By Christopher Buhl
The news from the front in eastern Ukraine is worse than ever for Vladimir Putin (70). But even these will not persuade the Kremlin tyrant to give in …
A letter of complaint from the middle of the combat zone uncovers new, dramatic losses of the Russian troops. Accordingly, Putin’s troops are said to have lost around 300 men within just four days.
The portal “ The Insider” published the letter from members of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Telegram channel “Grey Zone”, which is said to have connections to the Wagner mercenary group, also published the letter addressed to the governor of Primorsky Krai Oleg Koshemyako. The soldiers were dead, wounded or missing, it said.
Koshemyako admitted heavy fighting and casualties in the 155th brigade on Monday. However, these are “not nearly as high” as stated in the soldiers’ letter on Sunday, he said in a video message published on his official Telegram channel. The commanders at the front would have assured him of that. The military prosecutor’s office had been called in to investigate the matter.
But the allegations in the letter speak a different language: Once again, their commanders threw the unit “on an incomprehensible offensive” just for the commanders to receive bonuses or be named “Heroes of Russia,” the soldiers’ letter said.
The authors remark mockingly that the unit lost around 300 men and half of its technology as a result of the “carefully” planned offensive by the “great generals” near Pavlivka in the Donetsk region. “And that’s just our brigade.”
The soldiers called for an independent commission — “not from the Department of Defense” — to be deployed to hold their unit commanders accountable. The commanders hid the actual losses. They cared about nothing.
Denis Puschilin, appointed by the Russian occupiers as head of the annexed Donetsk region, reported on Wednesday about fighting around Pavlivka. On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 70 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and Ukrainian weapons destroyed in Russian attacks and artillery shelling in the Pavlivka area.
Terrible descriptions were also made public from the Luhansk region. As the broadcaster TV Rain reports, commanders are said to have told their soldiers: “You are meat, that’s why you were brought here. You’re all going to die anyway.”
The broadcaster also reported, citing relatives of the recently mobilized front-line soldiers, that they were immediately sent to the front row without further hesitation. With a single shovel for 30 soldiers, it was said, they should have dug a trench.
Then the commanders are said to have promised their soldiers to get something to eat – and disappeared. Only 40 minutes later the new unit was under fire. Meanwhile, the soldiers hole up in abandoned houses, due to constant shelling as soon as they try to leave them. One of the commanders, a family member told TV-Rain, said to the surviving soldiers: “You will return as minced meat.”