Russian lose 31 armored vehicles in Ukrainian ambush

Graphic drone footage appears to show dozens of Russian armored vehicles getting ambushed and destroyed during a single botched attack near the coal-mining town of Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow’s forces have been trying to capture for months.

Vuhledar, a Ukrainian stronghold at the strategic intersection between the eastern and southern front lines, has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war as the Kremlin is gearing up for a decisive offensive on the eastern front.  

Based on the newly released video evidence, a column of dozens of tanks and armored vehicles was lost or damaged last week, with a large number of troops apparently killed. 

Russian soldiers are seen in aerial footage fleeing for their lives under sustained aerial bombardment by the Ukrainians. 

In the chaos, Russian tanks are seen mowing down their own men.

One of the recordings shows a tank driving over a pile of bodies dressed in uniforms. Another shows a Russian serviceman completely engulfed in flames running away from a tank across a snowy landscape.

One military blogger said Thursday that 31 armored vehicles had been destroyed by Ukrainian drones after being sent in without artillery cover to attack Ukrainian positions.

“Thirty-one armored vehicles of the 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade from the Russian Pacific Fleet were destroyed during an assault on Vuhledar,” the Moscow Calling blog reported.

Grey Zone, the semi-official Telegram channel of the Wagner mercenary group that has been fighting on the Russian side, said in a post that a “disaster is unfolding around Vuhledar, and it is unfolding again and again,” blaming what it called a “crisis” in troop command.

“These people destroyed a considerable amount of personnel and equipment, without being held accountable for it, and then, with the same mediocrity, began storming Vuhledar,” another blogger said.

Politico reported, quoting Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, head of the united press center of the Tavriskiy District of Ukrainian defense forces, that the 155th Brigade, which has been losing up to 300 marines a day near Vuhledar, already had to be restaffed three times since the start of the war.

“And now almost the entire brigade has already been destroyed near Vuhledar,” Dmytrashkivskyi told the outlet.

Russian war commentators have denounced military commanders for leaving the column advancing on Vuhledar as “sitting ducks.” 

“Our elite units became an easy target,” said one unflattering Russian account. 

War analyst Igor Strelkov posted: “The losses turned out to be one-sided. The Ukrainians shot the attackers ‘like in a shooting gallery.’

“Our fighters could not inflict counter losses on them … This was the end of the widely announced offensive of the Russian army on the entire Donetsk front,” he continued.

Alexander Sladkov, a state TV war correspondent, denounced “criminal commanders” on the Russian side. 

Another war correspondent, Sergei Mardan, reported: “Here are the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation … after a year of large-scale hostilities … moving in columns and trampled near the strategic city of Vuhledar, losing equipment and people. And no one is to blame for anything.”

In a blistering indictment of commanders, Ramzai, a pro-war Telegram channel, complained: “What happened is the consequence of extremely low training of personnel. People are obviously untrained and completely unprepared for action in combat conditions.”

There was a “lack of effective interaction between the branches of the armed forces, when the combat group was under enemy fire and did not receive any support, no cover throughout the battle,” the blog argued.

The British Ministry of Defense corroborated the humiliating defeat in a briefing Friday, stating: “Russian troops likely fled and abandoned at least 30 mostly intact armored vehicles in a single incident after a failed assault.”

Critics attacked the role of controversial East group commander Lt. Gen. Rustam Muradov, demanding that he should take responsibility for the carnage. 

Muradov is a close ally of overall war commander Gen. Valery Gerasimov. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry has not commented on the reports but claimed that military operations near Vuhledar and the key city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine — which Russia has been striving to encircle at a colossal cost in lives — are progressing well.

Its forces have been making clear, if gradual, advances in the area in the past month, notably capturing the salt-mining town of Soledar to Bakhmut’s north.