As Russia openly announced its plan to seize more Ukrainian land on Wednesday, a Russian soldier was caught spilling to relatives back home that Vladimir Putin’s troops are “losing,” according to Ukrainian intelligence.
Audio shared by Ukraine’s Security Service is said to capture an intercepted phone call between a soldier based in the Kharkiv region and a female relative outside Moscow. It was not immediately clear when the conversation took place, but the unnamed man’s complaints appear to echo those heard repeatedly from Russian troops throughout nearly five months of the war.
“We’re losing now,” the purported soldier says, prompting an indignant response from his female relative, who replies, “Well it’s you guys who are losing there, but they are winning everywhere [else].”
“That’s the picture they paint for you on television, but in reality it’s drastically different here,” he says. “They will never show you this on television, they will never tell you the truth. We’re losing.”
Taken aback by the confession, the woman asks him to explain how Russian troops could be losing—and there seems to be no shortage of answers.
“We should have about 90 tanks left, and you know how many we have left? We have probably 14 tanks left,” the man says.
“We do, but it’s so curved you can measure the [target] misses in kilometers,” he says, adding that “Everything’s sad.”
Even as his admission surfaced, Ukrainian authorities said Russian troops continue to bomb residential areas—a tactic they say is out of rage at so many military setbacks.
In the latest attack Wednesday, authorities said at least three people were killed when strikes hit a bus stop in Saltivka, in the Kharkiv region. A young boy was reported among the dead.
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HalcyoNighT on July 22nd, 2022 at 12:02 UTC »
Sad that the relative is supporting the invasion
pyriphlegeton on July 22nd, 2022 at 11:35 UTC »
As Perun put it - Militaries are constructed tools.
You need to plan them, build them, repair them. If you can't do that, your tool doesn't work.
These longterm processes are far more important than whether an individual soldier makes a good decision on the battlefield. Do you have quality steel to manufacture good artillery barrels? The machines to do so? The workforce skilled enough? Did you do so in sufficient numbers? Do you have the trucks to transport them? The intel to do so safely? Etc.
Ehldas on July 22nd, 2022 at 09:16 UTC »
Interesting :
So they've fired so many shells (1000-2000 per gun) that the barrels are becoming worn and ineffective, and accuracy is completely gone now. Normally, you'd have spare barrels to refit, which is complex but doable. So either they don't have the replacement barrels or they can't get them to the front lines.