The following account describing a desperate situation for L/DPR reservists in Zaporizhye direction in Ukraine was provided by a VK.com page ‘IN MAKEEVKA 🅉 DONETSK | DNR | REPORTS FROM THE FRONT’. It is not clear which units are prevailing in the area – the DPR or LPR, however it is obvious these poorly equipped reservists are holding on their own with very little help from the Russian Armed Forces, no artillery, and mainly light small arms such as assault rifles and machine guns. The mentioned Vladlen Tatarsky is a hardline Russian war reporter with significant following on Telegram. The text of the account was shared by Igor Girkin on his Telegram channel:

In fairness – regarding the Zaporizhye direction. Yesterday I went there with supplies to the ‘contact line’ (it used to be called this way), where my friend, a reservist, is serving. Most of them there are reservists. The situation for them, to put it mildly, is deplorable, exactly the opposite of what’s described here by Vladlen Tatarsky*.

 

For almost a month now the boys have been under hurricane shelling without an opportunity to raise their heads. Villages are shattered. Moving on any transport can only be done in the dark – few chances to survive during the day: a UAV will immediately discover you and give the enemy artillery a target to strike. There is simply none of our own artillery there, only occasionally the Russians who come there for a short time will open fire. So there is no counter-battery fire at all and the enemy mortars and MLRS’s experience complete impunity.

 

Why is this happening? From the point of view of military commanders, this is not a priority direction – it doesn’t require, in their eyes, a large concentration of forces and resources, and the deep defence by reservists with small arms is enough – indeed they have nothing heavier than a DShK.

 

The enemy attempted a breakthrough only once. To our guys’ credit, this local offensive was repulsed with a massive desperate assault rifle and machine gun fire at the ‘greenery’, where Ukrainians were coming from. However, in a month the battalion had huge losses – around 30% of the personnel (fortunately, most are 300’s *wounded*). There are people who literally lost their minds – this happens among unmotivated and unprepared reservists. My friend – a musician, a Philharmonic employee, is holding on well, although he cannot boast great health – he survives due to high intelligence and an unbearable desire to return home to the loved ones alive. I’m proud of him.

 

So not everywhere the image is as rosy as it’s being told to Tatarsky. However, unfortunately this is a completely normal every day life in the war. It’s just that some reservists are lucky to stay guard at a safe seaside highway with fresh air and fresh fish (I’m not blaming them – it is certainly better to put the freshly mobilised to check documents rather than sending them straight to hell), while others are unlucky to be living in the ground under heavy shelling without a hope to live until dark.

 

I hope the fighters in those smashed up villages will soon get a chance to breathe – (they’ve been on the frontlines without getting out since the end of February, they went through Mariupol) they’ll be withdrawn for rotation or at least the battalion would be reinforced with artillery.

 

In conclusion I will say that these guys – yesterday’s musicians, accountants, entrepreneurs, taxi drivers – are holding up amazingly. They are holding the defence steadfastly and courageously (cases of going insane or simulating are still few). In their heroism they are not inferior to troopers with many years of experience. They are Russians.

By Aleksandr Zhuchkovskiy. Source.

*Vladlen Tatarsky – Russian Telegram channel