The Times - UK (2022-05-24)

the times | Tuesday May 24 2022 13

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Russia has lost as many soldiers during

the first three months of the war in

Ukraine as during the ten-year Soviet

invasion and occupation of Afghan-

istan, according to British intelligence.

Defence experts said the conflict in

eastern Ukraine had turned into a “war

of attrition” with President Zelensky

warning that his country was losing up

to 100 troops a day in Donbas, the coal-

mining area that has become the main

theatre of the war.

The Soviet Union suffered about

15,000 deaths during the conflict in

Afghanistan between December 1979

and February 1989. Some historians

have argued that public anger over the

invasion contributed to the dissolution

of the USSR.

The MoD said the Russian army had

already suffered a similar death toll

after invading Ukraine and predicted

that Russian tolerance over the deaths

was wearing thin. “As casualties suf-

fered in Ukraine continue to rise they

will become more apparent, and public

dissatisfaction with the war and a will-

ingness to voice it may grow,” it said.

Zelensky denounced an attack yes-

terday on the village of Desna in the

northern Ukrainian region of Cherni-

hiv, where he said 87 people were killed

in an airstrike last week.

Yesterday Russian forces attempted

to storm the towns of Severodonetsk

and Lyman to try to achieve a break-

Ukrainian troops are attacking Rus-

sians using pickup trucks mounted with

US-made automatic grenade launch-

ers, emulating a tactic used by the SAS.

The Banderamobile, which can fire

60 rounds a minute, is named after the

Second World War anti-Soviet Ukrain-

ian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera,

whom many Russians revile.

Ukraine’s general staff said the vehi-

cles, already in operation, were a

“nightmare” for the invading forces.

“Together we will win”, it said on its

Facebook account, which published

pictures of the adapted Nissan pickups.

Ukrainian military sources said that

volunteers from around the world were

donating second-hand pickups.

Troops have mounted some of the

vehicles with American Mk 19 belt-fed

grenade launchers. The Mk 19 fires

40mm grenades up to an effective

range of a mile, penetrating armour up

to 2in thick. According to the Elite UK

Forces website, the launcher’s firepow-

er makes it an “ideal” weapon for spe-

cial forces operations. It is in service

with US special forces and is said to be

a favourite of the SAS.

The SAS mounted the Mk 19 on Land

Rovers during the first Gulf War in 1991.

The weapon proved itself to be invalu-

able in combat, the website said.

Russian troops have also reportedly

used pickup trucks mounted with

machineguns.

A video shared on social media in

March claimed to show six Mitsubishi

and Toyota pickups, outfitted with

heavy machineguns and marked with

the letter “Z”, driving in Mariupol. Such

vehicles have also been popular with

jihadists in the Middle East.

Samuel Cranny-Evans, a military an-

alyst at the Royal United Services Insti-

tute think tank, said light tactical vehi-

cles such as pickups had been “impor-

tant for both sides” in the current

conflict. “They enable fairly rapid

mobility and a low training and support

burden. Ukrainians report regularly

changing vehicles once damaged or out

of fuel, enabling them to maintain

mobility,” he said.

“The addition of Mk 19s will provide

[the Ukrainians] with some mobile fire-

power, and the ability to engage Rus-

sian infantry at range.”

Bandera, who died aged 50 in 1959

after being poisoned by Soviet agents, is

a controversial figure in Ukraine. To

some, he is seen as a national hero who

fought for Ukrainian independence

during the 1930s and 1940s. To others

he is considered a war criminal whose

nationalist forces carried out atrocities

against Jews and Poles. President Putin

has called Bandera “Hitler’s accom-

plice”.

His legacy has long been debated. In

2010 he was named a “Hero of Ukraine”

by President Yushchenko, a move that

caused anger in Europe, Poland and

Israel.

Bandera was stripped of the honour

during President Yanukovych’s admin-

istration but in 2014 Kyiv’s city council

renamed the city’s Moscow Avenue

“Stepan Bandera Avenue” in response

to Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Yesterday Russia’s defence ministry

said its forces had destroyed a Ukraini-

an unit of US-produced M777 howitz-

ers, although Kyiv has disputed previ-

ous similar claims.

The Pentagon confirmed this month

that 310 Ukrainian troops had received

training on the howitzers, considered

one of the most significant weapons at

Kyiv’s disposal. They have a maximum

range of 25 miles.

send an SOS signal,

although the event

occurred around 3pm

on April 13,” he said.

“You wanted to pass it

over with silence, and

hide it, according to

your old tradition of

lying.”

He added that the

seriously wounded

were not evacuated

and the stricken ship

not brought to port in

Sevastopol because it

would “then become

obvious to everyone

what happened”.

He added: “They

drowned them,

together with the

cruiser... they towed

it to the south of the

Black Sea during the

night from 13.04 to

14.04 and sank it

there.”

Shkrebets said there

had been no official

announcement of a

rescue mission,

arguing that this was

because there had not

been one. “You took

away the closest

person to me,” the

father said. “You

murdered him.”

Yesterday there were

queues in Kyiv to buy

stamps to mark the

sinking of the Moskva.

Three million stamps

with the caption

“Russian warship...

DONE! Glory to the

nation!” were issued.

Last month stamps

were printed with the

words “Russian

warship, go f***

yourself !” marking the

moment in February

when guards on Snake

Island rejected the

Moskva’s call to

surrender.

News

ships through Odesa blockade

id“Y

Putin’s losses after three months

rival toll of ten-year Afghan war

George Grylls through in Donbas. Western intelli-

gence suggests that Russian forces are

making “slow, incremental progress” in

the area and are on the verge of encir-

cling the area around Severodonetsk.

Even though the Ukrainians appear

to be losing ground, western officials

believe that by stalling the invasion,

they have succeeded in reducing the

Russians’ ability to conduct large-scale

offensives.

“They are fulfilling an important mil-

itary function, degrading Russian capa-

bility to advance and creating time for

Ukrainian forces to continue to im-

prove their defences elsewhere,” one of-

ficial said. “It is inevitable that the Rus-

sians, having secured the Severodo-

netsk pocket, will then try and move on

Kramatorsk. That is a big and challeng-

ing target and will cost them heavily.”

Professor Phillips O’Brien, a military

historian at the University of St

Andrews, said that Russian troops

might capture more parts of Donbas,

but would struggle to hold them with-

out reinforcements. “It doesn’t matter

who took this village or that village.

What matters is the relative loss on ei-

ther side,” he said. “We are in a war of

attrition and we’ve been in one since

the battle for Donbas started.”

There are parallels between the

present conflict and the war waged by

the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, where

the mujahidin made guerrilla raids on

Soviet forces with US-supplied missiles,

much in the same way that Ukrainians

have employed “fire and forget” tactics

with portable western anti-tank weap-

onry.

Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian

affairs at Mayak Intelligence, said

Ukraine had become like the Soviet-Af-

ghanistan war on “fast forward”.

He said the scale of the losses meant

that President Putin would struggle to

maintain the Donbas offensive for

much longer without full mobilisation.

Information about the scale of casu-

alties was drip-feeding through to the

Russian people with the risk that it

could become a focal point for anger in

the same way as it did in Afghanistan.

He said: “The importance of Afghan-

istan was it became a case study of all

that was wrong with the Soviet Union

— a stupid decision made by a bunch of

geriatrics out of touch with what’s really

happening in the world and in their own

country.”

Dr Robert Johnson, director of the

Changing Character of War Centre at

the University of Oxford, said Putin was

facing “a reckoning” over the death toll

in Ukraine. “In the Soviet Union, the

steady flow of dead gave rise to the ex-

pression “zinkies” — men were trans-

ferred home in zinc-lined coffins. As the

numbers grew to 15,000, it became

harder to keep it quiet,” he said. “The

mobile crematoria have been busy in

Ukraine, but the number of families af-

fected cannot be silenced for ever.”

Putin’s best move would be to declare

a victory, William Hague, page 25

Armed pickup trucks echo SAS tactic

Larisa Brown

Residents of Kyiv queue

to buy new stamps

celebrating the sinking

by Ukraine of the

Russian warship Moskva

PAVLO PALAMARCHUK/REUTERS; CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/GETTY IMAGES

The vehicles are a “nightmare” for the invaders, Ukrainian commanders claim