Russia’s huge tank losses are blamed on ‘inept’ Kremlin top brass as MoD mocks Putin’s troops

Yesterday, Britain ridiculed ‘the terrible performance’ of Russia’s military forces in Ukraine, condemning the country’s senior brass for their incompetence and lack of discipline in the face of massive losses sustained by Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.In April, Ukraine struck Russia's flagship the Moskva (pictured), a huge missile cruiser, with Neptune missiles. The death toll is known, but it became the biggest warship to be sunk in combat for 40 years

The Ministry of Defense’s daily intelligence report stated that Moscow had lost a considerable number of combat tanks because they lacked explosive reactive armour (ERA) technology.A Russian tank fires during military drills at Putin's Army-2022 arms convention in Moscow

Yesterday, Britain ridiculed ‘the terrible performance’ of Russia’s military forces in Ukraine, condemning the country’s senior brass for their incompetence and lack of discipline in the face of massive losses sustained by Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.

 

The Ministry of Defense’s daily intelligence report stated that Moscow had lost a considerable number of combat tanks because they lacked explosive reactive armour (ERA) technology.

 

The study said, “It is quite probable that many Russian tank personnel lack the training to maintain ERA, resulting in either improper installation of the explosive parts or their omission altogether.”

Sergei Sreda, a Russian war propagandist, visited Wagner's HQ in Ukraine last week to pose with soldiers - but inadvertently revealed its location with this photo, which included a street sign with the address of a nearby bomb shelter (top left)An ammunition depot has exploded in Crimea just days after a series of explosions destroyed at least seven Russian warplanes at a nearby air force base. Earlier on Tuesday morning, a transformer substation near the town of Dzhankoi, 14 miles away from the ammunition depot, caught fire according to Russia's RIA Novosti news agencyAt least seven Russian fighter jets were destroyed and ammunition storage facilities were destroyed in the explosions on August 9. Pictured: Satellite images show the destroyed Russian aircraft at the Saki Air baseThe explosions at the airbase on August 9, which killed one person and wounded 14, sent tourists fleeing in panic from a nearby beach as plumes of smoke snaked along the coastline

British authorities stated that many failures by Russian commanders to impose low-level combat discipline contributed significantly to the poor performance of Russia’s armed forces throughout the conflict.

 

According to information supplied by the Ukrainian military, their troops had killed about 44,000 Russian soldiers and damaged over 1,800 tanks. Other estimates, such as those by Oryx, a military site that has monitored Russian losses from the beginning of the war, place Moscow’s equipment losses at an even greater number.

 

Oryx, which records losses based on visual confirmation, reports that Ukraine’s troops have destroyed, damaged, or seized over 5,000 Russian military vehicles, including over 3,000 tanks.

 

Moscow shamelessly anticipated seizing Kiev within days. Putin’s soldiers are instead engaged in a lengthy struggle against a determined Ukrainian opposition.

 

While Russia has employed tactics and military hardware from the Soviet era, Ukraine has deployed smaller, more mobile units that can strike targets and quickly retreat from danger before the invaders can respond. This has enabled Ukraine to halt Russia’s advance and in some regions even push it back.

 

Since Putin’s soldiers invaded Ukraine on February 24, the United Kingdom has supplied Ukraine with about 7,000 anti-tank missiles. Ukraine has also made excellent use of U.S.-supplied weapons, particularly the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). As a result of Kyiv’s superior arsenal, Russia has suffered a series of devastating blows.

 

Dozens of videos depict Ukraine’s forces destroying Russian tanks and other armoured vehicles, using drones to track the slow-moving hardware while attacking them with artillery and missiles, including the highly mobile hand-held Javelin missile, which enables foot soldiers to destroy tanks in close-quarters combat.

 

Numerous Russian tanks were blown to smithereens by Ukrainian guns as they rolled along a dirt road or through a populated area, as seen on video by monitoring drones. Rarely do Russian crews have time to evade strikes, let alone return fire.

 

This week, a video showed a Russian armored vehicle, a BMP, driving directly over a land mine. A £3 million Russian T-90 tank, purportedly one of Putin’s most modern weaponry, was destroyed in another attack.

 

The exposing of Russia’s antiquated dependence on heavy armour, and the resulting massive casualties, are hardly the only disgrace Putin and his generals have endured since underestimating Ukraine’s resistance.

 

Early in April, Russia’s soldiers were forced to retire from Kyiv, the Black Sea flagship Moskva was sunk, Russia withdrew from Snake Island, and more recently, Russian-occupied Crimea came under attack for the first time.

 

Elsewhere, a Wagner outpost was destroyed when a Russian propagandist revealed its position, and in the early stages of the conflict, Russian equipment became mired in mud. Putin has also lost a large number of his high-ranking military officers in combat, considerably more than could have been anticipated. After the attacks on the Saki and Gvardiyske airfields, Ukrainian military intelligence officers said yesterday that Russia has been forced to withdraw 24 fighter aircraft and 14 attack helicopters from Crimea. Due to the withdrawal, the aircraft have been relocated further into the occupied Black Sea peninsula or to Russia itself.

 

Although Kyiv has not publicly claimed credit, it was unknown that Ukraine possessed such long-range missiles at the time of the Crimea attacks. The revelation may alter the course of the conflict.

