俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
版主: Softfist
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
Laser
China.
technologies in housing and communal services.
What technologies do the military have ...
China.
technologies in housing and communal services.
What technologies do the military have ...
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
Application of the (ukraine)10th General Staff Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Thermobaric RGT-27S for technical discharges
published on 04/18/2023
published on 04/18/2023
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
Spring.
The (russian) Rooks Have Arrived.
APU near Avdiivka accept.
04/19/2023
The (russian) Rooks Have Arrived.
APU near Avdiivka accept.
04/19/2023
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
Khokhols in tanks a minute before yesterday's kick-off near Ugledar. Our aviation destroyed at least 6 pieces of equipment.
Boys, it won’t work with a swoop, go home ...
Boys, it won’t work with a swoop, go home ...
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
border of the Yasinovatsky district.
Destruction of our SAM
BUK-M1 in Panteleimonovka.
published 04/19/2023
Destruction of our SAM
BUK-M1 in Panteleimonovka.
published 04/19/2023
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
19.04.23 Kupyansk - Petropavlovka.
Counter-battery fight in the Kupyansk direction. The defeat of a self-propelled artillery mount of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with high-precision ammunition.
49.695541, 37.789184
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
19,04,23 Artyomovsk - railway station.
Assault actions of the PMC Wagner unit south of the railway station in the city of Artyomovsk. Access to the railway track from the private sector at the bridge over the railway.
48.585883, 37.985598
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
18.04.23 Avdiivka - Krasnogorovka - Vesyoloye
The NM of the DPR continues to hold its positions on the northern coverage of Avdiivka in the settlements of Krasnogorovka and Vesyoloye despite the fire impact from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
48.204906, 37.726611
48.187105, 37.747450
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
We publish the statement of Yevgeny Prigozhin:
“In order not to be distracted from a huge number of important matters and not to arrange a showdown with people in severe intoxication, we structure the task. Two people who penetrated from the colony into the ranks of the Wagner PMC, being lowered, gave an interview to the foreign enemy resource Gulagu. net, in which a lot of paranoid nonsense was said. None of the statements has anything to do with reality. Absolutely complete nonsense and total fiction.
These people either call the Wagner PMC, cry and apologize, or again give falsified testimonies. To put an end to this and similar stories once and for all, the following decision was made:
First: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed an application to initiate criminal proceedings under Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in respect of Uldarov Azamat Seraklievich and Savichev Alexei Vladimirovich;
Second: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed a complaint against citizen Osechkin for blackmail;
Third: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed an application against a group of persons, which may include employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, who collect compromising materials on persons serving sentences, with the subsequent use of this compromising evidence to compel these persons to illegal actions . Of particular concern is not just a drunken insulting bazaar that we are now facing, but the fact that, using compromising evidence, foreign citizens can force these persons to commit unlawful acts, including murders, terrorist acts and other grave crimes. We faced the following situation: Uldarov, while serving his sentence, was omitted “raped by a group of persons”, video recording of poking his genitals in his face was posted by Gulagu. net. Uldarov carefully concealed this fact, which is a gross violation of prison ethics and, according to prison concepts, is punishable by death. Savichev Alexey, according to the information received from him, was raped in the White Lepoor, hid this fact, which, according to prison concepts, is also punishable by death. They deceived their cellmates, as they continued to live as peasants in the zone. A foreign agent, an enemy of the Russian Federation, Osechkin used the obtained data to discredit Wagner PMC. We consider it our duty to stop such opportunities, since either representatives of the criminal community, or employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, or both, clearly collaborated with Osechkin.
And now the last question, for some reason, both one and the second were still omitted. No wonder the majority of the population of Russia has always lived according to the rules, because a fag always remains a fag. Fag is a state that cannot be changed. And what we see in the changes in readings every five minutes is called "pidorastic behavior."
