Messaging Authorities : Confused Yet?

"A pessimistic scenario: the Ukrainians are given missiles, they prepare troops, of course they will continue their offensive, try to counterattack."

"They will attack Crimea, they will try to blow up the Crimean bridge [to the Russian mainland], cut off [our] supply lines."

"Therefore, we need to prepare for a hard war."

"[Russia's invasion goal of] demilitarizing [Ukraine backfired since Kyiv's military is stronger with the supply of weapons and training by its western allies]."

"We are withdrawing units from Bakhmut today."

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks to Wagner soldiers in Bakhmut   Reuters

"We can see that the military command as well as the political establishments of the Russian Federation are not ready for this situation."

"They have invested billions in strengthening their line but when it comes to action, everything falls apart and nothing is working."

"I think you will see us again on that side [within Russian territory]."

"I cannot reveal those upcoming things, I cannot even reveal the direction. The … border is pretty long. Yet again there will be a spot where things will get hot."

Denis Kapustin, commander, Russian Volunteer Corps.

 

"We as an official state have nothing to do with these events [striking cross-border from Ukraine within Russia]."

"These are Russian citizens that are doing this as a means to express their attitude towards what is going on in Russia."

"This demonstrates to us that they are not ready for the challenges that are to come, not just in the Belgorod oblast but in any territorial unit of Russia [potential for further uprisings by Russian rebel groups.]"

"The capacity and strengths of the Russian chain of command will not be enough. The system has stopped working. The FSB [Federal Security Service] is supposed to be controlling the border. The question arises: where is the FSB?"

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary, Ukraine national security and defence council

According to the latest wildcat revelations of Russia's private army Wagner Group head, over 20,000 men had been killed in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, roughly half of whom were Russian convicts recruited to fight in the conflict. Moscow claims that just over 6,000 of its  troops were killed during the war. Official Soviet troop losses in the 1979-89 war in Afghanistan saw a total of 15,000 Russian servicemen losing their lives, as a point of contrast. 

According to analysts, tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed during the Bakhmut nine-month fight, among them Russian convicts who were reported to have received little training before they were sent to the front.  In an interview with Konstantin Dolgov, pro-Kremlin political strategist, Mr. Prigozhin stated Russian forces had killed civilians despite Moscow' vehement denials.

Earlier in the month a video of Prigozhin published by his media team featured him shouting, swearing claiming the 30 uniformed bodies on the ground around him were Wagner fighters all of whom died that very day. The Russian Defence Ministry, he said, had starved his men of ammunition. He threatened to leave the fight for Bakhmut. In Tuesday's interview he claimed it was possible that the anticipated counteroffensive given continued Western support could push Russian forces out of southern and eastern Ukraine along with annexed Crimea.

The following day the Ukrainian General Staff spoke of "heavy fighting" continuing within Bakhmut, days following Russia having said it had completely captured the devastated city in Donetsk province, one of four provinces annexed last fall by Russia.  It took another day and Moscow announced its forces had crushed a cross-border raid from Ukraine.

On the other hand, in Russia's southern Belgorod region, Russian forces claimed to have shot down "a large number" of drones following a day when Moscow had announced its forces had crushed a cross-border raid in the area, from Ukraine. According to the Belgorod Governor the drones were intercepted overnight and another shot down on Wednesday outside the local capital city Belgorod.

 

Wagner head warns of revolution unless elite gets serious about war – still from video

"This divide [social disparity underlined by the war, with the sons of the poor being sent back from the front in zinc coffins while the children of the elite 'shook their arses' in the sun] can end as in 1917 with a revolution."

"First the soldiers will stand up, and after that – their loved ones will rise up. There are already tens of thousands of them – relatives of those killed. And there will probably be hundreds of thousands – we cannot avoid that."

Wagner Group Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin

More Humiliation for a Deserving Vladimir Putin

Bakhmut, PBS

"What Konashenkov [Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov] described, unfortunately, is called 'a rout' and not a re-grouping."

"The loss of the Berkhivka reservoir -- the loss of this territory they gave up -- that's 5 sq km, just today."

"The enemy has completely freed up the Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut road which we had blocked. The enemy is now able to use this road, and secondly they have taken tactical high ground under which Bakhmut is located."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief, Wagner Group

"Our path ahead is not easy [but Ukraine is] much stronger now than last year or in any other year of this war for freedom and independence of our country."

"We are preparing a counterattack for the illegally occupied areas based on our constitutionally-defined legitimate borders, which are recognized internationally."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"Our troops are gradually advancing in two directions in the suburbs of Bakhmut ... however, the situation in the city itself is more complicated."

"Thanks to the competent planning of the command and the courage of our fighters, the enemy is not able to take the city under its control."

Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar

Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut on Friday. (Libkos/The Associated Press)

Friday, Moscow had little option but to acknowledge its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine's battlefield city of Bakhmut following a strong Ukrainian offensive. Moscow claims it is a regrouping tactic for its forces. A claim cuttingly refuted by the head of Russia's private Wagner army. There are similar reports of Ukrainian advances south of the city, suggesting a co-ordinated push by Kyiv to have its military encircle Russia's forces in Bakhmut, completely upending Moscow's objective for months during bloody fighting.

