Ukrainian intelligence on Thursday released an audio recording that appears to capture in disturbing detail the mayhem and internal rifts between Russian troops on the battlefield. In the five-minute clip, described as an intercepted phone conversation between a Russian soldier and his wife, the man says he and the other men in his unit are a comfortable distance from the actual fighting.
“They moved us back to the second line, there’s shooting somewhere ahead of us, but we’re back here for now in the trenches,” he says, before boasting that he’d been lucky and found a “Rosneft jacket covered in blood, but warm.”
“They brought the inmates here… from prison. But they led them somewhere way up front. And we’re sitting here as a retreat-blocking detachment, fuck. If someone runs back, we snuff them out.”
“What a nightmare,” his wife says.
“That’s how we have it set up. We sit on the second line, guarding the first. Behind us, there’s another line. If you go that way, you also won’t make it. So it’s impossible to run away. They shoot their own.”
Really good thread discussing, perhaps peripherally but discussing nevertheless, the success of Ukraine striking only military targets deep in Russian controlled territory, in contrast with past American and other choices to engage in strategic bombing compaigns against civilian targets or with indiscriminate targeting, supporting the article goofy posted a little while ago.
The 80 year record seems to be for the division headquarters. Significant portions of the division have deployed to Europe (and just about everywhere else). I don’t think it’s significant.
Putin’s long game is hoping the Republicans win the midterms, US support for Ukraine dries up, and he’s able to get some kind of peace deal that involves him holding some territorial gains.
