Forbes Staff
Jan 7, 2023,06:30pm EST
VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
As Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its 11th month, the Russian army’s tanks are in bad shape. That is, if the purported experience of one battalion is any indication.
The battalion’s catastrophically bad combat-readiness seems
to make a mockery of Russia’s threat to re-invade northern
Ukraine ... 10 months after its forces retreated from northern
Ukraine.
Vladlen Tatarsky, a prominent pro-Russian war
correspondent and blogger, on Jan. 3 highlighted the
tank battalion belonging to an unspecified, but supposedly elite, division
that’s preparing to deploy to the Ukraine front.
Tatarsky relayed comments from one of the battalion’s
tankers as the man inspected his 42-ton, three-person T-72. “The engine cannot
be started,” the tanker moaned. “It is impossible to check the operation of the
systems. The gun cannot be loaded.”
The tank is, in other words, useless in combat. And it’s
not the exception. “No one is doing anything to restore the technology,” the
tanker claimed. “There are no spare parts. ... And no one cares! How many tanks
of the battalion are capable of participating in hostilities is unknown.”
Despite this, the battalion—which Rob Lee, an analyst with
the Foreign Policy Research Institute, identified as belonging to the 2nd Motor
Rifle Division—recently passed a general’s inspection. “He appreciated it
satisfactorily and left,” the tanker mused.
The battalion’s commander, a Maj. Rasim Tagiev, got
captured early in the wider war and spent four months as a prisoner of Ukraine
before returning to his division.
He’s a drinker, now—and a pyromaniac. “Already twice set
fire to the headquarters of the battalion,” the tanker reported. “Has no
authority among officers and soldiers.”
The battalion—which on paper should have around 40 tanks
and 400 troops—apparently is in Belarus, resetting after the Ukrainian army’s
1st Tank Brigade thoroughly wrecked it in the Battle of
Chernihiv back in February and March. That battle represented a turning point
in Russia’s doomed, six-week effort to capture Kyiv from the north and bring
the wider war to a swift end.
Today the battalion Tatarsky highlighted is one of the
Russian formations that, having redeployed to Belarus and southern Russia in
order to re-equip, now are poised to launch a fresh offensive
toward Kyiv.
Russian and Belarusian sources keep hinting at this
supposed impending offensive. The Ukrainian army is taking the threat
seriously, and has been reinforcing its troops along Ukraine’s northern border.
The reinforcements include the army’s new 47th Assault Brigade and its ex-Slovenian
M-55S tanks.
But if the sad state of the 2nd Motor Rifle Division’s
tank battalion is any indication, the Russian army lacks the combat power to
mount a serious, second attempt to capture Kyiv. Especially as Russian and
allied forces continue expending enormous quantities of men and equipment on
failed attempts to capture Ukrainian positions in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas
region.
It’s impossible to verify with perfect certainty that the
tanker’s report is true and representative. But it at least is
consistent with many other anecdotes from inside what appears to be a slowly
collapsing Russian war effort.
Having lost 100,000 men and thousands of armored
vehicles—including 1,600 tanks—the Russian army probably is in no shape to
mount a big new offensive. Indeed, it’s the Ukrainians who
apparently are setting conditions for a large-scale
attack in 2023.
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