensive at least once, it was delayed by several weeks. Fortunately Russian advance in Bakhmut has slowed down.
Yeah, there's a reason Ukrainian soldiers are being shipped across all of Europe to receive both basic and specialised training atm. A pretty big portion of Norway's military budget is being spent on Interflex, and we're also bringing a bunch of them over here afterwards for teamlead, marksman and medical training
From what I heard the clash is not the boots on the ground clashing with the modern tactics of the higher ups, but the other way around. Large parts of the ukrainian military leadership have been brought up under soviet military theory, and some of them have not adapted before the war and can now struggle to adapt on the fly. This leads to some disagreements within the leadership as well as between leadership and the troops on the ground.
The training of soldiers has been overhauled since 2014 and I believe the training abroad is more down to increasing ukraines training capabilities than ukraine struggling to teach their soldiers modern warfare.
It appears that Maksim Fomin, pro-russian military blogger, has been assassinated in St. Petersburg via a bomb. Still unconfirmed of course. He is best known for advocating for the bombing of Ukraine power plants, and hospitals etc.
edit: And confirmation:
An explosion killed Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Sixteen other people were injured in the blast, TASS reported.
According to preliminary information an explosion device went off, causing part of the building's facade to collapse, according to the state news agency.
Authorities are investigating the blast and St. Petersburg's prosecutor Viktor Melnik has arrived to coordinate the emergency response, TASS said.
Who was Tatarsky? One of Russia's various prominent military bloggers, Tatarsky was at-times critical of the Russian military's setbacks in Ukraine.
In May last year, he told CNN he was not criticizing the entirety of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine but “individual episodes.” He said he still believed Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine.
Tbh sounds like an inside job. The bomb was supposedly in this statue he is given; so a near guarantee to kill. The cafe where this took place was owned by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
At least the woman they caught and blamed so far falls in neither category. Just a Russian anti war activist. But i guess Ukraine will call that Russian infighting and Russia will call it a Ukrainian spy...
In some rather unexpected turn of events a dude was collecting money for mod_russia to buy drones and other equipment but got hacked by Ukrainians who used $25k that he gathered in the account to buy sex toys instead.
Footage from the frontline how UA tanks clear Russian trenches.
Part 2 of the same video
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
I watched it, it's nothing short of depressing. Not a recommended watch despite no blood or gore. People say it's a common method. In this case it was done either because the tank ran out of ammo or because it was a more effective way to finish off the entrenched soldiers.
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
That's war for you. Not even the worse things tanks do to infantry. There are many stories of tanks doing 360s on foxholes for instant inhumation of any hiding soldiers.
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
I watched it, it's nothing short of depressing. Not a recommended watch despite no blood or gore. People say it's a common method. In this case it was done either because the tank ran out of ammo or because it was a more effective way to finish off the entrenched soldiers.
Indeed it ran out of ammo. The description through Google Translate:
After the attack of our tanks on the "T-pattern" position captured by the enemy, it turned out that there were more enemy infantry in the trenches than we expected. According to the prisoner, there were 28 occupiers at the position.
The crew of the T-72 "Sokol" tank bypassed the mine barrier and broke through close to the enemy trenches. But the ammunition of the tank is very limited. And soon "Sokol" had only one extreme shot left.
Watch the second part of the fight for the return of the "T-pattern". This is the final part of the whole story about a small position that found itself in the center of hostilities. After this stunning finale, the enemy no longer repeated attempts to capture the battalion's positions.
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
I watched it, it's nothing short of depressing. Not a recommended watch despite no blood or gore. People say it's a common method. In this case it was done either because the tank ran out of ammo or because it was a more effective way to finish off the entrenched soldiers.
The US forces charged the Iraqi lines with M1 Abrams tanks modified with minesweeping plows and M728 Combat Engineer Vehicles which buried the trenchlines, and in many cases, buried Iraqi troops alive, the number of which has been estimated to be "in the thousands".[4]
If you don't want to take casualties, just burying the trench is a very effective way of clearing the trenches.
Slight NSFW warning. There's no gore, but people are literally being driven over by a tank in this video. It's incredibly brutal to watch it repeatedly drive into the trench, knowing there's people down there
I watched it, it's nothing short of depressing. Not a recommended watch despite no blood or gore. People say it's a common method. In this case it was done either because the tank ran out of ammo or because it was a more effective way to finish off the entrenched soldiers.
The US forces charged the Iraqi lines with M1 Abrams tanks modified with minesweeping plows and M728 Combat Engineer Vehicles which buried the trenchlines, and in many cases, buried Iraqi troops alive, the number of which has been estimated to be "in the thousands".[4]
If you don't want to take casualties, just burying the trench is a very effective way of clearing the trenches.
