cont...
The practice helps Russian troops evade surveillance, and their dispersal makes it more difficult to target them with drones and artillery. These assaults, according to numerous reports, are fueled by coercion, with threats of violence or jail if they surrender or retreat.
The small assault team tactic is familiar to Ukrainians, who leveraged the practice last fall in taking back villages held by Russians. But the key difference now, soldiers said, is Russia has combined the concept with its advantages in munitions and a tolerance for losses. New communications equipment has also helped Russian commanders better organize assaults, soldiers have said, and increased the proficiency of drone attacks.
Recently on a training range in the Donetsk region, soldiers from the 68th Jaeger Brigade practiced with U.S.-made .50-caliber and M240 machine guns at night.
The soldiers had just fought north of Selydove, where Russian troops have made gains. Vitalii, a junior lieutenant, described how the small teams of clearly well-trained Russian troops were coming down roads covered by Ukrainian machine guns and getting mowed down.
“They don’t spare people, and their men are forced to move through those paths. And in the last place where we were working, there’s a crossroads completely littered with bodies, and they keep coming, because they have orders,” he said. “There’s already a mass of them. Everything is black with corpses.”
Some Ukrainians are heartened by the large numbers of enemy dead, but that comfort appears to be diminishing, as Moscow willingly sacrifices whole battalions of soldiers for advances.
“It just happens that we constantly need to fall back,” said Vitalii, giving just his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocol, “because the Russians have much more strength.”
As the Russians take more ground, the effects are rippling back from the front lines and civilians are fleeing from towns now in range of Russia’s weaponry.
In Myrnohrad, a small town east of Pokrovsk, a small team of construction workers scoured a bombed-out hospital to salvage any functional medical equipment. They paced back and forth, broken glass crunching under their boots, to ready the last piece of hardware — an MRI machine destined for a hospital further from the front.
The Russians destroyed a major bridge nearby, cutting off resupply for Ukrainian units in the area for days, one of the workers said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern of being publicly identified. Soldiers had already been through, looking for syringes, IV bags and other medical supplies, he said. They left behind rooms covered in shattered concrete and folders of doctor’s notes for patients who may never return.
The workers had a tight window to accomplish their salvage at the hospital while Russian forces appeared to be focusing on other targets, he said, desperate to get out of there and rejoin his family before strikes resumed.
“As soon as I finish,” he said, “I will go.”
The practice helps Russian troops evade surveillance, and their dispersal makes it more difficult to target them with drones and artillery. These assaults, according to numerous reports, are fueled by coercion, with threats of violence or jail if they surrender or retreat.
The small assault team tactic is familiar to Ukrainians, who leveraged the practice last fall in taking back villages held by Russians. But the key difference now, soldiers said, is Russia has combined the concept with its advantages in munitions and a tolerance for losses. New communications equipment has also helped Russian commanders better organize assaults, soldiers have said, and increased the proficiency of drone attacks.
Recently on a training range in the Donetsk region, soldiers from the 68th Jaeger Brigade practiced with U.S.-made .50-caliber and M240 machine guns at night.
The soldiers had just fought north of Selydove, where Russian troops have made gains. Vitalii, a junior lieutenant, described how the small teams of clearly well-trained Russian troops were coming down roads covered by Ukrainian machine guns and getting mowed down.
“They don’t spare people, and their men are forced to move through those paths. And in the last place where we were working, there’s a crossroads completely littered with bodies, and they keep coming, because they have orders,” he said. “There’s already a mass of them. Everything is black with corpses.”
Some Ukrainians are heartened by the large numbers of enemy dead, but that comfort appears to be diminishing, as Moscow willingly sacrifices whole battalions of soldiers for advances.
“It just happens that we constantly need to fall back,” said Vitalii, giving just his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocol, “because the Russians have much more strength.”
As the Russians take more ground, the effects are rippling back from the front lines and civilians are fleeing from towns now in range of Russia’s weaponry.
In Myrnohrad, a small town east of Pokrovsk, a small team of construction workers scoured a bombed-out hospital to salvage any functional medical equipment. They paced back and forth, broken glass crunching under their boots, to ready the last piece of hardware — an MRI machine destined for a hospital further from the front.
The Russians destroyed a major bridge nearby, cutting off resupply for Ukrainian units in the area for days, one of the workers said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern of being publicly identified. Soldiers had already been through, looking for syringes, IV bags and other medical supplies, he said. They left behind rooms covered in shattered concrete and folders of doctor’s notes for patients who may never return.
The workers had a tight window to accomplish their salvage at the hospital while Russian forces appeared to be focusing on other targets, he said, desperate to get out of there and rejoin his family before strikes resumed.
“As soon as I finish,” he said, “I will go.”
