Russia sends its soldiers into the meat-grinder without proper equipment and weapons:
From a russian livejournal blogger on behalf of a friend fighting for the Russians in Ukraine:
https://wartranslated.com/russian-35th-combined-arms-army-izyum-is-destroyed-by-its-own-command/
The russian 35th Army (a combined-arms unit) was transferred from the far eastern part of Russia.
They were transferred with only some of their vehicles.
They were told to build trenches, fortifications and shelter, but didn't have enough spades and no pickaxes.
Camping with no shelter in the woods and subjected to constant ukrainian artillery, the trees turned into shrapnel that killed lots of men and damaged many light vehicles.
The elite-forces in the area, the feared and murderous Wagner Group, refused to attack the Ukrainians, saying that they don't get paid enough for THAT kind of job.
From a soldier of the Luhansk People's Republic:
https://wartranslated.com/russian-blogger-who-reported-on-the-35th-army-says-mobilised-d-lpr-militias-died-senselessly/
Most of the soldiers of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic died in the initial phase of the war. The reasons? Poor training, shoddy equipment and bad advice from russian military advisors.
Basically all of the experienced soldiers and officers of the DPR and LPR are dead or in hospital. The militias currently consist of green troops the author derisively calls "mobs".
Also, Russia thought that fighting jihadis in Syria gave them proper 21st century battlefield-experience with modern equipment. Turns out, there is a difference between bombing a few guys armed with assault-rifles and facing an enemy that has artillery, spotter-drones and surface-to-air missiles.
When the war began in February, a mobilization was called in DPR and LPR. People were rounded up, got handed a rifle, no bullet-proof vest, no medicine, no proper winter-clothing and were sent to the frontline. Camping outside in winter, their russian advisors forbid them from making campfires so the ukrainian artillery couldn't spot them.
Russia threw the militias of the DPR and the LPR into the meat-grinder , sacrificed them, in order to spare the soldiers of the russian army for later. And then it turned out that their deaths were in vain because the russian military command squandered every advantage they had.
On a personal side-note, I think there is a racial component to this warfare that we are not fully getting. It seems to me as if the russian army is particularly throwing troops into the meat-grinder that consist of ethnic minorities in Russia: people from the far-eastern provinces, people from Central Asia.
People from impoverished, rural areas far away from rich and beautiful, urbanized western Russia.
People, nobody in Moscow and St. Petersburg thinks or cares about.
Just some country-bumpkins nobody will miss.
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