Russia wastes valuable specialists storming Ukrainian lines, ‘horrifying losses’

The Russian army is increasingly deploying specialized troops in massive assaults on Ukrainian positions, solely to maintain pressure on the front lines. Russian military bloggers are not hiding their anger about this and are fiercely critical of the Russian military leadership, reports The Kyiv Independent. The Russian shortage of personnel in eastern Ukraine is so dire that Moscow is deploying its most experienced troops for massive infantry attacks, and at very high costs. 

The Ukrainian army has also noticed a recent increase in specialized Russian troops participating in infantry attacks. (ANP / Anadolu)
‘The past four months have proven to be the most expensive for Russian troops since the start of the war in 2022’, according to a report from the British Ministry of Defense.

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According to the British, Russian losses are now more than 1,000 per day and will not change in the coming month. Russian military bloggers, who are usually very pro-Kremlin, are now accusing Moscow of using specialist troops as cannon fodder in massive infantry attacks. It is a tried and tested battlefield tactic of the Russian army: throwing one wave of attacks after another against the enemy lines, until the enemy position is overrun. The military authorities accept that this is at the cost of many lives.

Cannon Fodder Doctrine
It is a Russian military mentality that has hardly changed since the Second World War, says professor of international security Steven Wolff of the University of Birmingham. “Russian military doctrine is Soviet-style and has always relied on Russia’s depth and its enormous resources, including manpower,” Wolff said. “The way Stalin threw millions of people at the Nazis in the 1940s is not much different from what Putin is doing in this terrible war of aggression against Ukraine.”

‘The way Stalin threw millions of people at the Nazis is not much different from what Putin is doing’
Steven Wolff, professor
This tactic comes at a huge price, and to maintain manpower, Putin signed a decree earlier this month increasing the total number of Russian military and staff personnel by 180,000 to just under 2.4 million. It is thanks to the quantitative majority combined with the tactic that the Russians continue to advance steadily in eastern Ukraine.

Angry milbloggers
The Russian milblogger community is increasingly drawing attention to cases where trained and specialized troops have been sent to the front to compensate for the shocking losses. And that means that Russian special forces officers, air and space forces, drone specialists, engineers and even sailors are being deployed to storm Ukrainian positions. But very young and inexperienced soldiers are also being used, and in some cases even disabled and wounded.

The Ukrainian army has also noticed a recent increase in specialized Russian troops taking part in infantry attacks. ‘New reinforcements have not yet arrived, so the enemy is forced to use trained and well-equipped special forces units for attacks,’ a Ukrainian commander told Espresso TV.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also reported on what is beginning to look like a trend and points to the ‘systematic abuse of Russian specialists’. The ISW concludes ‘that Russia is struggling to meet the demand for manpower for its war in Ukraine’

Source: Khabooem