“Two Russian brigades were practically wiped out after incompetent officers sent them into a key battle in eastern Ukraine with soggy toilet paper, shoe polish and Soviet-era field telephones instead of modern equipment, according to a soldier who reportedly survived the assault.
In a transcript of comments, first reported by a pro-war Russian blogger, the unnamed soldier described how units from the 64th Brigade – notorious for allegedly raping and murdering hundreds in Bucha – and the 38th Brigade were redeployed from around Kyiv to capture Izyum, a major city in the Kharkiv region, in April.
However, according to the unnamed soldier, they were not given spades to dig trenches or modern electronic radio systems, leaving them vulnerable to heavy Ukrainian fire that turned the battle into what he described as a “meat grinder”.
“The enemy, equipped with modern communication tools and using drones freely and on a large scale, including commercial drones, delivered substantial blows to our troops,” he said.”
After all that’s been put up on this blog the last few months, I’m disappointed. I think the latest link is “disinformazia” and you will find yourself embarrassed in the next few months as things roll out. Maybe you just want things to be just so a tad too much? I’ve followed you for years, read your books. But the quality of analysis seems to have slipped recently…
A. Pols,
The article from “The Telegraph” is based on a translation of an LNR militia blogger called Murz. It is no more disinformatsia than Ihor Girkin’s pessimistic accounts. The only difference is that Murz is even more bitingly sarcastic than Girkin.
So the trail goes from the Telegraph to a blogger in the LNR.
And…..? How did Murz get these transcripts?
How did he verify that the most basic claim was correct i.e. how did he ascertain that two Russian brigades were wiped out in the battle for Izyum?
A battle, btw, that the Russians won.
WPO,
Murz wrote the original account in Russian on his blog. He has a long history with the LNR militia. If he wasn’t there himself, he has plenty of militia contacts who were. Izyum was captured in early March. The two brigades of the 35th CAA arrived there after it was captured and after they were withdrawn from the Kyiv front. They were chewed up by Ukrainians in the forests west of Izyum.
“If he wasn’t there himself, he has plenty of militia contacts who were.”
Well, one, anyway.
“Izyum was captured in early March.”
The 24th March, according to the Russians.
April 1st, according to the Ukrainians.
Neither date is what I would call “early March”.
“They were chewed up by Ukrainians in the forests west of Izyum.”
Well, yeah, according to Murz’s one and only source.
Color me unimpressed.
Being just a bit too cleverly deceptive TTG, IMO. Because Merz, who I read too, never said anything about atrocities at Bucha being perpetrated by Russian troops. But the way that is deftly inserted in the text above, so as to create the impression that Russians themselves acknowledge culpability, where in fact they acknowledge no such thing, is a testament to casuistic textual trickyness, or if Richard Milhous Nixon had written it – tricky dickyness.
Off topic, but here’s a fun article promoting US intelligence historian and journalist Jefferson Morley’s book coming out tomorrow:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/05/nixon-helms-cia-jfk-assassination-00037232
Richard Helmsman, John Hauledthemin and El Tricko Dicko at their ingenious and devious finest. Don’t get me wrong. I emphatically agree with Gore Vidal’s proposition that Richard Nixon was our last real president. And one of our very best.
Teddy Kennedy was no threat to Nixon as a prospective presidential candidate in 1972 according to my recollection though. My only quibble with a fascinating article. Mary Jo Kopechne tragically ended his prospects in July, 1969.
Fourth and Long,
There is plenty of evidence of the 64th motorized rifle regiment’s involvement in the Bucha atrocities. Through eye witness accounts, physical evidence and the accused social media postings, the Ukrainian “Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, identified 10 Russian soldiers from Russia’s 64th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade who have looted and tortured civilians in Bucha.” Why would Murz have any knowledge of these events? As far as I know, no LNR militia were in the area north of Kyiv.
The only impression I was creating was that the 64th MRR is a bunch of atrocity committing bastards who got destroyed. Good.