Each side reports the largest Ukrainian advances in six months, even though Kyiv is downplaying suggestions that these events represent the launch of the much-anticipated Ukrainian spring counteroffensive. Ukraine launched an assault north of Bakhmut with over 1,000 troops and some 40 tanks, according to Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov. If confirmed the scale of the assault would represent the largest Ukrainian offensive since late fall.

Troops in one area had indeed fallen back to regroup in more favourable positions close to the Berkhivka reservoir northwest of Bakhmut, stated Konashenkov as well as contending that Russian troops had repelled 26 attacks elsewhere. Statements that failed to impress Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner Group's head, who scathingly begged to differ, his interpretation of events pointing to yet another Russian rout by Ukrainian troops.

Prigozhin in another video message stated that Ukraine troops seized high ground overlooking Bakhmut, opening the main highway leading into the city from the West. On its part, Ukraine typically withholds comment on operations while they're underway. Its military command committed only to saying its troops pushed forward about two km close to Bakhmut. 

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a rocket in the Kharkiv region | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

 

Two days earlier a Ukrainian unit boasted of having defeated a Russian brigade southwest of the city, recapturing a swath of land. Where, according to Prigozhin, the Russian brigade there too had fled. The north and south flanks, guarded by regular Russian troops were crumbling, according to Prigozhin. His own troops have been fighting to push Ukrainian forces out of the western outskirts of Bakhmut. Seems they're still under-equipped, taking heavy losses, and on their own.

The tide appears to have distinctly turned in the 15-month-old war in the six months during which Kyiv's troops were on the defensive as Russia mounted its winter campaign bringing a bloody ground combat to the area, while yielding incremental gains. With the turn of the year however, Kyiv received hundreds of new Western tanks and armoured vehicles, holding them in abeyance while preparing for the long-awaited counteroffensive meant to recapture Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

Still, Ukrainian officials and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself play down the suggestion the offensive has begun. Kyiv, states Zelenskyy, requires additional time awaiting arrival of more equipment. A statement that Prigozhin refers to as deceptive, that the Bakhmut advances themselves amounted to the start of the spring offensive is underway. One that Moscow has been preparing for since last fall, building lines of anti-tank fortifications along hundreds of front miles.

In the process, Russia is evacuating civilians living near the conflict zone in Ukraine's partially occupied Zaporizhzhia province. The commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet said in comments published Friday that its defences were being tightened in view of a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting its home base, the port of Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea.

"The commander of the 4th motorized rifle brigade, Colonel Vyacheslav Makarov, personally led the battle from the [Bakhmut] front."

"While repulsing of a third attack, the brigade commander was seriously wounded and died during the evacuation from the battlefield."

Moscow’s Ministry of Defense

Ukrainian soldiers prepare a multiple launch rocket system for firing towards Russian troops near a frontline, in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, on Friday. (Reuters)

Russian Desperation, Ukraine Resolve

"Our army is fleeting."

"The 72nd Brigade pissed away three square km this morning, where I had lost around 500 men."

"That’s not the soldiers’ problem. It is the problem of those who manage them and who set the tasks. The fish rots from the head. A soldier leaves the trenches because it is not necessary to die [as] useless."

"A soldier may die, but a soldier should not die because of the utter stupidity of his leadership."

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin

"It's official. Prigozhin's report about the flight of Russia's 72nd Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade from near Bakhmut and the '500 corpses' of Russians left behind is true."

"The Third Assault Brigade is grateful for the publicity about our success at the front."

Ukraine's Third Separate Assault Brigade

"In fact, the 6th and 7th squadrons of this brigade were almost entirely destroyed, brigade intelligence was destroyed, a large number of fighting vehicles were destroyed, a considerable number of prisoners were taken."

"The attacks were implemented within a territory three kilometres wide and 2.6 km deep, and this entire territory is completely liberated from the Russian occupying forces."

Andriy Biletsky, an Azov Battalion founder

 

"Thanks to our well-thought-out defense in the Bakhmut sector, we are getting results from the effective actions of our units."

"Despite a significant concentration of troops and loud statements by Russian war criminals about their intentions to take Bakhmut by May 9, the enemy failed to capture the Ukrainian city. Our defense forces are holding the frontline securely and preventing the enemy from advancing. The battle for Bakhmut continues."

Commander of Ukrainian Land Forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi

A Ukrainian service member fires an anti-tank grenade launcher at a front line near the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine on May 3, 2023.  Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters

A Russian infantry brigade has been routed from front-line territory near Bakhmut, according to a Ukrainian military unit, confirming an account by the Wager private army head that Russian forces had fled the battlefield. There has been no comment from Moscow, however, on reports that its 72nd Separate Motor-rifle Brigade abandoned its positions on the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut.

