Anton Andreev, a Russian soldier from the fifth company of the 1009th regiment, painted a bleak picture of Russia’s offensive in the Ukrainian northern region of Kharkiv.
His unit had been decimated, he said, with only 12 out of 100 soldiers still alive as they came under constant Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk, a prime target of Russia’s advances.
“They just chop us up. We are sent under machine guns, under drones in daylight, like meat. And commanders just shout ‘forward and forward’,” Andreev said in a video message....
Russian state media and senior officials continue to say its troops are on the advance in the direction of Kharkiv. Putin has claimed that Russian losses were “of course several times less than on the Ukrainian side” and the Kremlin has also gone to great lengths to ensure that accounts such as Andreev’s are kept from the public.... The cohort of influential military bloggers now largely toe the government line, painting an upbeat picture of Moscow’s advances while predicting Ukraine’s immediate collapse.
But on social media, dozens of posts have sprung up with Russians searching for their missing relatives in the Kharkiv offensive, hinting at the staggeringly high number of losses Moscow continues to suffer.
Some relatives have criticised the minimal training troops reportedly received before the offensive.
“I haven’t heard from my brother since the 12 May when they were sent to Volchanks,” wrote Yevgeni, in one post on the social media platform VK. “I am concerned that the training was only a week. Is that even legal?” Yevgeni added....
Despite the mass casualties, overall support for the war in Russia remains high, driven partly by non-stop state propaganda and a lack of alternative viewpoints.
A survey published by the independent Levada pollster showed that 79% of Russians supported the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine. However, half supported initiating peace talks, while almost 40% said they would prefer to return to the period before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
In a rare protest, a group of Russian women made up of wives of some of the 300,000
Russian men conscripted in September 2022, gathered this month outside the defence ministry in Moscow to demand the return of their relatives....
The independent Russian news outlet, Verstka published a
report that alleged Russia’s military abducted hundreds of mobilised soldiers unwilling to fight and sent them into the trenches at gunpoint.
Moscow has so far been able to replenish its troops without ordering a mass mobilisation by offering recruits generous wages and signing bonuses. It has been able to recruit about 30,000-40,000 soldiers every month, according to an estimate by the UK defence ministry.
Ukraine is facing a shortage of munitions, fighters, and air defences, and is also suffering mass casualties.
And while Russia’s offensive in Kharkiv appears to have stalled for now, the push has managed to achieve at least one of its goals: to draw Ukrainian critical reserves into the region, away from defensive positions in the east, as Russian forces have continued to advance on the eastern axes, signalling their commitment to pressing ahead and trying to take the entire Donetsk region.