Failed Avdiivka Assaults Cause Russians 'Trucks of Wounded, Overflowing Hospitals'

The words being used by combatants on both sides - such as apocalyptic, zombie movie, littered with corpses - suggest that Russian casualties at Avdiivka are massive and almost unheard of in modern warfare. JL 

Alisa Orlova reports in the Kyiv Post:

Moscow’s forces are suffering such huge casualties in Avdiivka that hospitals are overflowing and the wounded arrive by the truck full. "Guys are lying on the floors of hallways without arms or legs, without various body parts." Ukrainian soldiers defending the town said this week that the scenes there are “like a zombie movie. The fields are just littered with corpses.” The Russian military in fighting around Avdiivka  suffered its worst combat losses since mid-February, and one of Moscow’s worst battlefield defeats of the war thus far.

A Russian soldier has been overheard in an intercepted call describing how Moscow’s forces are suffering such huge casualties in Avdiivka that hospitals are overflowing and the wounded arrive by the truck full.

“There are a lot of people, and the wounded are being brought here by trucks literally every day,” he says in the call released by Ukraine's Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR).

“A lot of dead as well. I'm in a civilian hospital because the military hospital is overcrowded—three floors packed.”

“Everyone is lying without arms or legs, some without various body parts. Mainly, those from Avdiivka are brought," the soldier says.

"In Rostov hospital, guys are lying on the floor in the hallway."

While the authenticity of the call has not been confirmed, both Ukrainian, Russian and independent sources confirm Russia is suffering huge losses right now, with the daily rate of soldiers killed approaching an all-time high.

The soldier appears to add weight to the assessment, saying: “The assault failed. Everything is in the s**t, everyone was killed.”

Ukrainian soldiers defending the town told AFP this week that the scenes there are “like a zombie movie.”

“The fields are just littered with corpses,” said Oleksandr, a deputy commander of a Ukrainian battalion in the 47th Mechanized Brigade.

“They are trying to exhaust our lines with constant waves of attacks,” he said, without providing his full name.

 

Last month, a Russian soldier was overheard in a phone call to his wife describing the hellish conditions he and his unit are facing on the front lines, describing horrific losses in failed assaults on Ukrainian positions and a crippling lack of basic supplies.

The Russian military in fighting around Avdiivka likely suffered its worst combat losses since mid-February, and by some measures suffered one of Moscow’s worst battlefield defeats of the war thus far.

 

Kyiv Post recently interviewed Maria* who described what it’s like to work as one of Ukrainian Intelligence’s professional eavesdroppers and the shocking things they hear.

Russian media regularly dismisses the content of the calls, saying Ukraine is faking them, a claim Kyiv Post put to Maria.

She said: "Yes, they all are real even though they might seem insane. Sometimes I can’t believe the words I’m listening to myself, but we have what we have."