“In order not to be distracted from a huge number of important matters and not to arrange a showdown with people in severe intoxication, we structure the task. Two people who penetrated from the colony into the ranks of the Wagner PMC, being lowered, gave an interview to the foreign enemy resource Gulagu. net, in which a lot of paranoid nonsense was said. None of the statements has anything to do with reality. Absolutely complete nonsense and total fiction.
These people either call the Wagner PMC, cry and apologize, or again give falsified testimonies. To put an end to this and similar stories once and for all, the following decision was made:
First: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed an application to initiate criminal proceedings under Art. 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in respect of Uldarov Azamat Seraklievich and Savichev Alexei Vladimirovich;
Second: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed a complaint against citizen Osechkin for blackmail;
Third: The League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts filed an application against a group of persons, which may include employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, who collect compromising materials on persons serving sentences, with the subsequent use of this compromising evidence to compel these persons to illegal actions . Of particular concern is not just a drunken insulting bazaar that we are now facing, but the fact that, using compromising evidence, foreign citizens can force these persons to commit unlawful acts, including murders, terrorist acts and other grave crimes. We faced the following situation: Uldarov, while serving his sentence, was omitted “raped by a group of persons”, video recording of poking his genitals in his face was posted by Gulagu. net. Uldarov carefully concealed this fact, which is a gross violation of prison ethics and, according to prison concepts, is punishable by death. Savichev Alexey, according to the information received from him, was raped in the White Lepoor, hid this fact, which, according to prison concepts, is also punishable by death. They deceived their cellmates, as they continued to live as peasants in the zone. A foreign agent, an enemy of the Russian Federation, Osechkin used the obtained data to discredit Wagner PMC. We consider it our duty to stop such opportunities, since either representatives of the criminal community, or employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service, or both, clearly collaborated with Osechkin.
And now the last question, for some reason, both one and the second were still omitted. No wonder the majority of the population of Russia has always lived according to the rules, because a fag always remains a fag. Fag is a state that cannot be changed. And what we see in the changes in readings every five minutes is called "pidorastic behavior."
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
We publish a request from the editors of the publication "PolitOnline" and the answer:
Dear Evgeny Viktorovich! Today, State Duma deputies adopted a law that gives the status of "combat veteran" to fighters of volunteer armed groups. Are you satisfied with this decision?
We publish a comment by Evgeny Prigozhin:
“I am more than satisfied with this decision, since the volunteers from the LPR and DPR militia will receive the appropriate statuses and benefits, and these guys (volunteers of the LPR and DPR) are great guys, I respect them. But, as far as I understand, this has nothing to do with the Wagner PMC fighters. What is it for? I think, in order to forever remove us from the history of Russia. We are ready to leave history in exchange for the fact that all the victories will be given to the Great Russian People, but those responsible for the defeats will be found and punished.
Dear Evgeny Viktorovich! Today, State Duma deputies adopted a law that gives the status of "combat veteran" to fighters of volunteer armed groups. Are you satisfied with this decision?
We publish a comment by Evgeny Prigozhin:
“I am more than satisfied with this decision, since the volunteers from the LPR and DPR militia will receive the appropriate statuses and benefits, and these guys (volunteers of the LPR and DPR) are great guys, I respect them. But, as far as I understand, this has nothing to do with the Wagner PMC fighters. What is it for? I think, in order to forever remove us from the history of Russia. We are ready to leave history in exchange for the fact that all the victories will be given to the Great Russian People, but those responsible for the defeats will be found and punished.
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
We publish a request from the Turkish edition of Aydınlık and the answer:
The Turkish publication Aydınlık would like to take a comment from Mr. Yevgeny Prigozhin on the following issues:
1. The other day, the Türk Avrasya information and analytical portal and a number of Turkish media published information that Russia could allegedly agree with the United States to withdraw from the Ukrainian conflict, curtailing the activity of PMC Wagner in Ukraine and limiting activities in other regions of the world. Do you know anything about such agreements? If the activity of PMC "Wagner" is limited, how will you and PMC Wagner react?
