Russia’s suicidal ‘meat assaults’ exhausting Ukraine
Russian forces are making gains in eastern and northern Ukraine but at the cost of record casualties, according to Ukraine and its allies.
Ukraineâs military confirmed a retreat from the Kanal district of the city of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
âIt became impractical to hold the Kanal district, which the enemy had entered, because it threatened the lives and wellbeing of our soldiers,â said spokesperson Nazar Voloshyn. âOur defendersâ positions had been destroyed. The command decided to retreat to better protected and prepared positions.â
Russian troops advanced in several locations around the city, which has been devastated by months of Russian bombardment, according to Deep State, a Ukrainian military news outlet with close ties to the army.
Open source investigators tracking front line developments reported Russian gains to the south around the city of Toretsk, with fighting geolocated to the nearby settlements of Zalizhne and Pivnichne.
Russian forces also captured the village of Sotnytsia Kozachok in the northern Kharkiv region, Deep State reported, although Moscowâs progress in the region has slowed following a surprise offensive in May.
Russian military bloggers corroborated the Ukrainian reports. Popular Telegram channel âTwo Majorsâ reported that Russian forces had âbroken through Ukraineâs defencesâ around Toretsk and advanced by several kilometres.
Ukrainian commanders acknowledged Russiaâs gains but said they were coming at a high price for soldiers, who are being sacrificed in âmeat assaultsâ.
Lt Col Anton Bayev, of a National Guard unit stationed in Kharkiv, told the BBC: âThe Russians use these units in most cases purely to see where our firing equipment is located, and to constantly exhaust our units.
âOur guys stand in positions and fight, and when four or five waves of the enemy come at you in a day, which you have to destroy without end, it is very difficult â not only physically, but also psychologically.â
Ukraineâs military publishes daily figures purporting to record enemy losses, which have shown some of the highest totals of the war during the past two months of Russian assaults, with 1,200 casualties reported on Thursday.
The British defence ministry published an assessment that Russian forces suffered more than 1,200 losses a day in May, without supplying evidence. The ministry claims that Russia has lost about more than 500,000 soldiers in total during the war.
This week, Ukrainian media published footage purporting to show Russian soldiers with facial wounds claiming to have been beaten by commanders and forced to participate in assaults despite being injured, in an apparent indication of Russian losses causing problems for the army.
The authenticity of the video has not been independently verified.
âWhy send people like us, all wounded and exhausted, into battle?â asked one soldier in the clip, who identified himself as Evgeny Valetov, stationed in Kharkiv. âThis is just sending us to our deaths.â
Russiaâs gains are mostly âincrementalâ and will not âsignificantly change the power balance of the warâ, said John Helin, a conflict monitor at open source investigative outlet Black Bird Group.
But advances around Toretsk suggest organisational problems within the Ukrainian army that could raise troubling questions, he added.
â[Ukraineâs] 41st brigade that has been defending Chasiv Yar was transferred south to Toretsk,â said Mr Helin. âThe 41st had taken casualties⌠and moving this tired unit to that part of the front has created this opportunity for the Russians to push on, which is why we are seeing these advances.â
âThe question is, why has Ukraine not moved reinforcements there? Donât they have reinforcements?â the analyst said, suggesting the situation indicated ongoing manpower shortages that could force Ukraine to deploy new, under-trained units ahead of schedule.
Mr Helin added that casualty figures were difficult to verify but the escalation of Russian assaults seen in recent weeks would usually correspond to higher casualties.
Typical Russian attacks are not similar to the âhuman waveâ assaults of the First World War but do often appear to treat soldiers â particularly new recruits â as disposable, he said.
âWe are seeing Russia repeatedly send small numbers of men at sensitive positions trying to scout how the Ukrainians are using them, and then once the attacks fail, they fire artillery and mortars at these places,â said Mr Helin.
Ukraine has been less willing to lose men but âwe have often seen that Ukraine would rather sacrifice lives than sacrifice landâ, he added.
Dr Michael Spagat, an economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, and chair of the Every Casualty Counts project tracking deaths in combat, noted the figures for Russian losses are significantly higher than those of independent Russian outlet Mediazona, which has produced the most comprehensive casualty statistics for the Russian side, using open sources and researchers across the country.
âIâd be pretty sceptical based on the information at hand that itâs really that bad for the Russians right now,â he told i.