Thread by @ArtIntelFan

@ian_matveev shared a link to a 1st-person account of the battle for Rubizhne by a soldier with RU forces operating in the Luhansk area. It is insightful! To get an initial gist of it, this thread is a lightly-edited machine translation. If needed, a better translation later. 1/

The account begins in early March and runs through mid April, it was posted 26 Apr 2022. The source link is below. The lightly-edited machine translation follows in the subsequent tweets in this 🧵 2/ leon-spb67.livejournal.com/1457295.html

"Fighting for Rubizhne: How it was." From the outset, everything went through a known place. At the beginning of March, the brigade moved into the area of Rubezhnoye; and approached from the north. According to eyewitness accounts, on one of the forest roads on the… 3/

…outskirts of the city, the column stopped and sent a reconnaissance team forward. The reconnaissance team discovered two Ukrop strongholds, the Ukropians did not suspect anything. It took about 40 minutes to decide what to do next. 4/

During this time, the Ukropists discovered the column and opened a barrage of mortars and artillery fire. In this raid, the personnel of our battalion were halved before engaging in combat. 5/

I will write further (just) about my own battalion, since I am not familiar with the actions of the others. Together with Vityuk and Irishman we were in Lugansk at that time and tried to go to war - I wrote about it here. Irishman, through some acquaintances at the hospital… 6/

…voiced some monstrous numbers of 300 (wounded) and 200 (killed), but I did not believe it at the time. As I realized later, we could not leave because those who were supposed to transport us were busy delivering the 300s and organizing the identification of the 200s. 7/

Later, at the battalion's camp, the lightly wounded men who were returning confirmed their losses. 8/

After this defeat, the battalion dismounted and laid low. It was freezing cold, snowing, and we were exposed to gunfire for three days. It was forbidden to make bonfires. Lots of frostbitten people were added to our losses. 9/

In general, only one-third of the battalion was left by the beginning of the assault. 10/

Then, with the support of the brigade's artillery, the northern part (of Rubizhne), where there were 5 to 9-story apartment buildings, was stormed. The Ukrops did not defend them and rather quickly withdrew to prepared positions in the private (residential housing) sector. 11/

By the end of March, the Chechens occupied these apartment buildings and posted staged videos about how they were heroically "cleaning up" the 5-story buildings that had been cleared out two weeks before. 12/

And then the next thing was really fucked up. The Ukropians used concrete garages as a stronghold - they are on the right side of the picture. The blocks they were defending are circled in red (right-most circle). 13/

They had prepared their positions perfectly. To the south of the positions is a lowland, sheltered from artillery. There are communication lanes leading up to it. At the ends of the streets leading northwards through the town - concrete bunkers. 14/

In the settlement's quarters they organized "kill zones" in advance: sectors for crossfire were cleared, machine gun positions in basements were set up, and sniper positions were prepared. 15/

Paths were carefully paved into the "kill zones" themselves; fences and barns were mouseholed. The fighters, who are trying to conduct reconnaissance in combat, in order to avoid streets that were being shot through, went through the yards. 16/

They did not know who mouseholed the passages, they thought maybe we did. And so through these passages they come into the crossfire of machine guns and snipers. Groups were dying before they even realized they were being shot at. 17/

Look at the chaos of the buildings. You couldn't see anything in the yards - everything was blocked by fences and houses. 18/

A group went into one of these kill zones. The commander - not a scratch. He came back, took some men and ordered them to recover the dead. Same path! Three more (dead). And so - for a week. 19/

As a result, there were 20 dead men, who could not be taken away for several weeks. An order to "recover the dead" was tantamount to an order to "go and die." 20/

By mid-April there were (just) a couple of men left of our "pre-war" company. Volunteers and reservists were already being sent to battle (to make up for losses). Volunteers in mass - with experience of 2014-2015, but here it is absolutely a different war… 21/

… and their experience does not help at all. And the reservists are miners caught on the streets without the slightest experience. Nobody cares. Put your assault rifle in your hands and go forward under mortar fire. 22/

Because there was catastrophic shortage of men, soldiers were not allowed to leave the front for a month or more. Many went nuts from the pressure. Some started drinking heavily, thanks to the fact that there was no problem with booze at the front. 23/

Mathematically there was almost no chance of getting out of the front alive and uninjured. The longer you stay there, the less chances you have. Of those with whom I was friends or shared bread, eight men died in two weeks. The rest were wounded or shell-shocked. 24/

Within a week three company officers had changed, two had died. There were no company-platoon level officers left at all. 25/

By mid-April, after numerous attacks and heavy losses, the garages were (finally) taken. And then, a day later, an Ukropov tank came up from a low place and simply destroyed the garages down to their foundations. 26/

Ukropov tanks operate there with complete impunity. Two Ukropov tanks took apart this (nine-unit) housing next to us for several hours, methodically and calmly. Where our artillery was looking at that time - I don't know. 27/

Separately, there were explosions at the Zarya plant. I was in a nine-story building both times. I felt the powerful blast arriving straight into the house, the metal doors of the apartment were flung (wide) open. 28/

Considering that the explosions were 5 km away from us, the area around the plant must have been a lunar landscape - the amount of explosives here goes by tens of tons, if not more. 29/

All of this could have been avoided by using our air forces. But Pasechnik said: "We can do it with our own forces". So, we coped with it, throwing people to slaughter in packs. I will write separately about the Chechens later. 30/END