2. Did you, in your recent article, really call for ending the war in Ukraine, stopping at the territories now occupied, as most Turkish media report?
We publish a comment by Evgeny Prigozhin:
"PMC" Wagner "does not pursue the interests of some narrow circle on the territory of Russia. PMC "Wagner" does not have the task of capturing economic objects, industries, enterprises or anything else. The tasks of PMC "Wagner" in Ukraine, as I have many timesstole - not to shame the Russian weapons and protect the Russian people from humiliation. Therefore, of course, such negotiations can take place, because there are a huge number of representatives of the deep state, oligarchic structures, who today are trying to agree on their comfortable future. And of course, if a sufficient number of patriots remain in the country, then they have no future.
What is the future for Wagner PMC? First, in any case, we are on the defense of Russia, on the defense of the Russian people. Secondly, we are for any honest and fair undertakings in the world, therefore we defend the African peoples, including those oppressed by bandits, terrorists, and unreliable neighbors. And if we have allies, of course, we will be on our way with them. If representatives of Turkey are such allies, then we will be happy to enter into an alliance, including with representatives of Turkey. Today in Turkey there is a rather serious movement and a guy with iron balls by the name of Erdogan is actively developing the national agenda, and also captures everythingnew and new territories, transfers them, let's say, under the control of Turkey and does it from the point of view of its national greatness absolutely correctly. Therefore, his task is to make the Ottoman Empire, our task is to expand the scope of Russia around the world from Alaska to Australia to South Africa. By the way, representatives of a certain power bloc from South Africa came to me and we are already talking to them about this topic. If a state called Osman-Wagner of the USSR is formed, then, I think, this will only benefit the whole world. Then Germany-British-France USA will have less influence in the world. Now, as for the second question, to complete the CBO or not. We have a war going on between Russia and Ukraine for certain territories that Russia considers to be primordially Russian. The same situation is happening around Turkey in certain areas. Therefore, Russia has seized these territories and must prove to everyone that they belong to her. When you take territory, there is always a counteroffensive. And therefore it is necessaryfight, wait for a counteroffensive, and preferably two or three, defeat the enemy and, when he is ready for any agreements, then you can put a bullet. To do this, you need not to relax and receive pleasure, but to prepare, work, fight and, I emphasize once again, prove to everyone that this is forever yours, and not just come running and then run away. And right now, if we return to the first question, there can be no agreement. Especially with the Americans, who always cheat."
The Turkish publication Aydınlık would like to take a comment from Mr. Yevgeny Prigozhin on the following issues:
1. The other day, the Türk Avrasya information and analytical portal and a number of Turkish media published information that Russia could allegedly agree with the United States to withdraw from the Ukrainian conflict, curtailing the activity of PMC Wagner in Ukraine and limiting activities in other regions of the world. Do you know anything about such agreements? If the activity of PMC "Wagner" is limited, how will you and PMC Wagner react?
2. Did you, in your recent article, really call for ending the war in Ukraine, stopping at the territories now occupied, as most Turkish media report?
We publish a comment by Evgeny Prigozhin:
"PMC" Wagner "does not pursue the interests of some narrow circle on the territory of Russia. PMC "Wagner" does not have the task of capturing economic objects, industries, enterprises or anything else. The tasks of PMC "Wagner" in Ukraine, as I have many timesstole - not to shame the Russian weapons and protect the Russian people from humiliation. Therefore, of course, such negotiations can take place, because there are a huge number of representatives of the deep state, oligarchic structures, who today are trying to agree on their comfortable future. And of course, if a sufficient number of patriots remain in the country, then they have no future.