Typically a Russian brigade is formed of several thousand troops. Bakhmut, long emptied of its civilian residents, has proven far more difficult for Russian forces to take than was anticipated, leaving President Vladimir Putin without a single victory in the past half-year and nothing to boast about at the May10 Victory parade in Russia. Where, instead of the massive show of Russia's mighty military and its advanced weaponry, a single Soviet tank was rolled out, along with an absence of seasoned military servicemen.

According to Ukraine's eastern military command, the Russian brigade was heavily damaged. Despite which Russia continued to attempt to capture the rest of the city. Wagner mercenary group's Prigozhin has repeatedly threatened he would pull his forces out of Bakhmut for lack of ammunition that he claims Russia's regular armed forces jealously withhold in recognition of Wagner's successes on the battlefield, in comparison to regular Russian troops' failures.

 

One Ukrainian battle commander has refuted Prigozhin's boasts of Wagner prowess in battle, pointing out it was Russian regular troops that were putting up the stiffest resistance, not the Wagner group. Prigozhin was warned by Moscow evidently that if his soldiers left their positions in the Bakhmut sector it would "be regarded as treason against the Motherland."

"(But) if there is no ammunition, then we will leave our positions and be the ones asking who is really betraying the Motherland issuing his repeated threat to pull his hired soldiers from the war if they do not receive proper supplies. "Apparently, the one (betraying the Motherland) is the person who signed it (the order to supply too little ammunition.)"

Ukrainian servicemen fly a drone at a front line near the town of Bakhmut, May 8. AFP via Getty Images

"Unfortunately they have not destroyed the whole [Russian] brigade yet, two companies have been seriously damaged there."

"The situation [in Bakhmut] remains difficult because for the enemy, despite all the white noise Prigozhin is trying to create, it [Bakhmut] is [still] the main direction of attack, the main coveted target."

Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson, Ukraine eastern military command

Indecently Warmongering Lunacy

"My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition."

"If, because of your petty jealousy, you do not want to give the Russian people the victory of taking Bakhmut, that's your [Russian military bureaucrats] problem."

"Because of the lack of ammunition, our losses are increasing exponentially every day."

"On May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds."

"Shoigu! [Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu] ... Gerasimov! [Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov] ... Where is the ***** ammunition?"

"[Shoigu and Gerasimov must bear the responsibility for] tens of thousands of Wagner dead and injured."

"We’ve taken 95% of Bakhmut. For this last 5%, the ‘Red Army’ [the Russian Armed Forces] are not playing any role."

"Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the... ammunition?... They came here as volunteers and die for you to fatten yourselves in your mahogany offices."

"There will be no more meat grinder because there’s nothing left to grind the meat with." 

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, video ranting threat

Yevgeny Prigozhin announcing his intent to withdraw from Bakhmut   Concord Press Service

 

A lack of weaponry and of ammunition. This is what the head of the mercenary Russian Wagner Group bemoans and has been demanding for months, while his men in their thousands surround and besiege a relatively much smaller Ukrainian military group defending Bakhmut. The small industrial mining city has become a symbol of Ukrainian perseverance and courage as opposed to Russian incompetence and desperation. An estimated 20,000 Russian troops, both conventional military but mostly mercenary, have died in their offensive efforts to take the city.

 

Although Wagner's head warned he was preparing to pull his mercenaries out of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine authorities the Wagner fighters were reinforcing positions in a plan to seize the battered city in advance of the Russian anniversary of its victory against Nazi Germany during World War II. Because his men have been starved of the ammunition they need to succeed in totally routing the Ukrainian military still holding on to part of the city; according to Prigozhin the Russian army would take their place by next Wednesday.

 

Prigozhin's propagandists produced a video to accompany a written withdrawal announcement addressed to the head of the general staff, the defence minister and Russian supreme leader President Vladimir Putin. Dripping with blame and drama, charging 'bureaucrats' of holding back desperately needed supplies, Prigozhin staged himself standing in a field of Wagner corpses, bitterly emphasizing his loss and the Russian military betrayal of the nobility of the unrecognized Wagner sacrifice.

The threatening appeal had its response when state-operated RIA news agency reported the instructions issued to a deputy by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to ensure the Wagner troops had all the weapons required in the field of combat. Russia views the taking of Bakhmut -- a goal that has eluded Moscow for six months of brutal combat -- as the first in a succession of steps to claiming other cities in the Donbas. The grinding warfare has exacted an enormous toll on the lives of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, Russia losing the most.

Ukrainian troops, though hard pressed in recent weeks, continue to cling to the city with the intention of inflicting as many losses for Russia as possible, ahead of Kyiv's plans to launch its anticipated spring offensive against the invading forces along the 1,000-km front line. According to a senior Ukrainian official, Russia was in the process of ordering Wagner fighters from along the front line to Bakhmut to conclude its capture by Victory Day.

"We are now seeing them pulling [fighters] from the entire offensive line where the Wagner ftghters were, they are pulling [them] to the Bakhmut direction", stated Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar on Ukrainian television. Former Russian deputy defence minister Col.Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev joined Wagner as a deputy commander, reported Russian pro-war social media channels. 

