You may remember the story of the Russian 35th army I’ve shared two days ago with my audience describing the sorry state of the army’s supply in Izyum, Ukraine. The story was posted by a Russian (LPR) militia blogger “Murz” and it caused quite a resonance among the Russian war correspondents and bloggers who en-masse attacked said Murz for his revelations. Well, Murz did not stop there, and this morning shared another long livejournal post where not only he attacked his own attackers but also shared some more interesting details about the mobilisation process in Donbas, going over the terrible preparation of Russian airforce along the way…

This is an excerpt from a longer post – I did not include sections of his verbal altercations with other Russian reporters – they wouldn’t make much sense. But the juicy part is indeed below:

…First of all, both the People’s Militia of LPR, and the People’s Militia of DPR, if we take their composition as of 24 February, truly most of them have died in the first weeks, if not days of the war. They died exactly due to reasons I’ve been describing all these years, which are spoken about in the KCPN* report and a lot of other similar documents written by the late “Dobry” during his service in LPR, both in collaboration with me and akela2017, and written separately. Poor training, poor equipment, shoddy supply and a shoddy quality of the most “imported” advisors, who systematically reduce the combat readiness of the troops rather than increasing it…

 

(*KCPN – Novorossiya Aid Coordination Centre)

 

The only thing worse than defending with such a “background” is advancing. Which is exactly what was done. The vast majority of the people who are currently on the frontline in the infantry companies are the people who returned to service or got there for the first time after the 24 February, or as part of the February “mobilisation”. Most of our “old” infantry, those who had at least some service experience, who were at least one bit ready for what was coming, are already down in graves and hospitals. Currently, in the brigades of the people’s militia, companies the size of a squad are filled with “mobs”. These companies are commanded by sergeants, if not privates if we look at their ranks at the start of the special military operation.

 

Secondly, the “Syrian adventure” in no way, and I mean in no way at all helped to try out the new “high-tech” weapon types, since the difference between using them on ISIL-partisans and targets at the training grounds is practically non-existent – both cannot interfere with their application. Meaning that the Su-34 with its “latest aiming and navigation system” which if put simply calculates the fall trajectory of a cheap unguided bomb and accordingly gives the necessary dropping point allowing you to hit more or less where you need to, without all these “bourgeois” frills with guided munitions, in exactly the same way it throws these “iron blocks” both at training ground targets and the “Basmachi*” – Basmachi cannot physically reach them with their MANPADS.

 

(*Basmachi – colloquial name for poorly equipped, “wild” peoples)

 

However, when the Su-34 is flying to bomb ukrainians, who have a fully-fledged anti-air defence… UAF work on it from a fully-fledged air-defence system which has a totally different reach in terms of height and range. After a few attempts to play with such “high technologies” the Su-34’s started to rapidly run out and our aviation moved to the tactic of “high-precision weaponry”. Su-25 fighters and helicopters, as to avoid entering the strike zone of UAF air-defence systems, worked at the enemy with volleys of uncontrolled rockets from a distance and retreated. The surrounding yards around the same 29th checkpoint suffered from this extensively, while the enemy… well, perhaps they had a laugh, if noticed at all with our artillery firing in the background.

 

Such is the “high-tech”. The latest Ka-52 are hammering from distance the strong fortifications with small caliber analogues of “GRAD” MLRS. Extremely expensive, but a completely useless circus.

 

When a couple of Ka-52 and Mi-28 attempted precision striking, at least with some benefit, and the daredevil pilots risked going straight to the target to and fire aimed strikes, it became apparent it was just a pair of them, both ordered for a change from building Putin’s and Medvedev’s palaces, and the seasonal replacement of Moscow’s street tiles. And the machines ended up under fire of Ukrainian MANPADS. Very often they were taken down. Surrounding the enemy as a group of eight helis and firing at the target continuously so the enemy MANPADS could even raise their heads – it’s a completely different story. Especially if the MANPADS are pinned to the ground with our artillery on the heli’s approach. You can fight that way. That’s roughly how they are trying to fight now, realising that just with a couple of helicopters flying without coordination with ground troops you cannot solve any matter. But those who perished in February, March and April cannot be brought back.

 

Syria didn’t help, the lessons were not learned. Likewise, the “calibration of the rears” had no influence since it was decided to not touch logistics and civilian infrastructure. So basically, endless billions of dollars were thrown away.

 

Especially amusing is wording of “The brazen hohols were intercepted during the preparation of an offensive *on Russia* and were properly smashed as a result of the special operation”. This is the best, five stars.

 

So, following the events.

 

February. Mobilisation is taking place in LPR and DPR. After having a good laugh at the Ukrainians who at least somewhat trained their reserves (“Wooden assault rifles! Ha-ha-ha!”), in the Republics they are swooping everyone up, equipping them with Mosin-Nagant rifles, not providing them with any armoured vests, medicines, and throwing them into the wintery fields without training. The “luckiest” were forbidden from starting fires so “the Ukrainians couldn’t shell with artillery”. How are you going to warm yourself in an empty field – your problem. Of course, the frostbitten toes were amputated not from Zagatin* and his son (who is now 15 I think – this is important).

 

(*Zagatin – one of Murz’s attackers)

 

What is the need for this insane, wild, terrible, I don’t know what else to call it, a completely unprepared mobilisation? It is to fill with “mobs” the calm sections of the frontline, and throw the LPR People’s Militia “contractors”, read more or less trained troops, to advance on Ukrainians. To achieve at least an equal number of attackers and defenders.

 

What is the need for this attack which locks the most trained, the most experienced UAF forces in Donbas? After all, the chance of a decisive success of such operation, if done on its own, is laughable. Of course, it is necessary so that the best units of UAF could not be transferred to defend the advance of RF. Thus, the Donbas militias and “mobs” with their own blood are buying the opportunity of a decisive success of RF AF in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv. And they are doing it, dying in hundreds and thousands, since they realise their brothers-in-arms are advancing. After all, the guys came to our rescue, we need to strike together with them!

 

What happens next? The military and political command of RF uselessly squanders all the initial successes in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv, paid first and foremost with blood of Donbas infantry and “mobs”, thrown to attack the UAF. RF AF are losing irreversibly around half a thousand of tanks, mainly the latest models, and a large part of the available BMP-3 fleet. A monstrous amount of expensive special equipment, including communications and air defence systems.

 

Three months have passed, and on average the RF AF are fighting with the same armoured equipment as UAF, if not worse. Mainly – the same BMP-1 and BMP-2 as Ukrainians have, and old versions of T-72/T-80’s against T-64. However, where Ukrainians have all their armoured vehicles, including such old rubbish like BRDM-2 equipped with closed radio comms and modern navigation systems, if we have any radio stations on tanks and BTR’s at all, these are R-123’s and R-173’s, which are similar but with open channels.

 

So the military and political authorities of RF did not just throw the Donbas men into a meat grinder in February-March, but it also DID IT SENSELESSLY, shitting away all the opportunities it tried to create for itself…