 

According to Russian officials, explosions on Tuesday consumed a weapons storage at a military facility in the north of the Crimean peninsula, delaying trains and prompting the evacuation of 2,000 people from a village.

 

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, smoke was subsequently spotted at a second Russian military station in the middle Crimean peninsula. The explosions and smoke followed the explosions that destroyed eight airplanes last week at a Russian military air facility in Crimea.

 

The peninsula of Crimea, which Russia invaded in 2014, serves as the principal supply route for Russian soldiers in southern Ukraine and as the home port for its Black Sea fleet. Since the beginning of the war, the Black Sea Fleet has obstructed Ukraine’s ports, immobilizing key grain shipments that are just now beginning to flow again and driving up global food costs. In a further embarrassment for Putin on Monday, Ukraine claimed that HIMARS were used to attack a Wagner military camp in the seized city of Popasna after the location of the base was accidentally divulged by Russian war propaganda.

 

Sergei Sreda, a Russian promoter for war, posed with mercenaries in full battle gear during his visit to Wagner’s Ukraine headquarters last week.

 

But Sreda may have doomed the soldiers to death by accidentally revealing the location of the base in the seized city of Popasna by photographing a street sign with the address of a nearby bomb shelter.

 

This was sufficient for specialists to pinpoint the base, which the Ukraine subsequently utilized to conduct a HIMARS attack. On Sunday, Telegram accounts with ties to Wagner began uploading photographs of the aftermath, including troops being taken away on stretchers, confirming that it had been struck. According to reports quoted by the Russian news agency RIA on Wednesday, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea navy, Igor Osipov, has been replaced by Viktor Sokolov.

 

If verified, it would be one of the most high-profile dismissals of a military leader during a conflict in which Russia has sustained huge casualties in personnel and equipment.

 

The historically revered Black Sea Fleet has endured several humiliations since February 24, when President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.”

 

In April, Ukraine fired Neptune missiles against the Russian flagship Moskva, a massive missile cruiser. The number of casualties is known, however it was the largest battleship sunk in action in forty years.

 

And Ukrainian soldiers recaptured crucial Snake Island last month.

 

As a result of the attacks on Crimea, the British Defense Ministry reported in a Wednesday intelligence update that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is in a ‘extremely defensive posture’ in the waters off Crimea, with ships barely venturing out of sight of the coast.

 

The poor efficiency of the Russian navy compromises Russia’s entire invasion plan, according to the British. This means that Ukraine can divert resources elsewhere to press Russian ground forces. In March, Putin suffered an early embarrassment when a massive 40-mile convoy of tanks and armored vehicles froze on the outskirts of Kyiv.

 

The deployment of 15,000 Belarusian soldiers, tanks, missile batteries, and armored personnel carriers was intended to encircle Kiev and compel President Volodymyr Zelensky to abandon the capital. This did not proceed as expected.

 

Former British Army Major Kevin Price stated at the time that when the temperature fell, the occupants’ tanks would become little more than “40-ton freezers,” and that the terrible circumstances would kill the morale of troops unprepared for Arctic-style fighting.

 

As the snow melted, the convoy’s problems grew worse. The frozen ground became a muddy trap. The convoy never reached the capital and made no progress whatsoever for several days before returning. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops said on Thursday that they had repelled a Russian onslaught in the southern district of Kherson, while the death toll from Russian bombardment of the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast continued to rise as the almost six-month-long conflict continues unabated.

 

Later on Thursday in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

 

They will address the threat to world food supply and the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, which has been seized by Russian soldiers.

 

The conflict has pushed millions to leave, killed hundreds, and widened the geopolitical chasm between the West and Russia, the latter of which asserts that the objective of its operation is to demilitarize its neighbor and safeguard Russian-speaking areas.

 

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, stated in a video that Russian forces have made only modest gains since the beginning of the month. In other situations, Ukrainian forces have also made gains. We are now experiencing a’strategic standstill’.

 

The Ukrainian Emergencies Service said that Russian bombing on a residential neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Wednesday evening resulted in seven deaths and 16 injuries. Zelenskiy stated on the Telegram chat service, “This is a treacherous and unscrupulous attack against innocent individuals.”

 

The regional governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Synehubov, stated that one person was killed and eighteen others were injured on Thursday in pre-dawn bombardment of another residential neighborhood.

 

The south region of the Operational Command of the Ukrainian armed forces said that Ukrainian soldiers killed 29 ‘occupiers’ and destroyed artillery, armored vehicles, and a military supply store near the town of Bilohirka, northeast of Kherson.

 

Reuters was unable to independently corroborate the accounts from the battlefield.

 

Fighting outside the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility has sparked worries of a catastrophe, and Guterres has stated that he desires the establishment of a demilitarized zone.

 

Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, stated that he had spoken with the director general of the International Atomic Agency, who was willing to lead a mission to the facility. On Twitter, he wrote, “I emphasized the mission’s necessity to confront nuclear security risks generated by Russia’s hostility.”

 

RIA stated that the Russian defense ministry accused Ukraine of plotting a ‘provocation’ at the facility on Friday, while Guterres is visiting Ukraine.

 

The two sides have traded claims of shelling near the facility, but the Russian government has stated that its forces do not possess any heavy weaponry there or in the surrounding regions.