It is anticipated that the Ukrainian counterattack is likely to encompass the Zaporizhzhia region where some 80 percent is held by Moscow. Moscow issued a directive more recently that ordered residents of a number of towns to evacuate immediately in the region, creating yet another situation of chaotic traffic of desperate people. Russian news agencies reported a second drone attack in as many days n the Ilsky oil refinery in the south on Friday close inside the Russian border.

"Overnight we received a combat order, for the first time in all this time. We have been promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further operations."

"We have been promised that everything needed to prevent the enemy from cutting us off [from supplies] will be deployed on the flank.”\"

"[Russia’s defence ministry assigned Gen Sergei Surovikin to work alongside Wagner.] This is the only man with the star of an army general who knows how to fight."

Yevgeny Prizozhin, change of plan to depart Bakhmut

Fighting has raged in Bakhmut for months, but the city has not yet fallen to Russian troops.  Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

 

Russian Troops Out of Their League

"Russia has re-energized its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Wagner Group have improved cooperation."

"Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede."

British Military assessment

"Our target in that direction is mostly infantry. There is a big concentration of the Russian Federation's 'human factor'."

"The third one [of three shells of the artillery unit's guns] is finishing off. Most likely, I hope, the infantry they spotted was eliminated."

Dmytro, 44, Ukrainian artillery unit commander

 

"[Ukraine has to mount its expected counter-offensive soon or] gradually lose their combative potential."

"For us, Bakhmut is very advantageous. We grind down the Ukrainian army there and restrain its manoeuvres."

Wagner's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin

Ukrainian servicemen return from heavy fighting close to Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 14, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

 Circumstances have finally forced Ukrainian troops to withdraw from some Bakhmut areas facing a renewed Russian onslaught in the battlefield city, ruined after months of relentless battle. Moscow, says British intelligence, is pressing to score a victory before Ukraine initiates its expected spring counteroffensive. According to Ukrainian officials, Russia has been drawing down its troops from other platforms on the Ukraine front in favour of a massive push on Bakhmut.

This is the city that Moscow has targeted as a coup to present to the Russian public, representing a victory after nine months without success. Should the city fall completely into Russian hands, re-supplying Ukrainian troops will become more difficult. At the same time Moscow is counting on its total capture to act as a morale booster for its troops. It comes at a heavy cost in the lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers; far fewer those of Ukrainian servicemen.

It has been well demonstrated that there has been active acrimony between the regular Russian military and the leader of the Wagner Group. Yevgeny Prigozhin has been known to complain bitterly that the Russian military heads are jealous of the successes realized by his group, and that they have withheld restoring needed ammunition to his group, in a plot to constrain their forward momentum. That the Russian Defence Ministry and its main mercenary force have been at odds rather than cooperative was marked a major Russian weak link.

Close to Bakhmut a Ukrainian artillery unit's soldiers loaded shells into a Soviet-era howitzer, firing toward the front line where they suspected that Russia had massed its foot soldiers. The howitzer blasted three shells, the first one meant to find range, the second to adjust aim, the third to hit its presumed target. With a view to mortal destruction.

Ukrainian artillery fires toward the Russian front lines in Bakhmut   Reuters

 

Once a city of 70,000 population pre-war, Bakhmut has represented the main target in a massive winter offensive that has to the present yielded scant gains for Russia, despite infantry ground combat with an intensity reminiscent of Second World War combat. Russian commanders redirected troops to Bakhmut from other areas, according to Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar. "The enemy is using its most professional units there, and resorting to a significant amount of artillery and aviation".

Ukraine still holds the town's western districts while being subjected to particularly intense Russian artillery fire over the previous 48 hours, noted the British update. The city's capture would represent the first substantive victory for Russia in eight months. An astonishing situation given Russia's superior numbers and arms, and possibly reflective of the inexperience of its many novice servicemen, substandard training, and poor strategic moves on the part of their officers.

The second half of 2022 saw major Ukrainian breakthroughs in counteroffensives leading to a static front line in the last five months, massive Russian offensive aside. Hundreds of thousands of freshly conscripted reservists and thousands of convicts recruited as mercenaries from jails account for a good deal of Russia's sluggish impetus. Kyiv awaits the arrival of new arms from the West for its counteroffensive in coming months, while defending its lines. 

"We are readying our boys [for the spring offensive]."

"We look forward to the delivery of weapons promised by our partners."

"We are bringing victory closer as much as possible."

"[The main aim remains] the destruction of the occupiers [and] the depletion of their resources."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Bakhmut has seen heavy fighting for months    AP

Russian Entitlement to Ukraine

"[If those behind such reports; forced deportation of children; supported objectivity] then we are ready to analyze specific cases, answer questions, provide data, statistics and facts."

"But if they are biased, if they represent only one point of view ... then there is no use responding to these reports."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

Stasik, 45, a Ukrainian soldier who recently had his right arm amputated, is examined by a medical volunteer during an evacuation operation from the eastern frontline near Bakhmut to hospitals in the Dnipropetrovsk region on March 15.

