Moscow Relying On Local Militia In Donbas To Spare Scarce Russian Troops

Literal cannon fodder. JL 

Paul Shinkman reports in US News and World Report, image The Guardian:

The Kremlin is relying on poorly trained, ill-equipped Ukrainians who support Russia to carry out some of the most deadly fighting in its current campaign in an attempt to spare the lives of its own forces. The (people) Russia mobilized for this are the Separatist Forces of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic. (This) mobilization compares to prior Russian attempts in other conflict zones to defer battlefield casualties onto proxy forces, such as with a reserve corps of Syrian soldiers. “The Russian military has concentrated all of its available resources on this single battle to make only modest gains.”The Kremlin is relying on poorly trained, ill-equipped Ukrainian troops who support Russia to carry out some of the most deadly fighting at the center of its current campaign in an attempt to spare the lives of its own forces, British intelligence believes.

The assessment comes as Russia steps up its campaign to encircle Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, the region of eastern Ukraine composed of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and the center of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest attempts to make up for strategic mistakes and embarrassing losses in the first three months of his invasion of the former Soviet state

The news follows reports that Moscow had to unearth mothballed tanks to replace the hundreds that Ukraine’s army had destroyed. It also comes as the U.S. and other Western allies plan to send new, advanced weaponry to Ukraine’s arsenals in an attempt to break the blistering fighting in the Donbas that has devolved into what one Pentagon official last week called “a concentrated artillery duel.”

The U.K. Ministry of Defense’s military intelligence reported Monday that among the forces Russia has mobilized for this fighting is the Separatist Forces of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, a reserve force led by the Russians.

“These troops are poorly equipped and trained, and lack heavy equipment in comparison to regular Russian units,” according to the assessment.

It compares their mobilization to prior Russian attempts in other conflict zones to defer battlefield casualties onto proxy forces it supports, such as with a reserve corps of Syrian army soldiers on which it relied during its campaign to prop up the regime of Bashar Assad.

“This approach likely indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces,” the assessment concludes.

Russia in recent days has focused on seizing control of Severodonetsk, the strategic city in Luhansk in an attempt to encircle the Ukrainian forces fighting there. Other analysts suggest that Ukraine has succeeded in launching some limited counterattacks against Russia’s forces – an indication that the potency of Moscow’s troops is on the decline even as it continues “to pour equipment and troops” into the region.

“Ukrainian forces have conducted a successful counterattack in Severodonetsk in the last 48 hours and pushed Russian troops back to the eastern outskirts of the city and out of southern settlements,” the Institute for the Study of War, which has tracked Russia’s troop movements since its invasion on Feb. 24, wrote in an analysis it published late Sunday. “The ability of Ukrainian forces to successfully counterattack in Severodonetsk, the Kremlin’s current priority area of operations, further indicates the declining combat power of Russian forces in Ukraine.”

The institute had previously documented Russia’s deployment of the Luhansk forces as a “major commitment of reserves to the grinding battle for the city.”

“The Russian military has concentrated all of its available resources on this single battle to make only modest gains,” it noted in a separate analysis on Saturday, adding that the Ukrainian military by contrast “retains the flexibility and confidence to not only conduct localized counterattacks elsewhere in Ukraine – such as north of Kherson – but conduct effective counterattacks into the teeth of Russian assaults in Severodonetsk.”

Ukraine had reportedly regained 20% of the city at that time – a conspicuous shift from previous statements from Kyiv that it might have to cede the city to avoid complete encirclement by the pro-Russian forces.