Russia attacks Ukraine

[Edge Guerrero]

History of Wagner Group:

- I like to read about PMC. Wagner group is a Juggernaut of this area!

[Edge Guerrero]

Deadly and disposable: Wagner’s brutal tactics in Ukraine revealed by intelligence report

By Tim Lister, Frederik Pleitgen, and Victoria Butenko, CNN
Updated 5:36 AM EST, Tue January 24, 2023

Kyiv
CNN
—
Wagner Group fighters have become the disposable infantry of the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, but a Ukrainian military intelligence document obtained by CNN sets out how effective they have been around the city of Bakhmut – and how difficult they are to fight against.

Wagner is a private military contractor run by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been highly visible on the frontlines in recent weeks – and always quick to claim credit for Russian advances. Wagner fighters have been heavily involved in taking Soledar, a few miles northeast of Bakhmut, and areas around the town.

The Ukrainian report – dated December 2022 – concludes that Wagner represents a unique threat at close quarters, even while suffering extraordinary casualties. “The deaths of thousands of Wagner soldiers do not matter to Russian society,” the report asserts.

“Assault groups do not withdraw without a command… Unauthorized withdrawal of a team or without being wounded is punishable by execution on the spot.”

Phone intercepts obtained by a Ukrainian intelligence source and shared with CNN also indicate a merciless attitude on the battlefield. In one, a soldier is heard talking about another who tried to surrender to the Ukrainians.

“The Wagnerians caught him and cut his f**king balls off,” the soldier says.

CNN can’t independently authenticate the call, which is alleged to have taken place in November

Wounded Wagner fighters are often left on the battlefield for hours, according to the Ukrainian assessment. “Assault infantry is not allowed to carry the wounded off the battlefield on their own, as their main task is to continue the assault until the goal is achieved. If the assault fails, retreat is also allowed only at night.”

Despite a brutal indifference to casualties – demonstrated by Prigozhin himself – the Ukrainian analysis says that Wagner’s tactics “are the only ones that are effective for the poorly trained mobilized troops that make up the majority of Russian ground forces.”

It suggests the Russian army may even be adapting its tactics to become more like Wagner, saying: “Instead of the classic battalion tactical groups of the Russian Armed Forces, assault units are proposed.”

That would be a significant change to the Russians’ traditional reliance on larger, mechanized units.

On the ground, according to Ukrainian intelligence phone intercepts, some mobilized troops are thinking about switching to Wagner. In one such intercept, a soldier contrasts Wagner with his unit and says: “It’s f**king heaven and earth. So if I’m going to f**king serve, I’d better f**king serve there.”

The Wagner way of war

The Ukrainian report says that Wagner deploys its forces in mobile groups of about a dozen or fewer, using rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and exploiting real-time drone intelligence, which the report describes as the “key element.”

Another tool the Wagner soldiers have is the use of communications equipment made by Motorola, according to the document.

Motorola told CNN it has suspended all sales to Russia and closed its operations there.

Convicts – tens of thousands of whom have been recruited by Wagner – frequently form the first wave in an attack and take the heaviest casualties – as high as 80% according to Ukrainian officials.

More experienced fighters, with thermal imagery and night-vision equipment, follow.

For the Ukrainians, their own drone intelligence is critical to prevent their trenches being overwhelmed by grenade attacks. The document recounts an incident in December in which a drone spotted an advancing Wagner group, allowing Ukrainian defenses to eliminate it before its troops were able to fire RPGs.

If Wagner forces succeed in taking a position, artillery support allows them to dig foxholes and consolidate their gains, but those foxholes are very vulnerable to attack in open land. And again – according to Ukrainian intercepts – coordination between Wagner and the Russian military is often lacking. In one intercepted call – again not verifiable – a soldier told his father that his unit had mistakenly taken out a Wagner vehicle.

Prigozhin has repeatedly insisted that his fighters were responsible for capturing the town of Soledar and nearby settlements in the past week, the first Russian military gains in months. “No units other than Wagner PMC operatives were involved in the storming of Soledar,” he claimed.

Wagner’s performance is Prigozhin’s route to more resources and is instrumental in his ongoing battle with the Russian military establishment, which he has frequently criticized as inept and corrupt.

According to UK intelligence, Russian military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov gave orders that soldiers should be better turned out. Prigozhin responded that “war is the time of the active and courageous, and not of the clean-shaven.”

Commenting on the new Gerasimov strictures, the UK Defense Ministry said Monday: “The Russian force continues to endure operational deadlock and heavy casualties; Gerasimov’s prioritisation of largely minor regulations is likely to confirm the fears of his many sceptics in Russia.”

Gerasimov was appointed the overall commander of Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine earlier this month amid mounting criticism of its faltering progress.

So long as the Russian defense ministry underperforms, Prigozhin will snap at its heels and demand more resources for Wagner.