 

The reports this spokeswoman refers to based on over 500 interviews along with satellite images and in-person visits to detention sites and graves, discuss incidents of Russian forces committing war crimes in Ukraine; out of a UN-mandated investigation. Detailing wilful killing, torture, detaining non-combatants and in some instances forcing children to witness their mothers, sisters, aunts being raped. How can there be 'neutrality' over such episodes of military atrocities being carried out by Russian forces in Ukraine?

Coincidentally with the release of the report, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Russian officials for their role in having Ukrainian children forcibly deported from Ukraine, as well as the Russian military's deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure in the country Russia has invaded. Russia, needless to say, denies having committed any such atrocities, much less attacking Ukrainian civilians.

Meeting members of Russia's business elite this week, President Vladimir Putin urged them to invest in their country, to give it the financial assistance it needs to see out what he names the "sanctions war" imposed on Russia by the West. Of those attending the meeting called for the first time since the invasion, many are themselves under Western sanctions.

And it just happens that a day later, Russian President Vladimir Putin was placed under a warrant of arrest by the ICC, also obviously persecuting Russia for no good reason.

 

Ukrainian troops fire a howitzer at Russian positions near Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, on Friday. A Nato official says Russia is sustaining up to 1,500 casualties a day, mostly in Bakhmut, while Ukraine is taking ‘an order of magnitude less’. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

 

The man who has instructed the Russian military to destroy Ukraine, at the same time that he has declared eastern Ukraine Russian territory, oversees a military and a nation that brooks no interference or criticism in its brutality to bring a neighbouring country to its knees. A stubborn neighbour at that, refusing to pay obeisance to the bully next door intent on expanding its territory while terrorizing a community which refuses to submit to terror.

In destroyed Bakhmut the bloody infantry battle continues, with Russian forces led by the Wagner mercenary army capturing the city's east portion. Plans to encircle Bakhmut that had been boasted of have not yet materialized, since the Ukraine military has no intention of allowing it.  "Sometimes we see  groups of seven people (Russian soldiers). We strike, three fall and the rest continue to advance" -- Marian, age 21, a member of the 80th Ukrainian Air Assault Brigade, describes, at his mortar position.

 

A Ukrainian soldier, Bakhmut trench   Reuters

 

Seven mortars were fired by the brigade from that position, as small arms fire in the distance speak to the constant unfolding of a long-drawn-out checkmate. Taking Bakhmut has become a major aspiration for Moscow which sees it as opening a path to the entire surrounding Donetsk region finally falling to Russia. Kyiv, on the other hand, has decided that the ruined city is still worth fighting to contain for its value in inflicting huge damage on Russian troops.

"They (the Russians) need this victory like air and therefore do not count the losses" of untrained, poorly kitted-out Russian conscripts and mercenaries falling in huge numbers of dead and wounded in the fray of conflict where they are ordered to advance en masse, explained Serhiy Cherevatyl, a spokesman for Ukraine's eastern military command.

A declassified video was released Thursday of a Russian military jet intercepting an American drone in  international airspace over the Black Sea two days previously. Highlighting risks of a potential clash between the two nuclear powers. Moscow accused Washington of escalating tensions near Ukrainian Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014. The Pentagon's release of the video recorded the incident when the MQ-9 Reaper drone was intercepted by a Russian jet, sending it crashing into the sea.

A Russian Su-27 fighter jet can be seen in the video close to the drone dumping jet fuel over it in an obvious attempt to damage the aircraft. A second pass by another Russian jet resulted in a collision with the drone, the Russian plane striking the propeller, disabling the damaged drone. According to Russia, no such collision took place, the drone crashed when it made "sharp manoeuvres" while "provocatively" flying close to Russian airspace.

The episode proving that the United States is actively, directly taking part in the Ukraine war that is none of their business; strictly a Russian internal affair, proclaims Moscow. 

Mutiny in the Ranks

Even Ukrainian commanders say Russia's obsession with Bakhmut is perplexing.

"We're just sent in for slaughter. The commanders are telling us in the face we're disposable soldiers and our only chance to go back home is to get injured in fighting."

"The commanders don't care about our lives. We're asking for help. We have no one else to turn to."

Russian conscript, Irkutsk, Siberia

"We don't know how much of this discontent is left unpublicized but those videos most likely speak to the use of 'human wave attacks' widely reported by the Ukrainian army."

Ruslan Leviev, head, investigative Conflict Intelligence Team

"Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], this is a plea from men mobilized from the Irkutsk region."

"We're asking you to look into the illegal and criminal orders of our commanders and take action."

Russian conscript, Irkutsk region

"Why should I fight there? What for? Who for? They're sending us to a sure death."

"Go jail us! How much is it? 5, 7, 10 [years' imprisonment]."

"I don't give a damn. At least I'll get to live."

Mobilized soldier from 1,004th regiment

 

Videos and messages being sent from the Russian army inside Ukraine have been proliferating of late, revealing fighting among servicemen from the Russian military on the front lines and the local Donetsk militia members.  The offensive in Donetsk's north appears to be faltering. Chaos reigns. Mobilized soldiers recently sent to the front are refusing their orders to face "certain death" by "human wave" attacks they claim have been eliminating units in their entirety.

