16/ "We thought, perhaps it was to locate the enemy artillery while it was shelling us? Or for the Ukrainians to use up their shell stocks on us? Then we wondered if it was to distract the attention of the Ukrainian army? I don’t know."
Full-scale invasion and national resilience, broadcasted live.
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Shyaga Criticizes Failed Assaults on Dovhen’ke
On April-May 2022, Shyaga harshly criticized the army's repeated failed attempts to assault the Ukrainian-held village of Dovhen'ke, which resulted in heavy casualties: "We kept wondering why were we being sent into these insane assaults?!"
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Russian colonel run over by own men in retaliation
14/ According to a Ukrainian report, one Russian colonel was run over by his own men in retaliation for getting many of them killed. "Having chosen an opportune moment, during the battle, [the driver] ran over the tank commander standing next to him, injuring both his legs."
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Soldiers express distrust in leadership and commanders in Kharkiv region
13/ "Our leadership as I understood didn’t care about us", Shyaga concludes. Soldiers elsewhere in the Kharkiv area felt the same about their own commanders. "Our general has a nickname, the “Bloody General”, “Kolyvan”, “Animal”", one told his mother in an intercepted call.
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Troops fight when valued and protected, not when commander doesn’t care
12/ "When troops sense that the commander is with them, when they feel they are valued and protected, then they’ll fight to death… What is there to say when our commander was telling us directly, swearing, that he didn’t give a shit about us?!"
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Major Vasyura threatens to shoot legs, officer shouted it’s illegal
8/ According to Shyaga, Major Vasyura tried to motivate his battalion to mount an attack by "saying in front of the formation that he would shoot the legs of those who refuse to go and attack. I shouted at him from my formation that it was illegal, that it was lawless." pic.twitter.com/0p1gPNPUAn
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) 2 août 20228/ According to Shyaga, Major Vasyura tried to motivate his battalion to mount an attack by "saying in front of the formation that he would shoot the legs of those who refuse to go and attack. I shouted at him from my formation that it was illegal, that it was lawless."
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Russian soldiers complain more with 75,000 casualties per US
5/ Complaints about commanders are nothing new in war, but Russian soldiers appear to have more reason to complain than most. According to recent US reports, more than 75,000 Russians have been killed or injured so far in the war.
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Traumatic experiences driving Russian soldiers to quit
4/ My third thread focused on how Russian soldiers' traumatic battlefield experiences have prompted them to quit: https://t.co/rjLyCu00fX
— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) 2 août 2022My third thread focused on how Russian soldiers' traumatic battlefield experiences have prompted them to quit:
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Inadequate training, equipment, and looted supplies demoralize volunteers
3/ In the second part, I've looked at the demoralising effect of inadequate training and lack of equipment for volunteers, as well as their supplies being looted before they even reached the front lines:
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Factors motivating ordinary Russian soldiers to fight in Ukraine
2/ For the first part, a look at the factors motivating ordinary Russian soldiers to fight in Ukraine, see below: