Nearly five months after Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” and after numerous reports of troops resorting to desperate measures to end the war, the Russian Defense Ministry suddenly announced on Thursday that it had sent some soldiers in Ukraine’s Donbas “chance to rest”.
The alleged split was announced early Thursday by a ministry spokesman to Russian journalists, according to news agency TASS. It was intended as a compassionate gesture intended to ensure the well-being of the troops, with a spokesman saying the time would be used to “replenish combat capabilities” and allow troops to “deliver letters and packages from home.” receive”.
The announcement came after the Institute for the Study of War noted that for the first time during the large-scale invasion, Russia had failed to boast of new territorial gains, a fact that experts said appeared to indicate “largely an operational hiatus.”
But in a separate briefing by Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov on Thursday, no such interruption was mentioned, and it was not clear how many troops were supposedly allowed to take a timeout. Nor was it clear what exactly a “chance to rest” would entail.
Instead, the comments seemed more in line with the Kremlin’s recent PR efforts to boost morale, amid reports of dead troops being literally burned to hide losses and soldiers heading to the front without equipment. were sent. The pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda went to great lengths to frame the announcement as a cause for celebration among the troops, reporting that concerts had even been arranged for them.
Shameful drunken party of Russian troops in Ukraine calls for alcohol ban
The reality was very different on the ground in Ukraine, where local authorities in Kramatorsk said Russian forces carried out a rocket attack in the center of the city early Thursday, causing casualties. It was not immediately clear how many people were injured or killed.
The alleged “operational pause” touted by Russian military officials also comes amid reports that Putin’s forces are taking increasingly drastic measures to hide losses and support depleted resources.
In Kherson, where an official of the Russian Federal Security Service recently took over as head of the Kremlin’s “new” government, authorities have begun burning the bodies of dead soldiers “to hide the real number of losses”. according to Ukrainian intelligence. †
“Locations with a large number of burnt human remains have been repeatedly seen on the outskirts of the city,” Ukraine’s defense ministry’s chief intelligence agency said in a statement, pointing out that local authorities are trying to extinguish the fires as if they were caused by artillery shells. to attack.
Russia has also apparently become more desperate in its efforts to find fresh cannon fodder for the war — so much so that the military has begun raiding public employment offices designed to help the unemployed, according to a new report.
The independent research firm IStories reported on Thursday that several Russian brigades that have suffered the heaviest losses in Ukraine — including one accused of genocide in Bucha — have used job portals to hunt down desperate people for work, and in some cases send them directly. to the front line without any training.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian troops captured through intercepted phone calls to relatives in their own country have also routinely silenced the military that has them hanging out to dry.
In a particularly disturbing phone call shared by Ukraine’s security service this week, a man, identified as a Russian soldier, can be heard collapsing as he says to a relative, “Do you know how many corpses I’ve seen, the kind you see? never seen?” seen in your life: without a head, without legs, without torsos …”
“I’ll never recover from this… There’s only meat here… You can’t imagine what’s going on here. I don’t see how I can go back to normal life.”
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