CIT (en) Profile picture
Feb 26 6 tweets 2 min read
The Russia-Ukraine war so far has had both heroic and horrific episodes.

This is perhaps the strangest of them: the story of how a Russian riot police convoy went to conquer Kyiv on its own.
The story is based on videos posted by Ukrainian officials and social media users, as well as testimonies of the policemen themselves.
t.me/armyofukraine/…
t.me/voynareal/9359 (warning: graphic!)
t.me/MoscowTimes_ru…
myrotvorets.news/smert-okupanta…
On February 3, 80 riot policemen from Novokuznetsk in western Siberia set off to the regional capital of Kemerovo.

This was the day when Russian riot police and National Guard troops were on the move all over the country.

They arrived to Smolensk and crossed into Belarus.
On February 23, the Defender of the Fatherland day in Russia, they were told they were going into Ukraine. But, and this is the weird part, their duty was not occupation as many analysts, including us, assumed.

On February 25, they separated from the army and drove into Kyiv.
Joined by OMON riot policemen and SOBR special unit from Kemerovo, they dashed past Hostomel and Irpin, the site of recent heavy fighting, and rushed to Kyiv.

As they reached a bridge across the Irpin river, they were ambushed, their vehicles destroyed, many killed or captured.
We would never have believed this story, were there not so many sources independently confirming it.

Were it the National Guard command trying to one-up the army? A catastrophic failure of communication? We may never know.

For now, we are monitoring the situation closely.

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More from @CITeam_en

Feb 28
More and more evidence is emerging that the Russian forces rely on civilian radios and mobile phones for their communications. Our source in one invading unit confirms this.

This photograph is said to show a civilian radio captured by Ukrainians.
The Mykolaiv regional administration even reported that the Russians resort to signal flares to coordinate their advances, but we have been unable to independently confirm this.

Some Russian troops do carry military radios, like an airborne troops convoy destroyed NW of Kyiv. Image
The reliance on civilian means of communication means even you can eavesdrop on Russian communications.


No doubt, Ukrainian and Western intel services are also doing this, which is how they might know the Russians are frustrated and demoralized
Read 5 tweets
Feb 27
This morning, the Russian forces attempted incursions into Kharkiv and Irpin SW of Kyiv using lighter vehicles like Tigr and Typhoon-K armored cars and BMD light armored vehicles

1/4
In a curious "exchange", BMDs in Irpin fired at an Afghanistan veteran memorial in Irpin, probably mistaking a BRDM atop of it for an enemy vehicle

2/4
Later, footage emerged showing destroyed and abandoned vehicles and bodies of apparent Russian soldiers

3/4 ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Feb 26
We have collected evidence of another Russian unit sustaining losses in Ukraine. This is the 96th Separate Reconnaissance Brigade of the 1st Guards Tank Army, currently fighting on Kharkiv and also like Chernihiv axes.
Videos posted by Ukrainians show Rys and Typhoon-K armored cars with "96" on the doors, which might designate unit number.

Another video shows a PoW who claims to be from unit 52634 — which is the unit code for the 96th Brigade.

A photo shows captured papers with the same code.
According to our source as well as open source evidence, the 96th Recon Brigade is not the only 1st Guards Tank Army unit sustaining losses in Ukraine.

Others include the 423rd Guards Motorized Regiment, whose soldiers were one of the first POWs showcased by Ukrainian forces
Read 4 tweets
Feb 25
The footage being shared from Ukraine is starting to look more and more like Syria.

A video shared by citizens of Kharkiv with @bbcrussian shows a part of an unguided MLRS rocket that fell through several floors of an apartment block.
A dashcam video, filmed 100 m from a children's hospital in Kharkiv (we confirmed the geolocation) shows what we believe is the impact of a cluster munition.

As no aircraft can be heard in the video, it was probably launched by a MLRS.
Earlier, @Michael1Sheldon geolocated a part of an MLRS cluster rocket in Bucha northwest of Kyiv, the site of heavy fighting earlier today.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 25
For a second day in a row, Ukrainian civilians have been falling victim to Russia's invasion.

This graphic photograph shows bodies in front of a pre-school facility "Sonechko" in Okhtyrka, Sumy region (we have confirmed the geolocation).
The bombed civilian facility is 600m away from the base of Ukraine's 91st Operational Support Regiment.

Another video shows that an alley running between the regiment's base and Sonechko pre-school facility also was hit.
Okhtyrka's mayor Pavlo Kuzmenko reports that Sonechko ("Little Sun") was shelled with Uragan MLRS, which have a dispersal up to 1 km at a high distance.

Also today, Kharkiv was the target of heavy Smerch MLRS for a second day in a row.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 25
We've analyzed this video and we believe it is related to an incident where a Russian false flag saboteur group was intercepted and destroyed in the northern Kyiv neighborhood of Obolon.
The Strela-10 surface to air missile launcher seen in the video drives over a car, which can be seen in another video, showing a Russian Ural-4320 with a ZU-23-2 autocannon, surrounded by armed men. The latter video is described as false flag group arrest
Ukrainian officials have also claimed that a false flag group infiltrated Kyiv and was later destroyed, although we can't be sure this describes the same incident as seen in the video
Read 7 tweets

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