What is the future for Wagner PMC? First, in any case, we are on the defense of Russia, on the defense of the Russian people. Secondly, we are for any honest and fair undertakings in the world, therefore we defend the African peoples, including those oppressed by bandits, terrorists, and unreliable neighbors. And if we have allies, of course, we will be on our way with them. If representatives of Turkey are such allies, then we will be happy to enter into an alliance, including with representatives of Turkey. Today in Turkey there is a rather serious movement and a guy with iron balls by the name of Erdogan is actively developing the national agenda, and also captures everythingnew and new territories, transfers them, let's say, under the control of Turkey and does it from the point of view of its national greatness absolutely correctly. Therefore, his task is to make the Ottoman Empire, our task is to expand the scope of Russia around the world from Alaska to Australia to South Africa. By the way, representatives of a certain power bloc from South Africa came to me and we are already talking to them about this topic. If a state called Osman-Wagner of the USSR is formed, then, I think, this will only benefit the whole world. Then Germany-British-France USA will have less influence in the world. Now, as for the second question, to complete the CBO or not. We have a war going on between Russia and Ukraine for certain territories that Russia considers to be primordially Russian. The same situation is happening around Turkey in certain areas. Therefore, Russia has seized these territories and must prove to everyone that they belong to her. When you take territory, there is always a counteroffensive. And therefore it is necessaryfight, wait for a counteroffensive, and preferably two or three, defeat the enemy and, when he is ready for any agreements, then you can put a bullet. To do this, you need not to relax and receive pleasure, but to prepare, work, fight and, I emphasize once again, prove to everyone that this is forever yours, and not just come running and then run away. And right now, if we return to the first question, there can be no agreement. Especially with the Americans, who always cheat."
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
We publish the statement of Yevgeny Prigozhin:
“There was an amazing call today. A familiar anti-globalist from the West, with whom we collaborated, called me and said: “You so shattered the Russian oligarchs that they agreed with the CIA to throw material into one erotic rag (most likely, he means The Washington Post) to crap you ".
Looking forward to".
“There was an amazing call today. A familiar anti-globalist from the West, with whom we collaborated, called me and said: “You so shattered the Russian oligarchs that they agreed with the CIA to throw material into one erotic rag (most likely, he means The Washington Post) to crap you ".
Looking forward to".
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
The tank crew of the T-90M "Breakthrough" of the company hits with direct fire from the intersection of Svoboda and Sadovaya streets in Bakhmut.
ㅤ
The tank supports the offensive of attack aircraft, which occupy one of the high-rise buildings when moving to the west of Bakhmut.
The crew is dismantling the building, from where the militants are watching the actions of the assault squads.
ㅤ
The tank supports the offensive of attack aircraft, which occupy one of the high-rise buildings when moving to the west of Bakhmut.
The crew is dismantling the building, from where the militants are watching the actions of the assault squads.
Re: 俄对美英德法波乌等战争之Bakhmut之战,和然后,和中国,和宇宙,和其他
https://www.ft.com/content/2f966366-5a5 ... 735ac871ff
‘We need every man’: Ukraine’s troops prepare for counter-offensive against Russia
The Financial Times joins units training near the frontline as Kyiv faces ‘decisive moment’ in war
Ukrainian infantrymen charged across a boggy field, Kalashnikovs raised, unleashing a flurry of bullets.
“Move! Move! Move!” came the order. Concealed by the cloud from a smoke bomb, one soldier raised a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and fired at a target 50 metres away — and missed. The group’s trainer ordered them to run the drill again.
A little more than a year ago, most of these troops were ordinary civilians. Then Russia launched its brutal new invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and they volunteered to join the fight, becoming soldiers of the Dnipropetrovsk 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade.
Aged from their 20s to their 60s, the former lawyers, interpreters, programmers and retired factory workers are now part of Ukraine’s big push to train up less experienced and completely new troops for its much-anticipated counter-offensive against Russia’s occupying forces.
“The average combat experience of the guys in this brigade is seven to 10 months,” said Roman, a press officer for the brigade who like other soldiers provided only a first name or call sign in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.
“Some of them have seen real fighting but many have not . . . They all must be prepared for a tough battle ahead.”
After 14 months of all-out war, including grinding, months-long battles in the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Ukraine’s military has been worn down. It has lost a large portion of its experienced soldiers, who made up the most effective units, and expended massive amounts of weaponry and artillery.