Ms Venediktova is a more reliable source of information on alleged Ru atrocities than was Ms Lyudmila Densova, the recent Ukrainian human rights commissioner who had to step down because of her outrageous lies, or should I say the “wording” of her reports?
https://www.newsweek.com/lyudmila-denisova-ukraine-commissioner-human-rights-removed-russian-sexual-assault-claims-1711680
From which:
According to the online Ukrinform news platform, one member of the Ukrainian parliament, Pavlo Frolov, provided a number of reasons why Denisova was removed, including “the numerous details of ‘unnatural sexual offenses’ and child sexual abuses in the occupied territories, which were unsupported by evidence and only harmed Ukraine.”
He also stated that other reasons for her removal from her post included “repeated failure to perform her duties related to the establishment of humanitarian corridors” as well as “counteracting the deportation of adults and children from the occupied territories.”
There is just too much negative info about the performance of the Russian troops to not being serious. Part of why it is unprecedented has to do with smart phones and things online. It is not as easy to suppress info as it used to be. There are just too many sources.
I am not all that surprised. I have been hearing horror stories about Russians all my life, starting very early. I just talked to a classmate, who for a few years did some business consulting in Russia in the 1990’s and he is not surprised either.
There are also many commentators with extensive military experience and many of them have pointed out various aspects of the war that indicate that the Russians are in serious trouble and once it totally breaks down, there is no way to put it back together.
Neither do I think the Russians realize how costly this misadventure will be in the long run. It will be generations before anyone will trust them again, if ever and the considerable dysfunction that has been there forever will continue, enlarged.
Lars,
Yes, the information is so overwhelmingly negative that in only one more Friedman unit Russia is finished.
Yes. They’ve already eliminated abundant numbers of rocker launcher systems of I guess Soviet vintage in use by the Ukrainians. But now the Pendragon sends 4 and after a wait and tea the Brits are sending 3. My math says that’s 7. The Russians must be quaking in their bootovitchs. Scarier by farskii to me is General Milley’s recent oration cited here that the Baltic is now a NATO Lake:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/06/pers-j06.html
They want siege of Leningrad version 2.0? Twere I a Russian that in fact would worry me a great deal.
Lars,
future generations will have their hands, minds and hearts all in fighting the woke ideology witch hunts, lgbt+ pathological tyranny, defending the western middle class (Fred’s not the only one to remind us about the middle class struggle, the same thought is shared by e.g. the Russian historian Andrey Fursov), covid/virus tyrannies (diseases are ideal scapegoats for tyranny, and the japanese animated movie Vexille from 2007 is an interesting watch), the gradual suppression and abolition of civil rights (Trudeau in Canada), fight against eugenics, etc.
Russia will hopefully be an ally in all these fights, including the one Babeltup mentioned against the one world government, not because of it’s hypersonic weapons, tsar bombs, modern Armata tanks, but because of it’s still human face.
This operation/invasion/war is showing that the Russians didn’t lose their human face, although there’s much pressure for it (just bomb everything). They’re still doing their best of eliminating civil casualties, they’re treating with dignity Ukrainian prisoners even the thugs from Azov, they’re avoiding fighting around monasteries (the Ukrainians just burned down the 16th century wooden All Saints Skete of the Svyatogorsk Lavra), their generals are dying with their soldiers on the front lines (yesterday the Russian general Roman Kutuzov died on the front lines around Popasna).
Jovan P
Re Russia’s “human face”, you may find Riley Waggaman’s blog interesting. He provides a Moscow-based commentary on Russia’s pubic health tyranny and its own peculiar clutch of wannabe technocrat overlords. These are the real enemy of the Russian people and many of them (Medvedev for instance) enthusiastically support the SMO. That should tell you something.
When we see the degree to which Western governments have been infiltrated by globalists and sold on their insane plan to enslave humanity, it is comforting to think that there must be a ‘good guy’ out there. I am not at all convinced Putin is on the right side in this, the greater war.
https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com
I don’t know where you get your sources, but I suspect it is from Russia, since your statements appear to be infused with propaganda. There has been many credible items published that run counter to what you claim. As far as the rest of your complaints, they do not seem relevant in the current contest. As far as I know, the black helicopters have yet to emerge anywhere. As they old saying goes: If three people want to keep something secret, two of them need to be dead. The reality of the situation is that Putin made a huge mistake and now he has a fairly united Europe against him, with substantial support of the US and others. He has triggered more fear and loathing than he had counted on and now seems to be at a loss to cut his losses that will continue to mount.
