Russian failures at Vuhledar show poor training of Russian conscripts – ISW
Photos of broken Russian equipment in the Vuhledar area appeared on the Internet (Photo:DeepStateUA / Telegram)
The latest unsuccessful assault by Russian invasion forces on the town of Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast shows how systemically poor the training of the Russian mobilized forces has been, the U.S. Institute for the Study ofWar said in a recent assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 10.
Analysts note that the recently released footage of the Russian assault near Vuhledar has become “the latest point of neuralgia in the Russian information space.”
“Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) claimed that the same Russian commanders who oversaw highly attritional assaults by the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on Pavlivka (near Vuhledar) in November 2022 are responsible for the effort to capture Vuhledar, and argued that the video illustrates that these commanders continue to make the same costly mistakes,” ISW analysis said.
Analysts add that one of the Russian bloggers separately stated that the Eastern Grouping of Forces commander, Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, is responsible for Russian tactical failures around Vuhledar, and another blogger even called for public trials to punish high-ranking officers who repeatedly fail on the battlefield, arguing that Russian forces will continue to repeat the same mistakes if these commanders remain in their positions.
Analyzing footage that caused outrage in the Russian military blogosphere, the ISW noted that “these Russian forces engaging in highly dysfunctional tactics that are far more indicative of the fact that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is likely comprised of poorly trained mobilized personnel, (rather) than of poor command.”
“Russian milbloggers likely blamed Russian commanders to downplay the fact that the systemic poor training of Russian mobilized personnel will likely continue to result in similar tactical failures throughout Ukraine,” ISW wrote.
Analysts concluded that Russian milbloggers have routinely accused Russian commanders of being responsible for tactical failures throughout the war, and are likely to shift the overall Russian military failure in Ukraine from the Russian military as an institution onto individuals.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