A few days before the training, Oleksiy, a soldier in a Kyiv Territorial defence brigade who was a linguist and teacher before the invasion, told the Financial Times that of his platoon of 21 troops, only three, including himself, had not been wounded or killed after a single day in Bakhmut.
“It was real hell. Like the first or second world war,” Oleksiy said. “We were shelled by mortars, tanks and planes. Drones dropped bombs on us.”
“I had to evacuate a severely wounded guy and a dead body from the trenches . . . It all happened in 24 hours,” he said.
Both Ukraine and Russia keep their official casualty figures as state secrets. But the US has estimated Ukraine’s casualties to be around 100,000, possibly as high as 120,000, including between 16,000 and 17,500 soldiers killed in action. Washington estimates that Russia’s overall casualties since its full-scale invasion in February 2022 amount to about 200,000, including between 35,500 and 43,500 troops killed.
The combat readiness of Ukraine’s military is vital if it is to achieve its goals of crushing Russian forces on the battlefield, recapturing occupied territory and swinging momentum decidedly in its favour.
After the training exercise, a soldier and father of three in his 50s who goes by the call sign Discus told the FT that he and his comrades might not be the most experienced soldiers, but they are highly motivated.
“We are fighting for our existence,” he said.
Discus retired from the Ukrainian armed forces in 2010, only to come out of retirement last year. “What was I going to do, sit on my ass?” he said when asked why he returned to military service. “How could I look my children in the eyes if I didn’t help?”
Yet leaked top-secret US intelligence documents reviewed by the FT suggest Washington is pessimistic that Kyiv can achieve its counteroffensive goals, even as western military aid continues to pour into Ukraine. One document predicted that the war in the eastern Donbas region would remain a “stalemate” throughout 2023.
Ukraine launched a big recruitment drive in winter, and posters calling for people to join the armed forces, police units and territorial brigades have since appeared around the country. Several new assault units are being formed under the Ministry of the Interior for use in offensive operations. The government expects around 40,000 soldiers to fill out their ranks.
But officials fear that will not be enough. The government has also been drafting new soldiers, and it approved rules earlier this month allowing recruitment centres to send call-up papers anywhere in the country. Previously they could only be handed to men aged between 18 and 60 at their registered addresses, but tracking them down proved difficult due to large-scale internal migration resulting from the war.
The stakes for Ukraine in the coming months could not be higher, senior officials in Kyiv told the FT. They are worried that a counteroffensive that fails or does not win back a large amount of Ukrainian territory could lead western supporters to push Kyiv to open negotiations with Moscow.
Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the FT in an interview this month that there is no room for mistakes.
“We are in a decisive moment now,” he said. “We need to show successes.”
The Russian army in Ukraine has faced its own challenges in recent months. An offensive operation launched in January has largely failed; Russian troops have managed only to capture — but not completely control — a few square miles of ground in Bakhmut.
Moscow’s military struggles are underscored by an intercepted phone call made by a Russian soldier to his mother back home on 18 March that was provided to the FT by a Ukrainian intelligence service.
In the call, Yegor, the soldier, tells his mother in Arkhangelsk, a city in Russia’s far north-west, that his comrades in and around Bakhmut are sustaining major losses and only a few men from his motorised rifle brigade remain alive.
He says Russian troops are suffering from an ammunition shortage; they are forced to carry out risky offensive operations without proper artillery support, leading to steep casualties; and they are not paid on time. Newly mobilised Russian servicemen arrive at the frontline untrained and scared, and “run away” when they are fired upon, he added.
He blames President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s top commanders for the battlefield failures.
“The main thing for them is to do well for themselves. They don’t care about anything else,” Yegor says. The FT could not independently authenticate the call.
While Russian forces have struggled to seize more Ukrainian territory, they have dug in on land under their control, intent on holding areas that Putin claimed to have annexed into Russia in September; Kyiv and much of the international community condemned the move.