Some of the servicemen have taken to their trust in Vladimir Putin by appealing to him directly, describing fears of their persona existential plight. It obviously has passed their notice that it is on his personal orders that they find themselves in such a dilemma; fight for the glory of Russian conquest, or die. Do both, in actual fact, the President of Russia would have it so.

New reports describe fighters refusing to risk their lives as human decoys, being locked into basements, deprived of the necessities of life until such time that they find themselves agreeing that they might survive becoming a target. A new unit has been created within the Russian military dedicated to rounding up all the "lost" soldiers who have been deserting, fleeing or attempting to find the whereabouts of their teams. 

Video messages have been recorded by soldiers from sixeen different regions since earlu February. Soldiers point a finger of blame at commanders who use them in "human wave" attacks, reports the Russian media outlet Verstka. According to military observers, it has become increasingly common to make use of sending "human waves" of poorly trained, poorly armed fighters into the line of fire to try to overwhelm the opposition.

 

Ukrainian soldiers near Bakhmut fire mortars toward Russian positions

 

Staggering Russian losses of up to a thousand men a day have been reported by Ukrainian forces. The grinding battle to take Bakhmut has succeeded in stalling the Russian advance. A small, contested city, smashed by months of shelling, an elusive 'prize' that the entire Russian military apparatus allied with the dreaded Wagner Group of mercenaries, are unable to penetrate and destroy the Ukrainian military's defence.

The unit of one Russian appealing to Putin had made a previous appeal to no avail, and was ultimately "almost completely wiped out", said a successor unit. Four pleas from the 1,439th regiment failed to move Putin with their desperate cries for release from the hell he has consigned them to. Leading their female relatives back home to record a desperate video themselves, addressing Putin as "our only hope" to "save our men". 

"The commanders have abandoned them and told them not to leave their positions. Our men have been without food or water for a few days but surviving under constant shelling", wrote the women in yet another desperate plea. An Irkutsk media outlet in exile, People of Baikal, traced the men's relatives after desperate pleas were posted on local social media groups subsequently deleted. One of the wives recording the appeal described her husband as a "patriot who respected Putin and thought he was ding everything right in Ukraine".

"[The commander] was sending them for slaughter: People were shot and killed like at a shooting range. The guys were alone in a minefield, without any air support of any reinforcement", said the wife.  Utter disarray in the Russian ranks have been reported from even pro-Kremlin sources. One of Russia's most popular pro-war Telegram channels, Rybar, admitted the country's army faces problems of soldiers who "got lost". Convicts recruited to fight are rebelling.

A video showing conscripted convicts thrown into a basement outside Donetsk being punished for refusing to follow orders was published in media outlet Ostorozhno Novosti this week. Only 11 people from their unit of 71 men survived, they said. Mobilized men from 1,004th regiment were videoed confronting a commander dispatched from their native Kaliningrad to address a mutiny. The men shouted at him that they've been used as "meat", refusing to return to the attack. 

Ukrainian tanks roll toward the front line in the Donetsk region.

Russian "Cannon Fodder" Prison Recruits

"[Russia is suffering much heavier casualties than Ukraine in its attempts to capture] Fortress Bakhmut."

"We are destroying the occupier everywhere -- wherever it yields results for Ukraine." 

"Bakhmut has yielded and is yielding one of the greatest results during this war."

"In less than a week, starting from the 6th March, we managed to kill more than 1,100 enemy soldiers in the Bakhmut sector alone, Russia's irreversible loss, right there, near Bakhmut," 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"I think the main question is to what extent does defence of Bakhmut represent a strategy with diminishing returns relative to other options."

Michael Kofman, director, Russia studies program, CNA think-tank

"[Ukraine is better positioned to exploit the situation by reducing the size of Wagner's forces from an estimated] 45,000 to 7,000 [fighters]."

"Defending from a fortress is the more effective way to hold the line before launching your own counteroffensive"

Yuriy Lutsenko, captain, Ukrainian drone unit

 

"It is] quite difficult to conclude confidently whether attrition of Russian troops is better done using the current approach or might have been better had we left Bakhmut and shortened the front line."

Mykola Bielieskov, analyst, Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies

Ukrainian service members fire a howitzer M119 at a front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine March 10, 2023. REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak/File Photo

 

"[The situation in Bakhmut is] tough, very tough".

"The closer we are to the centre of the city, the harder the fighting ... The Ukrainians throw in endless reserves. But we are advancing and we will be advancing"

"Yesterday, we got 15 truckloads [of ammunition from the military], today we got 12. And I think we will continue to receive them."

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin 

Ukrainian servicemen travel towards Bakhmut on Saturday   AFP via Getty Images

The nine-month battle for Bakhmut has become a vicious conflict of attrition, each side focusing on significantly diminishing the number of the other's troops to strangle morale and gain the upper hand in the final, definitive conflict over possession of a city that has been utterly destroyed. Its capture by Russia would signify a rare 'victory', one that would complete its annexation of the Donetsk. 

 

Successfully defeating the Russian intention and retaining Bakhmut represents a signal victory for Ukraine in its epic struggle to save itself from complete Russian domination.

