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Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive - News From Antiwar.com
Ukraine sent untrained recruits into the battle of Bakhmut to save its professional soldiers for an expected counteroffensive, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder...
Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive
One man told The Wall Street Journal that he had never held a gun before he was sent into the battle
by Dave DeCamp Posted on May 25, 2023Categories NewsTags Russia, Ukraine
The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder, just a few days after being mobilized.
Out of 16 men in the group of draftees, 11 were either killed or captured. The Journal described them as “mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital.”
Image: EPA/EFE
Some of the men had military training years or decades ago, but none had combat experience. A few of them threatened to refuse orders when they were told they were being sent to the frontlines on February 21, citing a lack of training, but they ultimately went.
One man, Vladyslav Yudin, told the Journal that he told a sergeant major that he had never fired or even held a gun before. “Bakhmut will teach you,” Yudin was told.
The men participated in brutal house-to-house combat in Bakhmut. Many of them are presumed dead, but their families are still holding out hope that they were captured by the Russians and are still alive.
The men’s accounts match what Ukrainians fighting on the frontlines had been telling the media while the battle was still raging. They told stories of troops being sent in with little support, training, or ammunition.
The Washington Post spoke to a Ukrainian battalion commander in March who said he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound.
Despite Kyiv’s Western backers advising against expending resources on Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to hold onto the city for as long as he could, but it was fully captured by the Wagner Group and Russian forces this past weekend.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians lost their lives fighting for the city, but the number is not confirmed. Prigozhin also said that he recruited 50,000 people from prison to fight in Bakhmut and about 20% of them were killed.
Check out the pic in the response!
Asbestos fingers, amber protective glasses for soldering and no solder! And yeah, soldering a motherboard in a veterinary clinic!
Yup, Russian-grade propaganda!
Asbestos fingers, amber protective glasses for soldering and no solder! And yeah, soldering a motherboard in a veterinary clinic!
Yup, Russian-grade propaganda!
But if Russia had insufficient trained forces to both take Bakhmut and defend against a proposed Ukrainian counter-offensive, why did they persist in trying to take Bakhmut with incapable, untrained troops who suffered massive casualties due to battlefield incompetence?Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive - News From Antiwar.com
Ukraine sent untrained recruits into the battle of Bakhmut to save its professional soldiers for an expected counteroffensive, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder...news.antiwar.com
Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive
One man told The Wall Street Journal that he had never held a gun before he was sent into the battle
by Dave DeCamp Posted on May 25, 2023Categories NewsTags Russia, Ukraine
The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder, just a few days after being mobilized.
Out of 16 men in the group of draftees, 11 were either killed or captured. The Journal described them as “mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital.”
Image: EPA/EFE
Some of the men had military training years or decades ago, but none had combat experience. A few of them threatened to refuse orders when they were told they were being sent to the frontlines on February 21, citing a lack of training, but they ultimately went.
One man, Vladyslav Yudin, told the Journal that he told a sergeant major that he had never fired or even held a gun before. “Bakhmut will teach you,” Yudin was told.
The men participated in brutal house-to-house combat in Bakhmut. Many of them are presumed dead, but their families are still holding out hope that they were captured by the Russians and are still alive.
The men’s accounts match what Ukrainians fighting on the frontlines had been telling the media while the battle was still raging. They told stories of troops being sent in with little support, training, or ammunition.
The Washington Post spoke to a Ukrainian battalion commander in March who said he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound.
Despite Kyiv’s Western backers advising against expending resources on Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to hold onto the city for as long as he could, but it was fully captured by the Wagner Group and Russian forces this past weekend.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians lost their lives fighting for the city, but the number is not confirmed. Prigozhin also said that he recruited 50,000 people from prison to fight in Bakhmut and about 20% of them were killed.
Surely the appropriate way was to delay attempting to take Bakhmut and to train all their infantry up to an appropriate standard of capability. The Russians are dum-dums.
You are arguing against prima-facie copy and paste propaganda lie.Doing so only gives it credibility.
I am taking a different approach. Mocking the 'tard's. More fun and effective!
Bakhmut was a Russian psychological warfare and physical trap which Ukrainian neoNazis and NeoNazis Zelensky fell for it . It was designed to be a meat grinder….They were demolished and destroyed the Russian Army . It was a meat grinder to design and wear out and kill Ukrainian best train NATO force! Facts are aprox 300, 000 thousands Ukrainian killed or wounded! Looking forward when this war be over by end of falls this year! When Ukrainian run out of amino and American won’t fund this 53 state or simply they run out of money and from GOP in Congress won’t supply any mor money!
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Yeah, sure Bruno! A Russian trap
To think that cartoonists knew the Russian mentality so well almost 60 years back shows what a predictable caricature Russians are.
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Holy guacamole!! Are you seriously saying Russia strategically sent almost half a million of their own people to die in Bakhmut over 10 months, to take less than 40 sq kms of rubble? This is the funniest logic (or lack thereof) that I have heard in favour of Russia. Are you also suggesting that the Ukrainians are worn out, when the only people who threatened to withdraw was Wagner? Prigozhin couldn't wait to hand over Bakhmut or what is left of it, to the Russian forces and high tail outta there!
Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and screw with their navigation, researchers say
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Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and screw with their navigation, researchers say
Mia Jankowicz
May 22, 2023, 7:33 AM EDT
Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and screw with their navigation, researchers say
Sophisticated electronic-warfare systems are contributing to the loss of about 300 Ukrainian drones a day, a new RUSI report found.
www.businessinsider.com
- A new report estimates Ukraine is losing roughly 10,000 drones every month.
- A sophisticated electronic-warfare system is among Russia's biggest strengths, researchers said.
- Ukraine "has the initiative" but Russia's army should not be written off, they added.
Electronic warfare is a "critical component" of Russia's tactics and contributing to the staggering losses of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, a report released Friday by the UK's Royal United Services Institute found.
The figures — which amount to more than 300 drones a day — were attributed to three unnamed Ukrainian officers interviewed in April and May.
The report did not specify which models comprised the claimed losses or in what proportion, but James Patton Rogers, a University of Southern Denmark war-studies professor and drone expert, told Insider the majority of those being lost were relatively cheap, small commercial drones used for surveillance.
The estimations indicate the unprecedented scale at which UAVs are being used in Ukraine, he said, adding that this was "one of the world's first drone vs. drone conflicts."
Patton Rogers said that while the figures were likely overestimated, they underlined just how effective Russia's electronic warfare had become at countering Ukraine's extensive use of drones.
The RUSI report said that along the roughly 750 miles of the conflict's front line, Russia maintained a major electronic-warfare system roughly every 6 miles. These are set back about 4 miles from the front and focused mainly on neutralizing drones, the report said.
Sophisticated Russian systems such as the Shipovnik-Aero jamming station are hard to detect and can imitate other signals, the researchers said.
"It also has a sophisticated range of effects for downing UAVs," they said, including interfering with navigational systems.
Ukraine fields a wide variety of drones, from small, commercial-grade UAVs often used for reconnaissance or as loitering munitions, up to the multimillion-dollar Bayraktar TB2, capable of taking out Russian tanks.
Drone warfare was a celebrated aspect of Ukraine's early success in holding back the Russian advance, prompting an official fundraising campaign — United24 — which was created to form a "drone army."
But by summer, it was clear that Russia's electronic-warfare and air-defense capabilities had ramped up, Insider's Alia Shoaib reported.
Frontline drone operators told The Guardian in April that one of the most popular models — the DJI commercial drone — was rapidly losing its effectiveness.
Nonetheless, Patton Rogers said, Ukraine is developing "its own resilient drone systems to fill this gap in capacity."
Overall, the RUSI researchers said that after the Russian army's "disaster" of a performance at the outset of the invasion, it had adapted to Ukraine's pushback, even as it continued to struggle with poor morale and effective use of heavy armor and air-force attacks.
"The result is a structure that becomes better over time at managing the problems it immediately faces but also one that struggles to anticipate new threats," the report said.
"Ukraine, today, has the initiative," it added. "But as the Russian military adapts, there can be no room for complacency."
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He's not saying anything. He seems to be methodically pasting canned desinformezia on tons of divisive, anti-west, anti-American issues. Check elsewhere in the Politics forum and you'll see the pattern.
I suspect Ukraine hasn't had 10,000 delivered to begin with! Now Russia is saying they take down that many per month?
About the only thing that is true is that Russia has powerful jammers.
About the only thing that is true is that Russia has powerful jammers.
I was thinking the same thing. Even America is unlikely to have that many
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