One of Vladimir Putin’s tank commanders deliberately blew up a Russian checkpoint in Ukraine after a row between units in the latest example of infighting that has plagued the president’s war.
The tank commander became so angry after an argument on the battlefield that he fired his T-90 tank at a group of Russian soldiers, firing at their checkpoint and blowing it up.
“Things like that happen there,” said Fidar Khubaev, a Russian drone operator who witnessed the attack and fled Russia in the fall. New York Times.
The incident, which took place over the summer in the Zaporizhia region, highlights how splintered Russian units have been fighting openly with each other.
A destroyed Russian tank is seen on the side of the road in Kupiansk, Ukraine on December 15, 2022
Putin’s fractured military units are now behaving like rivals, with soldiers competing for weapons and supplies.
“There is no unified command, there was no single headquarters, there was no single concept and there was no unified planning of actions and command,” Russian general Ivashov, who is critical of the Russian invasion, told the newspaper. “It was destined to be a defeat.”
Russian forces have now been pushed back in northern, northeastern and southern Ukraine, sparking criticism and infighting within the ranks of Putin’s army.
After Russian troops were surrounded by Ukrainian forces and forced to withdraw from the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman in October, Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov blamed the withdrawal on Russian Major General Alexander Lapin.
Kadyrov said that Lapin should be stripped of his medals and sent to the front line with a gun to wash away his shame with blood.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the private military group Wagner, echoed Kadyrov’s sentiment, saying at the time, “Send all these pieces of rubbish barefoot with machine guns straight to the front.”
Soldiers of the 10th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces move a T-72 tank forward on Monday as they attempt to repair a track in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine
Russian soldiers have also openly criticized their “incompetent” generals after heavy losses on the battlefield.
Marines from the 155th Marine Infantry Brigade wrote a letter claiming they had lost 300 servicemen in a four-day assault in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlivka due to the disastrous plans of Generals Rustam Muradov and Zurab Akhmedov.
The Marines claimed that Russian commanders “hid” the chaos in the Donetsk region and “downplayed the number of casualties for fear of being held accountable.”
This public anger has contributed to a complete sense of disarray within Russian ranks — but Putin and his commanders are trying to pretend that everything is working fine, said General Budanov, the chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence.
“They’re still trying to maintain the illusion that everything is going well,” he said.
But Putin has made sweeping changes to his military leadership in recent months as Ukrainian troops have claimed thousands of square miles in the northeast, east and south from Russian occupation.
Putin has made sweeping changes to his military leadership in recent months as Ukrainian forces have claimed thousands of square miles in the northeast, east and south from Russian occupation.
On October 8, the Air Force appointed General Sergei Surovikin as overall commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, shortly after the reported looting of the commanders of the eastern and western military districts.
Meanwhile, Putin said today that the situation in four territories Russia annexed in September is “extremely difficult,” in a rare admission that the war in Ukraine is not going smoothly.
“The situation in the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions is extremely difficult,” Putin told Russian security services during their professional vacation.
He instructed the FSB to ensure the “safety” of the people living there.
“It is necessary to strictly suppress the actions of foreign intelligence services, to quickly identify traitors, spies and saboteurs,” he added.
The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, already operated in Russia as an extensive surveillance and censorship apparatus, and Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine involved a large part of the security services.
In September, Putin announced Russia’s annexation of four territories in eastern and southern Ukraine after Moscow proxies held referenda there, which Kiev and the West labeled a sham.
But at no point did Russian troops control all of these regions, and last month they were driven out of the regional capital of the southern Kherson region after a months-long counter-offensive against Ukraine.
After setbacks on the ground, Moscow changed strategy and stepped up its air campaign, targeting Ukraine’s military and energy facilities.