Not ever having been in a trench attacked by a tank, so I can't pretend to know what it's like, I'm surprised people don't attempt to run. Yeah, some will be gunned down for sure, but like in this video, if you're 28 people about to be literally buried alive or crushed by a tank, you might as well make some attempt to get away, instead of just accepting your fate.
General Muradov has reportedly been dismissed after delays/defeats in the battle of Vuhledar. Bear in mind the ongoing battle involves regular Russian forces not conscripts or private miliary. Possible that he was cashiered because he told Shoigu that it's impossible to take Vuhledar without adequate air support and accurate artillery and so they should stop wasting soldiers' lives on an impossible task. I mean this is giving major Lincoln meeting Hooker after Chancellorsville vibes here.
General Rustam Muradov, a top Russian commander in Ukraine, has been dismissed in the wake of unsuccessful Russian assaults near the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, two Defense Ministry sources told The Moscow Times.
Russian attacks on the strategic coal-mining town in January and early February resulted in heavy losses of men and equipment. In one notorious incident, dozens of Russian tanks were reportedly destroyed after being ordered to advance in single-file because of a lack of demining equipment.
The removal of Muradov, a seasoned military commander with experience in Syria and the South Caucasus, offers a rare glimpse into the internal fallout from the Russian military’s failure to achieve any significant territorial gains in its monthslong offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Rumors of Muradov’s dismissal have been circulating on pro-war Russian Telegram channels in recent days, but there has been no confirmation from officials.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Moscow Times.
A source in Russia’s Eastern Military District and a source in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, however, said that Muradov had been formally relieved of his command of the Eastern Military District. Both sources spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to publicly speak on the matter.
It is not known whether Muradov will be appointed to another military post, nor is it clear who will replace him.
One of the sources suggested that Muradov’s resignation was directly linked to the failures around Vuhledar.
At the height of the Vuhledar offensive in February, units commanded by Muradov lost 103 pieces of military equipment over three days, including 36 tanks, according to Dutch group Oryx, which uses open-source data to track Russia’s materiel losses.
At the same time, just 20 pieces of Ukrainian military equipment, including two tanks, were destroyed.
“Muradov had the Russian military repeatedly attacking in small mechanized formations through minefields, across open terrain. And they accomplished nothing in Vuhledar,” military analyst Michael Kofman told The Moscow Times.
Influential pro-war bloggers — and even soldiers serving under Muradov — have criticized his leadership and disrespect for soldiers’ lives.
Particularly high casualty rates were reported in the 55th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade and the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade near Vuhledar.
One surviving 55th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade marine told Russia’s 7x7 regional news website in February that losses were so severe that only eight men remained in one of the unit’s companies (at full strength, each company has about 100 men). “I wish I had been taken prisoner and never returned,” he was quoted by 7x7 as saying.
The Moscow Times’ source in the Eastern Military District linked Muradov’s removal to these high casualty levels.
“Muradov was suspended because he was a mad idiot who was able to… order soldiers to go to certain death. A lot of people complained about him,” the source said.
The reversals around Vuhledar were not the only recent military defeats suffered by troops under Muradov’s command, independent Russian media outlet iStories reported last week, citing a source in the General Staff.
The successful capture of Vuhledar would have allowed the Russian army to bypass a major fortified Ukrainian area near the city of Avdiivka, which could have, in turn, facilitated a broader Russian offensive in the Donbas.
Instead, Russia’s Armed Forces have remained bogged down in heavy fighting and appear unable to achieve any significant military breakthrough.
Fierce battles continue to rage in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the city of Bakhmut, over 100 kilometers to the northeast of Vuhledar.
Appointed as head of Russia’s Eastern Military District on Oct. 5, 2022, Muradov became one of President Vladimir Putin’s most senior commanders in Ukraine. He was previously deployed as a military adviser in Syria and spent over a year in charge of a Russian peacekeeping mission in the disputed South Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a rare trip to the frontlines in Ukraine last month to visit Muradov and some of the troops under his command.
If confirmed, the dismissal of Muradov would not be the first time Putin has dismissed commanders in Ukraine after just a few months in the job.
Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov replaced General Sergei Surovikin as the head of Russia’s force in Ukraine in January — just three months after Surovikin himself was appointed.
And Mikhail Teplinsky, the head of Russia’s paratroopers, was reportedly dismissed earlier this year after serving in that position for only six months.
But reshuffling top military commanders is unlikely to deliver any significant successes in Ukraine, according to analysts.
“There are core problems with force quality, and junior leadership, that cannot be easily resolved. It is not just a matter of changing tactics,” said Kofman.
“Looking at their limited offensive potential, I don’t think the Russian military can establish sufficient advantage on any front.”
EPT