“As far as I know, the black helicopters have yet to emerge anywhere. As they old saying goes: If three people want to keep something secret, two of them need to be dead.”
Black helicopters… 😀
How old are you?
This is not a Hollywood movie, it does NOT need any “secrecy” and it is already operating at full scale, hiding in plain sight you just need to look beside the MSM.
P.S. The key word is corruption!.
Journos are so lazy. “The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the transcript could not be independently verified..”
Well it didn’t take me long to find the source and do some basic work to establish his credibility. The guy’s name is supposedly Andrey Morozov, a fighter of the LNR 14th APC unit “Ghost”. Here is his blog: https://kenigtiger.livejournal.com
Credibility-wise, the Russians certainly think his reports are genuine. The Russian site Military Review (topwar.ru) have mentioned his blog as far back as early March. I’ve tried to post a link to one of their articles but WordPress seems to choke on it.
Sorry, Barbara, but ISW is quite correct when it says that the transcript could not be independently verified.
The Telegraph reports on what Andrey Morozov reports on what a Russian soldier told him about the fight for Izyum.
Think about that: Morozov’s report of what he was told by that Russian soldier is hearsay. The Telegraph’s report is itself hearsay regarding Motozov’s hearsay.
ISW needs to independently verify what that unnamed Russian Soldier said about the events at Izyum and, so far, it is unable to do so: Morozov’s hearsay remains the only source for the claim.
To my mind that suggests that ISW can not satisfy themselves about even the most basic “fact” i.e. that the 64th and 38th Brigades were “practically wiped out” in the battle for Izyum.
That a soldier/blogger (!!) of the LNR was talking to a Russian soldier from one of those brigades would indeed suggest the need for caution, because this would mean that those “wiped out” brigades were re-deployed to the Severodonetsk battle after their supposed-annihilation in front of Izyum.
Which strikes me as…. unlikely.
WPO
The line in The Telegraph was that the transcript could not be independently verified. That is lazy journo BS. If I had a copy of it I could easily compare it with a machine translation of the blog, which it was a trivial matter to find.
As to the content of the transcript, of course the report is hearsay and the author goes on to provide a standard credibility-boosting statement for the lazy readership; “..but its description of poor Russian military leadership and inadequate equipment was consistent with multiple other reports”. How many of those other reports are accurate is anyone’s guess, but the (poor) results on the battlefield speak for themselves.
The fact is the Russian blogging community discussing the SMO are taking Murz’ reports seriously and if they did not accord with what these (Russian) observers were hearing elsewhere (e.g. re the common use of unencrypted radios open to interception) I would have expected to see this reflected in their comments. I did not.
A quick question: was any mention made back in April that the 64th and 38th Brigade were wiped out in the battle for Izyum?
Seems to me to be something that the Ukrainian General Staff would have bragged about at the time.
WPO,
Those brigades got there after the capture of Izyum. They were chewed up over time after the initial battle.
TTG: “Those brigades got there after the capture of Izyum.”
Your source: …”the 38th Brigade were redeployed from around Kyiv to capture Izyum, a major city in the Kharkiv region, in April.”
So they were they deployed “to capture Izyum”, but they were deployed “after the capture of Izyum”.
Messages are getting a little muddled, aren’t they?
Still, irrespective of whether they were chewed up during the assault on Izyum or were chewed up after the assault on Izyum, it rather beggers belief that the Ukrainian General Staff weren’t aware that they were wiping out two Russian brigades.
So, again, did the Ukrainian General Staff mention that at the time? Or is this the first that anyone has heard about this?
Because it does appear that the sole source of this information is an unnamed Russian soldier who blabbed about this to an LNR blogger who’s main role appears to be the cannibalization of battle-damaged commercial DJI drones.
He is, I’m sure, a lovely fellow. But hardly an authoritative source of information of the status of, say, the Ukrainian General Staff.
It’s not just one LPR militia blogger. Zelenskiy’s office announced it on 4 June.
“The head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, broke the news on Telegram, Ukrinform reports. “Almost the entire 35th All-Russian Army was destroyed in Izium,” he said.”
“Zelenskiy’s office announced it on 4 June.”
Pardon? June 4th? Two days ago?
So his office announced two days ago that the Ukrainian military scored a major, major victory over the 35th Russian Army back in April?
Did he only now find out about this massive victory? Really?
Is it, perhaps, the case that Zelensky’s office were only made aware of this overwhelming victory when they read about it in the Telegraph, who got their scoop via LNR drone repair man who got his scoop via an unnamed Russian soldier who claimed to have been in Izyum when that military disaster took place?
I have to say that the more we scratch at this story the less plausible it is becoming.
WPO,
Fighting for Izyum began a few days after the invasion started. The Russians captured the northern part of Izyum by 12 March. By 1 April, Moscow claimed to control the entire city. Heavy fighting around Izyum has continued ever since then. The two motorized rifle brigades of the 35th CAA were at Kyiv during the capture of Izyum. They were withdrawn to Belgorod by early April for refitting before moving into the Izyum front sometime in April or May. Since their arrival at the Izyum front, they’ve been attritted to damned near nothing. The remnants may have been recently withdrawn back to Russian territory. Their destruction was not a massive victory in April, it was a slow attrition over time.
It really does seem like I am in discussion with two different TTGs.
One of them claimed that “Izyum was captured in early March” while the other one claimed that “The Russians captured the northern part of Izyum by 12 March. By 1 April, Moscow claimed to control the entire city. “.
I fail to see how you can square those two statements.
I also fail to see how you picked out the date of “By 1st April”.
Because April 1st was when the UKRAINIAN General Staff admitted that the Russians were in control of Izyum.
The RUSSIAN General Staff had claimed that they were in control of Izyum on 24th March i.e. a full week earlier.
And, so sorry, you appear to be getting more an more vague the deeper we go: “They were withdrawn to Belgorod by early April for refitting before moving into the Izyum front sometime in April or May”
That gives you a two-month sliding window which, honestly, I think is overly generous in the there-or-thereabouts stakes.
“Since their arrival at the Izyum front, they’ve been attritted to damned near nothing.”
And I come back to the central flaw in your argument i.e. that claim is based entirely on the observation of one unnamed
Russian soldier who spoke to a LNR blogger who, apparently, is a DJI repairman in his day-job.
It is a claim that is not an independently verified “fact” merely because it is being treated as self-evident by both Zelensky and yourself.
“The remnants may have been recently withdrawn back to Russian territory.”
And the phrase “may have been” appears to be weasel-words.
Was it withdrawn to Russia? Or was it redeployed to the Severodonetsk front?
If the former then I have to question how Murz even came across his eyewitness, as Murz very definitely isn’t in Russian territory picking up battle-damaged DJI drones.
If the latter then I have to question how “attritted” those Russian forces really are.
Look, I’m sorry, but I’m seeing a LOT of assumptions and confirmation-bias in your arguments, none of which appear to be justified considering how thin your source of information is i.e. a Russian soldier told a LNR militiaman something that he then blogged about.
WPO,
No. You’re talking to only one TTG, just one who got all the myriad dates about the fall of Izyum confused. The northern part of Izyum was captured in the first half of March. We can call that the Kadyrov victory date. There were many dates declared by many people, but by 1 April all seem to be in agreement.
All that is immaterial to the fate of the 35th CAA. Its earliest date of arrival to Izyum is mid-April when Russia began reinforcing that front with 22 or so BTGs. So, if the 35th CAA was part of that first tranche of reinforcements, it was attritted to 200 or so effectives in 6 to 7 weeks or early June, not one dramatic battle. I’ve seen one mention of it’s withdrawal back to Russia, but I’ve seen nothing about it moving to the Severodonetsk front.
