“Complete neglect” just led to the deaths of many Russian infantry

With the Russian economy in freefall and US President-elect Donald Trump just two months into office, the Kremlin is desperately trying to prevent a potential decline in industrial capacity and a possible long period of political chaos by taking over as much of Ukraine as it can, as soon as possible.

This explains the costly but not entirely unsuccessful efforts of the Russians to squeeze the protrusion occupied by the Ukrainians in the Kursk Oblast in western Russia, their painful but steady advance towards the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, and their risky but effective flanking maneuvers around the ruins of Vuhledar, south of Pokrovsk.

It also explains the frenzied attacks that end in bloody disaster for poorly trained, poorly led and poorly supported Russian formations. Overall, the war-ravaged Russian army is not ready for what the Kremlin is currently demanding of it.

Consider what happened when, on November 21, a long column of Russian vehicles, probably belonging to the 3rd Motor Rifle Division, rolled towards the position of the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade west of Novovodyan – on the border of the Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts – and fell, seemingly pushing them away dozens of infantry, who then set off on foot.

3rd Assault Brigade drones and artillery harassed the vehicles, destroying or damaging several, and then turned their attention to the dismounted infantry. Explosive first-person view drones have dropped. Larger bomber drones hovered overhead and dropped grenades. Cluster artillery opened up, scattering dozens of deadly munitions.

When the dust and smoke cleared, the Russian assault force was scattered and destroyed. Dead infantry littered the roads and fields. The luckiest Russians reached just three hundred meters from the apparent starting point in Novovodiana. At no point did they significantly threaten the 3rd Assault Brigade’s positions.

The Russians are going all the way –and accepting mass sacrifices. The daily number of Russians killed and wounded now routinely exceeds 1,500. Total Russian losses after 33 months of wider warfare in Ukraine range from 600,000 to 730,000.

Many deaths are the inevitable price Russia is paying for its offensive on much of the 800-mile front line of the 33-month war. Exposed attackers almost always suffer greater casualties than entrenched defenders.

But other losses can be prevented. It should be taken into account that the Russian assault group that tried to break out of Novovodyan on November 21 apparently did not benefit from significant artillery or air support. He didn’t even bother to release obscuring smoke as he approached – a simple but effective defense against drones.

Nick Reynolds, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, explained the fundamental problems of the Russian armed forces in: october essay for National interest. “The full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a crushing defeat for Russian ground forces,” Reynolds wrote. “Despite averting total failure in 2022 and 2023, unit quality has deteriorated due to wear and tear.”

Russia’s best-trained and most experienced infantry is concentrated in a few elite units, while poorly trained new recruits under ambivalent leadership fill most of the front line formations. The few good units are effective, Reynolds wrote, but “the way they are currently used does not provide good scalability.” When these new recruits attack massivelythey tend to get massacred.

The same goes for armored forces, which “are not currently competitive with the suite of precision, lethal systems used by both sides in Ukraine,” Reynolds explained. The tanks can act as improvised howitzers, firing from relative safe positions miles away from the enemy, but “suffer as they approach the front lines.”

“Due to Russia’s military culture and the utter neglect of its personnel,” Reynolds concluded, “operations are unwieldy at best and, more often than not, simply cannot be carried out with the available forces.”

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