Thousands of Russian fighters -- most of them mercenaries that the Wagner group recruited from prisons, ordering them to assault Ukrainian positions in waves of human decoys whose lives are expendable in the greater drive to complete a mission where the defenders are motivated by love of country and an existential imperative, as opposed to an invading army following orders to prosecute a war with a lacklustre performance by ill-trained and poorly armed combatants -- have perished ingloriously.

 

Russians closed in on Bakhmut from the north, the south and the east. A narrow supply route was left from the west. "The enemy is attacking from all sides. We are getting supplies, but the situation is with each day getting more and more difficult", recounted a Ukrainian soldier. President Zelensky had a change of mind, ordering his forces to reinforce positions in Bakhmut, warning that to abandon the city would grant Russia an "open road" to the rest of Donetsk province.

 

Last summer's successful tactics deployed during Russia's assault on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, the last two sizable towns under Kyiv's control in Luhansk province, was being repeated in Bakhmut. Where the Ukrainian army last year inflicted heavy losses on Russian troops and militias drawn from occupied territories before eventually withdrawing.

 

Kyiv then launched a lightning offensive retaking territory in northeastern Ukraine and liberating the city of Kherson in the south, taking advantage of Russia's depleted, overstretched forces. Whether Ukrainian losses in men and materiel might hinder its own capacity for a counteroffensive is the question bedevilling western officials. Withdrawal to a new defensive line might represent a favoured move, in the opinion of western experts.

 

American and European officials give an estimate of 200,000 killed or seriously injured Russian troops since February of 2022, with Ukraine suffering a loss equal to half of Russia's. Over the past six months, one western official felt Russia had suffered "between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties". Most were mercenaries fighting for the Wagner private operations focused on Bakhmut.

 

NATO's official estimate is that one Ukrainian had been killed or injured for every five Russians. The estimated ratio in the opinion of Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov, was "one to seven in our favour". Irrespective of which the implication is that Ukraine may have suffered several thousand casualties in defence of the city. Fewer Ukrainians die proportionately on the battlefield, however, taking into consideration the superior medical care given them.

 

One Western analyst stated: "Ukraine is losing people all along the front line but Bakhmut has given them a unique opportunity to kill lots of Russians too, given the [meat grinder] tactics the Russians use". Some experts are concerned that Ukraine may be expending high-quality troops and equipment to destroy mere Russian prison recruits as "cannon fodder". Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War felt that Wagner was committing some of its elite forces to Bakhmut, and Russian airborne forces had also joined the fight, however.

 

Ukrainian servicemen fire towards Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images

The Fighting Spirit of Ukrainians

"If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse. The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests/"

"If we retreat, then we will go down in history forever as people who have taken the main step towards losing the war."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head, mercenary Wagner Group

"We fight for our children, for our fellow Ukrainians, for our nation."

"Because I think what Russia is doing now is genocide of Ukrainians. And Ukrainians don't have another option but to win."

Moryak, fighter in Vuhledar

"[The town is] completely destroyed; all civilians have been evacuated]."

"They destroy everything because, with their tactics, they cannot defeat our troops, and resort to the destruction of all living things."

Artm Schus, police chief, Marinka, Ukraine

Marinka used to be home to around 10,000 people. Photo by MFA of Ukraine / Twitter

Marinka located in the Donetsk Oblast, on the front lines of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been under fire for close to a decade. A town that once held 10,000 people, it is utterly destroyed, all its buildings pulverized, the area pockmarked with hollows from constant shelling. From the original Russian intervention in East Ukraine, backing and supplying the ethnic Russian-Ukrainian militants, the town was alternatively in the possession of both parties; Ukraine and Russia.

What is left now is an  utter wasteland. The town completely razed, its only inhabitants now are Ukrainian soldiers fighting to preserve the territory for Ukraine. 130 kilometres in distance separates Marinka from Bakhmut where Russian forces claim to be on the verge of seizing the city. The head of the Wagner Group claims his fighters completely surround the city, and are awaiting a shipment of ammunition from Moscow to enable them to complete their mission.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been grumbling angrily over what he insists is the Russian military's goal to starve his fighting group of necessary arms and ammunition. The military itself has met with little success against the intransigent determination of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and it seems Prigozhin feels the Russian military elite are resentful of his group's successes. Which have come with an enormous cost in the lives of his own fighting men.

In a recently completed video, or several short videos published on the weekend Prigozhin contends that the Russian leadership was scheming to set him and his group up to become scapegoats should the front collapse and Russia is forced to withdraw back across the border, tail between its legs. Russia conceding defeat against Ukraine arouses suspicion one of the other between the military and Wagner's merenary group.

 

A local resident stands in her house, which was damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the front line city of Vuhledar, Ukraine, Feb. 18, 2023. Photo by Yevhen Titov/REUTERS

 

Google streetview dated 2011 shows a main avenue through the town, a town that appears just like any other in eastern Europe. Back then normalcy prevailed; trees lining streets, people waiting for buses, squat Soviet-style buildings lining the streets and vehicles of varying vintage on the roads. A drone flight over the city shows no building now in Marinka remains intact. A scene in fact, reflective of other parts of Ukraine. Where people still manage to live in primitive conditions.