I’ve started reading some of Murz’s writings. He fought for the LNR rebels since 2014 and is well connected with current LNR militia as well as the LNR and Russian military blogging community. His writings show a great deal of knowledge of military matters. He’s given me no reason to doubt his claims about the 35th CAA, especially since Zelenskiy’s presidential office also made the same claim. This isn’t the first blow to the 35th CAA. Back in mid-March, the Ukrainian MOD announced the destruction of the 35th CAA command post and supply point north of Kyiv by artillery fire. A drone video was released along with this announcement.
Is that photo really of destroyed Russian equipment?
That photo is of a destroyed Russian column in Bucha in the early day of the war. That wreckage was filmed and photographed from multiple angles. A similar destroyed column was filmed and photographed in Irpin.
Okay, thanks. But why post that photo and article now? Reading the article set off my BS filter.
I meant to write, why did the Telegraph post it now?
No Ukrainians were hurt for this photo and Ukrainians have not suffered any losses.
CJC,
I assume you’re just being sarcastic. The Ukrainians are taking plenty of losses, but those columns at Bucha and Irpin were stopped with artillery and ATGMs not close quarter combat.
When someone is losing a war, just keep changing the subject. So what happened to Ukraine’s tank offensives from Kharkiv? That was all the rage for a while.
CJC,
Here’s ISW’s assessment for today’s actions around Kharkiv.
“Russian forces are reportedly fighting to hold their occupied positions north of Kharkiv City following limited Ukrainian counterattacks on June 5. A Russian Telegram channel claimed that Ukrainian forces launched a counterattack against Russian positions in northern Kharkiv Oblast and that Ukrainian forces are attempting to advance in Tsupivka, Turove, Velyki Prokhody, Ternova, Rubizhne (the Rubizhne in Kharkiv Oblast, not in Luhansk) and Staryi Saltiv. ISW cannot independently confirm if Ukrainian forces recaptured these locations or are currently contesting them. However, Ukrainian forces likely seek to take advantage of the Russian focus on Severodonetsk to make prudent counterattacks in other sectors. Russian forces continued artillery strikes against Kharkiv City and its environs and fired on Tsyrkuny, Derhachi, Ruski and Cherkasy Tyshky, Staryi Saltiv, and Kozacha Lopan.”
The Ukrainians are also having success around Kherson.
CJC –
Kharkiv? The only chatter I heard about a ‘possible’ tank offensive was when the Reserve 3rd Tank Brigade was mobilized in April or earlier. As far as I am aware they are near Izyum, or were a week ago. That is nowhere near Kharkiv. Perhaps they had a small part in decimating the Russian 38th and 64th Brigades at the Izyum front?
There are some reports that the Reserve 5th Tank Brigade may have been mobilized near Odessa. That is even further from Kharkiv. There are unsubstantiated rumors that they may be using some of the Polish T-72s.
… “Kill Them Until They Stop Coming”….
That usually works.
And what happened to the story of the big Severodonestsk counteroffensive that allegedly recaptured 30% of the city?
The counter offensive just began on 3 June. Today is 5 June It’s ongoing. I’ve seen claims of 50% of the city retaken.
No doubt there are claims of 50% retaken. I measured/estimated from Google Earth and the latest @rybar status map that the urban area is about 39% controlled by the AFU as of this morning. Pretty much all that is the industrial area. However, if the municipal boundary is the area (there’s a large undeveloped area to the north east of the city in the boundary), then the AFU only controls about 20% of that area. The detailed @Rybar map from June 4 seems about the same as this morning’s map.
Journalist Chris Miller reporting that Zelensky visited the Donbas front today. Got briefed at command post near Lysychansk and handed out awards to troops. Also was at Soledar near Bakmut. And he visited at a CP on the Zaporozhye front.
I suppose that the ‘witness’ of the LPR takes as a basis what he knew in the military units of this unrecognized republic, the rest being journalistic stretching…
One can estimate that the bareness of the LPR and DPR troops is, or was, even greater than stated here.
They simply did not have organized logistic services. It was civilian volunteers and family who brought to the most isolated units their mail and other morale booster. They would also make tea or cook over campfires (Vladimir Arseniev not dead…) There are many videos about this.
