TASS – Aug 7, 2023

The new units of Ukraine’s armed forces that had been trained by NATO and received Western arms mostly consist of new recruits and suffer heavy losses in the Ukrainian counteroffensive, The New York Times said citing the Ukrainian military.

“I lost a lot [of troops],” a commander of one of the units told the newspaper. “Some of the new guys are mentally broken,” he added. The article notes that his “brigade had taken heavy casualties in the first days of the counteroffensive in June, when his troops ran into minefields and came under an onslaught of Russian artillery and airstrikes.” Additionally, “for many of his troops it was their first time in battle and a brutal introduction.”

According to the newspaper, new Ukrainian brigades which should have been the counteroffensive’s driving force “are made up of recruits, fresh from basic training after they were called up or volunteered to join the military this year.” Their commanders are mostly experienced fighters, and some have completed officer training in the United States.

The newspaper points out that in early June, the Ukrainian forces “suffered heavy losses,” “struggling to advance against the formidable Russian defenses.” “At least one new brigade was so badly debilitated from casualties that it was withdrawn from the battlefield to rebuild,” the article notes.

As the Russian Defense Ministry reported earlier, since June 4 the Ukrainian side has been attempting to advance without success while sustaining personnel and hardware losses. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on July 11 that Ukraine had lost more than 26,000 troops since the start of the counteroffensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Ukrainian military had failed to achieve success in any area. Putin stated at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on July 23 that Kiev’s counteroffensive had failed.

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