Satellite imagery has shown newly dug, miles-long trenches and anti-tank “dragon’s teeth” obstacles in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces, as well as in Crimea.
Moscow’s focus on those areas is clear. Kyiv is expected to launch its counteroffensive somewhere near the flat, wide-open terrain where the FT met the 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade on April 12, driving in a military truck to a pasture less than two miles from the southern front line in Zaporizhzhia province.
Ukraine wants to push south and retake the strategic city of Melitopol, a logistics hub for Russian forces with a prewar population of around 150,000 that serves as a key section of the land bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Liberating the city would undermine Moscow’s ability to reinforce its army and deal a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. It would also slice the territory under Russia’s control in two.
The 108th positioned an array of weapons across a field, including an SPG recoilless gun, an anti-aircraft twin-barrelled auto-cannon, an American Browning machine gun, and various mortars and grenade launchers. The troops took turns on the weapons while a drone was used to correct their fire. Over the course of two hours, they managed to destroy all their targets.
The territorial units are overseen by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and have been used alongside the military’s more established brigades. In Bakhmut, troops from the Kyiv Territorial Defence Forces have been fighting for months alongside elite units.
Coyote, a soldier in his 50s who drove over two landmines while fighting in eastern Ukraine and survived with minor injuries, brushed off doctors’ orders and left hospital early to get back to the battlefield.
“We need every man,” he said.
‘We need every man’: Ukraine’s troops prepare for counter-offensive against Russia
The Financial Times joins units training near the frontline as Kyiv faces ‘decisive moment’ in war
Ukrainian infantrymen charged across a boggy field, Kalashnikovs raised, unleashing a flurry of bullets.
“Move! Move! Move!” came the order. Concealed by the cloud from a smoke bomb, one soldier raised a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and fired at a target 50 metres away — and missed. The group’s trainer ordered them to run the drill again.
A little more than a year ago, most of these troops were ordinary civilians. Then Russia launched its brutal new invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and they volunteered to join the fight, becoming soldiers of the Dnipropetrovsk 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade.
Aged from their 20s to their 60s, the former lawyers, interpreters, programmers and retired factory workers are now part of Ukraine’s big push to train up less experienced and completely new troops for its much-anticipated counter-offensive against Russia’s occupying forces.
“The average combat experience of the guys in this brigade is seven to 10 months,” said Roman, a press officer for the brigade who like other soldiers provided only a first name or call sign in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.
“Some of them have seen real fighting but many have not . . . They all must be prepared for a tough battle ahead.”
After 14 months of all-out war, including grinding, months-long battles in the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Ukraine’s military has been worn down. It has lost a large portion of its experienced soldiers, who made up the most effective units, and expended massive amounts of weaponry and artillery.
A few days before the training, Oleksiy, a soldier in a Kyiv Territorial defence brigade who was a linguist and teacher before the invasion, told the Financial Times that of his platoon of 21 troops, only three, including himself, had not been wounded or killed after a single day in Bakhmut.
“It was real hell. Like the first or second world war,” Oleksiy said. “We were shelled by mortars, tanks and planes. Drones dropped bombs on us.”
“I had to evacuate a severely wounded guy and a dead body from the trenches . . . It all happened in 24 hours,” he said.
Both Ukraine and Russia keep their official casualty figures as state secrets. But the US has estimated Ukraine’s casualties to be around 100,000, possibly as high as 120,000, including between 16,000 and 17,500 soldiers killed in action. Washington estimates that Russia’s overall casualties since its full-scale invasion in February 2022 amount to about 200,000, including between 35,500 and 43,500 troops killed.
The combat readiness of Ukraine’s military is vital if it is to achieve its goals of crushing Russian forces on the battlefield, recapturing occupied territory and swinging momentum decidedly in its favour.
After the training exercise, a soldier and father of three in his 50s who goes by the call sign Discus told the FT that he and his comrades might not be the most experienced soldiers, but they are highly motivated.
“We are fighting for our existence,” he said.