Less than 30 kilometres south of Marinka there is Vuhledar where people manage still to survive though it sits along the front stretching hundreds of miles from the Black Sea in the south to the border with Russia. There, people quietly emerge from basements of destroyed buildings to fill water bottles from filthy drainpipes. "We have no water, nothing. I"m getting rain water to wash dishes and hands", explained one resident.

Russian forces have encountered unexpected resistance in their push forward to capture the towns of Bakhmut, Marinka and Vuhledar. According to the Ukrainian soldiers fighting for Ukraine, they have succeeded in wearing down the enemy; shattered tanks and military vehicles -- a testament to the fighting spirit of Ukrainian defenders. 

Ukrainian service member loads anti-tank grenades at a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the frontline town of Vuhledar, Ukraine, Feb. 22, 2023. Photo by Alex Babenko/REUTERS

The Battle for Bakhmut

"Units of the private military company Wagner have practically surrounded Bakhmut."

"Only one route [out] is left."

"The pincers are closing."

"I appeal to the President of Ukraine. ... If earlier the professional Ukrainian army fought with us, today we see more and more old people and children. They are fighting, but their life in Bakhmut is short -- a day, two. Give them the opportunity to leave the city."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader, Wagner Mercenaries

 

"[The situation  is] critical [with fighting going on] around the clock."

"They take no account of their losses in trying to take the city by assault. The task of our forces in Bakhmut is to inflict as many losses on the enemy as possible. Every metre of Ukrainian land costs hundreds of lives to the enemy."

"There are many more Russians here than we have ammunition to destroy them."

Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander, National Guard of Ukraine

Ukrainian soldiers have for months been trying to fend off Russian assaults on Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops and their mercenaries continue to pour artillery toward the last access roads leading  to the besieged city of Bakhmut. Moscow is approaching ever closer to its first major victory in a six-month period that saw it reeling under a succession of Ukrainian assaults in a counteroffensive that has pushed Russian troops back to the border and a number of towns and cities evacuated by the Russian military forces, left in ruins, the remnants of their populations welcoming the arrival of the Ukrainian troops in liberation mode.

 

Speaking via video, the head of Russia's Wagner group, the private army comprised of mercenaries augmented more recently with convicted criminals taking the Wagner offer to serve on the front in Ukraine for their prison sentences to be written off. The untrained convicts have been sent to their deaths essentially, used as cannon fodder. Their deaths haven't seemed to bother the Wagner leader one iota. But he jeers at Ukraine, warning that if Ukrainian fighters are not removed from the encircled city this will be their fate, too.

 

Intense Russian shelling of routes leading west out of Bakhmut in an apparent effort to block Ukrainian forces' access in and out of the city is ongoing. In the close-by town of Khromove a bridge was damaged by Russian tank shelling. Ukrainian soldiers working to repair damaged roads - more troops heading toward the frontline, signalling that Ukraine has no intentions just yet of giving up Bakhmut.

 

Ukrainian troops were digging new trenches for defensive positions, to the west. Presumably in preparation for an anticipated spring counteroffensive. A video clip showing Wagner fighters released by Russia's RIA state news agency, has the fighters walking through a damaged industrial factory with one of the fighters overheard to say that Ukraine is destroying infrastructure in settlements near Bakhmut in prevention of the Russian encirclement.

 

On Friday the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, Eleksandr Syrskyi visited Bakhmut for briefings with local commanders on how best to increase the defence capacity of frontline forces. Bakhmut's pre-war population of 70,000 has been reduced to a few thousand who decided to remain. The city's capture would represent a prize after a costly winter offensive for Russia following the calling up of hundreds of thousands of reservists.

 

A group of Ukrainian servicemen rest after leaving Bakhmut on Friday.(AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka)

According to Russia, Bakhmut's capture would represent a stepping stone to the capture of the surrounding industrialized Donbas region. The leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prifozhin, called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order a retreat from Bakhmut if he wanted to save the lives of his embattled soldiers. In the video three captured Ukrainians -- a grey-bearded older man and two boys -- were asking to be permitted to return home.

 

Robert Brovdi, commander of a Ukrainian drone unit active in Bakhmut revealed in a video posted on social media that his unit was ordered to withdraw immediately by the military. He had been fighting in Bakhmut for 110 days. In the past several days alarm has arisen in Russia realizing its own potential vulnerability following a report out of Moscow that a number of drones had attacked targets deep within Russian territory. Moscow also reported a described armed cross-border raid.

 

Russia's Security Council was ordered by President Putin to step up "anti-terrorism measures". Ukrainians offering a measure of the violence that Moscow has ordered to take place in Ukraine, back to Russia is terrorism, whereas Russia's invasion is a noble enterprise to free Ukrainians from the tyranny of 'fascism'. A delusional complete reversal of reality.

 

A self-propelled artillery vehicle in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Thursday.(AP Photo: Iryna Rybakova)