And it’s understandable, being static units, very close to towns or villages, the only imperatives were the replenishment of ammunition and fuel.
Out of their trenches and included in the Russian army, I hope that now these troops are supplied by the Russian army, which itself does not seem to be up to Western standards.
What’s going on with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko?
In the past few days Lukashenko and his advisers have made a flurry of announcements about plans to bolster the Belarusian military. First, they announced Belarus was creating a people’s militia to give a boost to the country’s armed forces. Then they announced both a new military unit on the country’s southern border with Ukraine and new military mobilizations exercises.
The former Soviet republic’s announcements sound oddly aligned with the same kinds of “drill” announcements the Kremlin made just before the invasion of Ukraine this February, Belarusian and military analysts have suggested.
Already, combat readiness drills are underway—with a focus on transitioning Belarus from peacetime to war, according to the Belarusian Telegraph Agency.
The Belarusian opposition views Belarus’ latest military announcements as potential posturing towards invading Ukraine, Valery Kavaleuski, a foreign affairs representative for Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told The Daily Beast.
The military steps are likely an indication that, as the war in Ukraine enters a state of attrition, Putin is calling up Lukashenko for favors due, according to Scott Rauland, the former chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, Belarus.
“The only explanation for him taking whatever action has been taken or that is being contemplated is that he is under duress from Putin to demonstrate loyalty and that he is probably expecting additional… financial support from the Kremlin,” said Rauland, who also previously served as an intelligence analyst at the State Department.
The pressures from Putin’s battlefield losses might be forcing Russia into squeezing Lukashenko more, according to Kenneth Yalowitz, a former U.S. ambassador to Belarus.
“My guess is he’s under a lot of pressure right now from the Russians. The Russians are losing people, they’re having a very hard time, the offensive in Kyiv failed,” Yalowitz said. “There’s probably a lot of pressure on Belarus to up his support.”
Lukashenko’s relationship with Putin has long been focused on more closely integrating the two nations, especially after Putin supported Lukashenko despite criticism of Lukashenko’s crackdown on dissidents and allegations he rigged the election in 2020.
It’s not the first time this year that Lukashenko has shown signs that he’s at Putin’s beck and call. Early on, Lukashenko welcomed Putin’s forces for military exercises in Belarus before the Russian invasion.
It could also have something to do with Russian forces having shifted their fight eastward in Ukraine—further away from Belarus. Lukashenko might be feeling a little less relevant to Putin’s aims and trying to get back in the mix, Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, told The Daily Beast.
“The more likely scenario is that… he’s going to demonstrate… capability,” Hodges told The Daily Beast of Lukashenko’s latest announcements.
Lukashenko “sees that the Russians have shifted their effort much further to the east,” Hodges said. “So now it’s kind of demonstrating, ‘Yes, we have capability, too.’”
And Lukashenko “can be brutish, can be very, very difficult to deal with—and can be very insecure,” added Yalowitz, the former U.S. ambassador in Minsk.
As Putin’s logistics and war efforts have flagged in Ukraine, Lukashenko has made other attempts to become more relevant to Russia. He made a show of trying to guilt-trip other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia’s version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to step up their support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, just last month.
The State Department says it’s monitoring Belarus’ latest bellicose moves. “We continue to monitor these developments closely,” a spokesperson said, adding that the Biden administration continues to view Lukashenko as aligned with Putin. “Until the Lukashenko regime ends its support for Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, the United States will continue to take all appropriate actions to disrupt Belarus’s military and financial capabilities.”
But there may be some ulterior motive lying at the foundation of Lukashenko’s military moves. Lukashenko has long had an independent streak, and at times has worked to distance himself from Russia, Rauland told The Daily Beast.
And while Russia could be calling in a favor from Belarus or Lukashenko could be working to prove his loyalty to Putin, Lukashenko’s military posturing might also be an indication he is growing increasingly weary of Putin’s belligerent decisions about Ukraine.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/belarusian-president-alexander-lukashenko-gears-up-in-panicked-ukraine-war-frenzy?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning