The marines shared with me a handful of photos and video clips illustrative of several interesting details, which I will include in this thread along with materials previously declassified by Ukraine's Defense Ministry, from a specific battle in question.
Several days ago, the marines ambushed an armored thrust made by a BTG attached to a tank regiment. I saw evidence of at least seven BTR-80s, eight BMP-3s, two T-72s and a T-90 tank destroyed or captured – more than half of the attacking enemy vehicles, the Ukrainians said.
Abandoned or minimally damaged Russian vehicles were taken by the marines, to be returned to combat after repair and refit.
The limiting factor, one officer said, is that at this point they have more captured equipment than trained personnel to operate it.
For example, while the BMP-3 requires relatively little training for a driver (“It has an automatic transmission, just like driving a Mercedes,” the officer said)...
The BMP-3 has a turret-mounted 100mm main gun and a 30mm autocannon. Effectively employing these weapon systems from an armored mobile platform requires training and time.
Availability of munitions also limits the usability of the marines' pirated BMPs.
While ammo for the 30mm is plentiful, rounds for the 100mm Sa70 cannon are in shorter supply, and Ukrainian forces rely largely on what they capture from the Russians.
They’ve learned from the enemy’s example the dangers of using inexperienced crews in armored assaults. The crew of one Russian BMP was three lieutenants, none from combat arms (one was a metrologist). This is... a non-standard BMP crew.
I have blurred faces, names & birthdates.
In my story for @RollingStone, a marine captain is quoted talking about how the Russians brought dress uniforms in their vehicles:
“They actually thought they were gonna get a parade."
Here is that photo.
One of the many tactical vulnerabilities of the Russian BTGs as currently employed – that the Ukrainians exploit to great effect – is a lack of infantry moving in tandem with the armor.
The Russians prep the battlefield with artillery and then rush forward with their vehicles.
Ukrainian infantry and anti-armor crews have a field day with exposed armor, moving through terrain that they know well.
This detail is shared because it encapsulates a belief shared by many Ukrainian military personnel: the Kremlin simply has no plan to achieve victory – Moscow’s leaders are out of ideas, except a war of grinding attrition.
Endless slaughter.
The marines I met are exhausted. But they’ll never stop fighting.
The Kremlin’s leaders will march their soldiers to their deaths with a seemingly unending appetite for destruction.
And a generation of lives in Ukraine and Russia are upended and destroyed.
For nothing.
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For the past several weeks I have been in Ukraine, shadowing a group of battle-tested American former military officers who quickly organized a “Resistance Academy” with Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces.
“Some of you may have never thought you’d be in a position like this. But more than anything… I want you to know that you have the advantage when the enemy comes here. Because this is your home. It is not a matter of if the resistance wins, but when.”
“The goal is to teach you the best practices, so that you will know how to counter them,” one of the volunteer instructors told the Ukrainians.
bespoke: a new set of federal highway administration regulations permitting me, personally, to arm a fleet of toyota hiluxes equipped with heavy weapons systems and roam the countryside at will
you guys can laugh all you want
right up until i seize your oil fields
i know, like, it says “well-regulated” and all that
but to tell you the truth i’m not really big on “rules” or “hierarchies” and all that
really takes the fun out of being a band of roving marauders
i’m more into just, like... general guidelines and open discussion about goals
people like Bison Man, T-Shirt Nazi & Lt Col Livestream are some of the more visible faces of all this
but as someone there all day
the crazed conspiracy nuts & vast bulk of obvious rioters were not the most insidious threat
there were organized teams of individuals
there were tens of thousands of people at the rally and subsequent march & it would be difficult to categorize all of the various groups & their ideologies accurately in the absence of a wide-ranging survey of participants
among the crowds of trump flag-waving maga supporters there were states-right militiamen, III%ers, oathkeepers, neo-templars, neo-nazis, neo-confederates, revolutionary war cosplayers, conservative media thinkfluencers, south-vietnamese-refugee anti-communists...