The group also appears able to gain weapons by other means. US officials said last week that Wagner had sourced arms from North Korea. “Last month, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Full read at. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/23/europe/russia-wagner-tactics-report-ukraine-intl/index.html

[Luigi]

[Edge Guerrero]

Fighting Wagner is like a ‘zombie movie’ says Ukrainian soldier

By Tim Lister, Frederik Pleitgen and Konstantin Hak, CNN
Published 9:57 AM EST, Wed February 1, 2023

Near Bakhmut, Ukraine
CNN
—
Southwest of the city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych live in a candle-lit bunker cut into the frozen earth. For several weeks they have been confronting hundreds of fighters belonging to the Russian private military contractor Wagner throwing themselves against Ukrainian defenses.

Disguised in a balaclava, Andriy recounts one seemingly endless firefight when they came under attack by a flood of Wagner fighters.

“We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn’t like just waves, it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn’t stop coming.”

Their AK-47 rifles became so hot from constant firing, Andriy says, that they had to keep changing them.

“It was about 20 soldiers on our side. And let’s say 200 from their side,” he says.

The Wagner way of war is to send a first wave of attackers that mainly comprises raw recruits straight out of Russian prisons. They know little of military tactics and are poorly equipped. Most just hope that if they survive their six-month contract they can go home rather than back to a cell

“They make the group – let’s say from 10 soldiers – reach 30 meters, then they start digging in to keep the position,” Andriy says of Wagner.


Another group follows, he says, to claim another 30 meters. “That’s how, step by step, (Wagner) is trying to move forward, while they lose a lot of people in the meantime.”


Only when the first wave is exhausted or cut down do Wagner send in more experienced combatants, often from the flanks, in an effort to overrun Ukrainian positions.

Andriy says facing the assault was a frightening and surreal experience.

“Our machine gunner was almost getting crazy, because he was shooting at them. And he said, I know I shot him, but he doesn’t fall. And then after some time, when he maybe bleeds out, so he just falls down.”

Andriy compares the battle to a scene out of a zombie movie. “They’re climbing above the corpse of their friends, stepping on them,” he says.

“It looks like it’s very, very likely that they are getting some drugs before attack,” he says, a claim that CNN has not been able independently to verify.

Even after the first waves were eliminated, the attack continued as the Ukrainian defenders say they ran out of bullets and found themselves surrounded.

“The problem was that they went around us. And that’s how they surrounded us. They came from the other side. We didn’t expect them to come from there.

“We were shooting until the last bullet, so we threw all the grenades we had and left only me and a few guys. We were helpless in that situation.”

They were lucky. Held off until the last moment, the Ukrainian fighters say, Wagner withdrew at the end of the day.

Andriy’s account of Wagner’s approach matches that of a Ukrainian intelligence report obtained by CNN last week.

According to that report, if Wagner forces succeed in taking a position, artillery support allows them to dig foxholes and consolidate their gains. According to Ukrainian intercepts, coordination between Wagner and the Russian military is often lacking.

CNN reached out to Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin this week about allegations of abuse in the company’s ranks.

Prigozhin responded in a statement that was largely sarcastic in tone via his press service, calling CNN an “open enemy” before insisting Wagner is an “exemplary military organization that complies with all the necessary laws and rules of modern wars.”

As he speaks to CNN, the fields above Andriy’s bunker reverberate to almost constant shelling. The whine of outgoing artillery is followed by a distant thud a few seconds later and a few kilometers away.

The chatter of small arms fire erupts as Ukrainian soldiers detect what they believe to be a Russian drone and try to bring it down.

Andriy’s unit says it captured one Wagner fighter, whose story is as tragic as Wagner’s tactics are primitive and brutal.

According to a recording of the man being questioned, the man is an engineer but had taken to selling drugs to make some money. He volunteered to join Wagner in the belief it would expunge his criminal record so that his daughter would have fewer problems following her dream to become a lawyer.

“And when did you realize, you are just meat?” Andriy asks him.

“At the first combat mission. They brought us to the frontline on December 28. They sent us forward last night.”

“How many people were in the group?”

“Ten,” he answers.

Andriy says he had told the engineer: “Obviously, you know that you will be killed (in battle). But you’re afraid to fight for your freedom in your country.”

“He said, ‘Yes, this is true. We’re afraid of Putin.’”

Andriy contrasted Russian President Vladimir Putin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who not so long ago was the country’s leading comedian.

“Our advantage is that yes, we do, we really can choose the guy whom the [Russians] call a clown. But as we can see, now, this guy is really the leader of the free world, at the moment, on our planet.

Andriy, who is from the southwestern city of Odesa and joined up within days of Russia’s invasion, says that no matter how many more fighters are sent to storm their positions, they will resist.

“Most of my guys, they are volunteers. They had (a) good business, they had (a) good job, they had a good salary, but they came to fight for their homeland. And it makes a great difference,” he says.

“This is the war for freedom. It’s not even the war between Ukraine and Russia. This is a war between a regime and democracy.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/01/europe/ukraine-soldiers-fighting-wagner-intl-cmd/index.html