Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian soldiers fighting near Pokrovsk complain that they have to rely on OSINT bloggers to get battlefield information, due to a lack of reconnaisance from their own side. It likely reflects Ukrainian successes in suppressing Russian ISR drones. ⬇️

https://x.com/JimmySecUK/status/1886496453897449489

2/ The 'Philologist in ambush' Telegram channel reports the comments of a fellow warblogger who is communicating with members of the 114th Motorised Rifle Brigade fighting at Shevchenko, just south of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region:

3/ "About Shevchenko in the Pokrovsk direction, the guys from the [inaudible] regiment asked me before they came to see what was really going on there. Because they were also sent that way [and told] 'go there, there's no one there'."

4/ The 'Philologist' comments:

"The amazing nuance here is that in order to clarify the actual situation on the ground, the assault forces were forced to turn to a non-military person from a conventional couch, ...

5/ ...who just responsibly tries to monitor the course of events at the front and give adequate reports on them.

This circumstance in itself is fantastic, but it only adds to the overall picture of the whole fucking theatre of the absurd.

6/ "In this case, we have a sadly familiar situation: people are not introduced to the real situation, they themselves either do not have the opportunity to conduct additional reconnaissance, or they are not given time for it (urgent, fucking hell!), and they are foisted off…

7/ …with a shitty task with inputs according to the classic genre of scamming, stupidly counting on [being] a fool."

8/ The lack of effective reconnaissance is apparent in fiascos such as the episode below, in which a Russian assault squad is wiped out as soon as it disembarks from its APC:

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1886452115297476978

9/ The 'Philologist' quotes the account of a survivor of a very similar incident which occurred in the Chasiv Yar area. The man had been sent into battle despite already having serious injuries, and was wounded again very quickly:

10/ "We were given a mission when my partner and I were seriously [wounded]. They lied through their teeth about an electronic warfare strike, smoke, artillery support at the drone takeoff sites.

11/ "In the end, we were sent on a BMP without anything promised, straight under a Ukrainian machine gun and drones.

12/ "Out of eight people (two were riding on the armour under a barbecue [anti-drone cage]), four were 300 [wounded] and four were 200 [killed]. The whole beating after dismounting took a minute."

13/ The 'Philologist' concludes:

"Here, so that people at the starting point don't get pissed off and refuse, they are fucked over in a more sophisticated way.

14/ "And, characteristically, there is some understanding of what support for a complex attack should look like in the commanders' heads. But the implementation in practice is also reduced to sending people to dash like a fool.

15/ "The third year of the campaign is winding down, but the bottom, which was punctured in the first year, continues to drag people into the depths of such an organisation of combat control…

16/ …and to devour them in these depths at the assaults of each successive village [like at] Novoiehorivka." /end

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1886147804252274768

Source: t.me/philologist_zo…