Russian roulette in Balakliya: the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation left a lot of documents about their escape from Kharkiv (photo)
They shed light on events that caused one of the most difficult defeats of President Vladimir Putin on the battlefield: a chaotic retreat of Russian troops from northeast of Ukraine in September. This is stated in the material of the Reuters agency. The publication writes that according to the documents in Balaklia there was an 11 Army Corps, which was part of the Baltic Fleet of the Navy of Russia, and all the forces group in Balaklia was under the command of Colonel Ivan Popov.
He is a veteran of the Chechen campaign and the war in Georgia. During his escape from the city he was injured and got to the hospital, and later he was awarded the general rank. There was also a commandant with Granite call sign. He oversees at least one kid's room where civilians were beaten and tortured by electric current. One of the Ukrainian fighters told reporters that he had got to one of those rooms where he was beaten for six days.
The 33-year-old coordinator on the logistics of emergency services Albina Sagittarius also told how she and other women were detained for a pro-Ukrainian position. "I heard the men so much that at some point I heard a Russian soldier saying," Bring a bag for corpses, "the shooter said. In addition to the Russian soldiers, also in Balakliya they were stationed and mobilized from the occupied Donbass. The salary was much smaller, and the equipment is worse.
The observers write that one of them was injured by fingers after his Mosin rifle exploded, created in 1891. The soldiers wrote on the walls of the base and paste postcards that warn that Ukraine allegedly came under the power of the Nazis if they go. The invaders brought with them old Soviet maps of Ukraine and posters: "do not smoke" and "do not throw garbage".
The documents contain information that indicate that a few weeks before the retreat Russian troops had problems with observation systems and radio -electronic wrestling. They used drones led by barely trained soldiers and the muffling equipment for Ukrainian communications often exit Ilo malfunction. By the end of August, as the documents show, the forces of the Russians were exhausted - the loss of personnel, desertion and the stressful condition of the soldiers were indicated.
In two units, which amounted to about the sixth of all forces, there were 20% of servicemen from the full composition. In addition, the invaders ended the ammunition, as indicated by a record in the notebook of the Russian staff. Russian commanders understood the lack of their forces for the site. Popov's reports state that the Russian Intelligence of the FSB became aware of the transfer of the Ukrainian forces to the Ukrainian forces into the area of three precision Himars missile units.
Despite all the attempts of the Russians radio, at least three Russian command points in the northeast of Ukraine have struck Himars rockets. Documents also show more and more efficiency of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and reveal the details of how the eight -month war can develop, in which Russia is now under heavy pressure on the southern area of the front.
It is noted that a few weeks before the retreat, Russian troops in the Balakliya area were fired at Himars missile units delivered by the United States. High -precision missiles have repeatedly affected the command points and other military objects of the Russians. A Russian officer who served in Balaklia for three months told the agency to reporters about the threat that she hung over the invaders in September.