Discus retired from the Ukrainian armed forces in 2010, only to come out of retirement last year. “What was I going to do, sit on my ass?” he said when asked why he returned to military service. “How could I look my children in the eyes if I didn’t help?”
Yet leaked top-secret US intelligence documents reviewed by the FT suggest Washington is pessimistic that Kyiv can achieve its counteroffensive goals, even as western military aid continues to pour into Ukraine. One document predicted that the war in the eastern Donbas region would remain a “stalemate” throughout 2023.
Ukraine launched a big recruitment drive in winter, and posters calling for people to join the armed forces, police units and territorial brigades have since appeared around the country. Several new assault units are being formed under the Ministry of the Interior for use in offensive operations. The government expects around 40,000 soldiers to fill out their ranks.
But officials fear that will not be enough. The government has also been drafting new soldiers, and it approved rules earlier this month allowing recruitment centres to send call-up papers anywhere in the country. Previously they could only be handed to men aged between 18 and 60 at their registered addresses, but tracking them down proved difficult due to large-scale internal migration resulting from the war.
The stakes for Ukraine in the coming months could not be higher, senior officials in Kyiv told the FT. They are worried that a counteroffensive that fails or does not win back a large amount of Ukrainian territory could lead western supporters to push Kyiv to open negotiations with Moscow.
Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the FT in an interview this month that there is no room for mistakes.
“We are in a decisive moment now,” he said. “We need to show successes.”
The Russian army in Ukraine has faced its own challenges in recent months. An offensive operation launched in January has largely failed; Russian troops have managed only to capture — but not completely control — a few square miles of ground in Bakhmut.
Moscow’s military struggles are underscored by an intercepted phone call made by a Russian soldier to his mother back home on 18 March that was provided to the FT by a Ukrainian intelligence service.
In the call, Yegor, the soldier, tells his mother in Arkhangelsk, a city in Russia’s far north-west, that his comrades in and around Bakhmut are sustaining major losses and only a few men from his motorised rifle brigade remain alive.
He says Russian troops are suffering from an ammunition shortage; they are forced to carry out risky offensive operations without proper artillery support, leading to steep casualties; and they are not paid on time. Newly mobilised Russian servicemen arrive at the frontline untrained and scared, and “run away” when they are fired upon, he added.
He blames President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s top commanders for the battlefield failures.
“The main thing for them is to do well for themselves. They don’t care about anything else,” Yegor says. The FT could not independently authenticate the call.
While Russian forces have struggled to seize more Ukrainian territory, they have dug in on land under their control, intent on holding areas that Putin claimed to have annexed into Russia in September; Kyiv and much of the international community condemned the move.
Satellite imagery has shown newly dug, miles-long trenches and anti-tank “dragon’s teeth” obstacles in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces, as well as in Crimea.
Moscow’s focus on those areas is clear. Kyiv is expected to launch its counteroffensive somewhere near the flat, wide-open terrain where the FT met the 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade on April 12, driving in a military truck to a pasture less than two miles from the southern front line in Zaporizhzhia province.
Ukraine wants to push south and retake the strategic city of Melitopol, a logistics hub for Russian forces with a prewar population of around 150,000 that serves as a key section of the land bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Liberating the city would undermine Moscow’s ability to reinforce its army and deal a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. It would also slice the territory under Russia’s control in two.
The 108th positioned an array of weapons across a field, including an SPG recoilless gun, an anti-aircraft twin-barrelled auto-cannon, an American Browning machine gun, and various mortars and grenade launchers. The troops took turns on the weapons while a drone was used to correct their fire. Over the course of two hours, they managed to destroy all their targets.
The territorial units are overseen by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and have been used alongside the military’s more established brigades. In Bakhmut, troops from the Kyiv Territorial Defence Forces have been fighting for months alongside elite units.
Coyote, a soldier in his 50s who drove over two landmines while fighting in eastern Ukraine and survived with minor injuries, brushed off doctors’ orders and left hospital early to get back to the battlefield.
“We need every man,” he said.