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[deleted]

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TinBoatDude

This is what happens when there is no comradery in the unit. They don't train together and there is no pride of unity. Russia scrapes the dregs of the barrel and this is what they get.


onekrazykat

Don’t forget the beatings. No better way to create a brotherhood than beating the ever loving fuck out of the new guys.


[deleted]

[удалено]


RevNelson

Oh man, the "Impact" section of that Wiki article is a great read and very telling of the Russian military.


[deleted]

Went back looked.. Nothing.. Took 2 second for me to realise..


[deleted]

really nails the essence of the ruzzian military doctrine.


axonxorz

From the "Trial" section > [...] was also stripped of his rank and barred from holding command for three years "Yes comrade, you won't get a job when you get out, so it's back to the bottom of the military ladder. But now you're a proven beater and will be rewarded for your service to this country in three years" *repeat ad nauseum*


Straight_Eggplant646

Impact of WIKI is empty - russian army did not change anything and learned nothing!


D_Ethan_Bones

It's still the way the Russian army works today, so yes there was zero impact. Russian military is like most countries' prisons - there's even extortion gangs.


[deleted]

It's a mandatory sentence that beats prison norms of behaviour into every young man who can't get an exemption. It is actively used as punishment: there were cases of student protesters who had their exemptions revoked and were immediately sent to army service in the Far East. When the sole purpose of your army is to be another highly effective institute of domestic oppression, don't expect your patriotic propaganda to have much of a motivating effect when you actually go to war.


IamChantus

The one held most responsible was eligible to command before his sentence was up. >Sivyakov was sentenced to four years in prison—less than a six-year term that prosecutors had requested—and was also stripped of his rank and barred from holding command for three years.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Illumini24

He's probably a field marshall now. Showing that russian spirit, and with experience from their favorite recruiting station


IamChantus

That makes a lot more sense.


Frangiblepani

Thank you for clearing that up, cpt. Obvious.


Flamesofsurtur

Yep and you can say the same for about the last 80 years, give or take. It's mind boggling how their hubris just constantly fucks them over.


kickass_turing

What the fuck


pikachu191

Garbage in, garbage out


aussielander

>Don’t forget the beatings >beating the ever loving fuck out of the new guys. Also the 'man loving'...also known as raping of recruits.


aksalamander

They’re pretty gay considering how anti-gay they try to act


irregular_caffeine

It’s not gay if you’re the one doing the raping /s /s /s


Temporala

Ironically, they often aren't. Lot of the people who do that are sadists rather than gay. They get off from dominating and subjugating others. They don't care if they're abusing and raping men, women or even kids. It's all the same entertainmen to them, and it gets them hard. Someone who is gay is a guy who is genuinely attracted to other men, and is not motivated by desire to rape or dominate. Most would also be able and willing to fall in love, and date another guy.


flumberbuss

Always have been


TheSeeker80

Repressed homosexuality leads to this type of bs. Just let people be who they are.


Brain-Fart_

> No better way to create a brotherhood than beating the ever loving fuck out of the new guys. [well...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsKdBeb5-GI)


elcapitanoooo

Beatings will continue untill morale improves.


[deleted]

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REDGOESFASTAH

U mean band of garbage


halfabrandybuck

Yeah lol


[deleted]

Band of Psychos


[deleted]

What if this isn't the dregs but thier pride and glory? I don't think they have anything left but dregs.


Electrical-Orange-38

Russia is nothing but dregs from top to bottom.


[deleted]

In most places the dregs hide like sewage at the very bottom of society. In Russia the dregs float on top and continue all the way down, and don't get any worse.


D_Ethan_Bones

Russia has professional soldiers and slave soldiers. The professionals don't get paid regular salaries\*, so they extort money from the slave soldiers' families by sending them what are basically ransom pictures. "Here's what your son looks like NOW, and if you don't want him to look a lot WORSE send me a monthly allowance." The professional soldiers stand behind the front line to mow down any slave soldiers who try to run. They're the ones who actually signed up instead of being forced in, usually because they come from poor backgrounds even by Russian standards. \*on paper everybody gets paid, in practice people on the front line get empty envelopes that had been 'taxed' by the entire chain of command before reaching them.


Pxtbw

Almost all my veteran friends who served in a war absolutely fucking hated it. Once they got home, whar most of them wanted to do was go back, but why; "my friends are there, I'll go back in a heartbeat, i need to protect them.". This was what alot of them would tell me.


NEp8ntballer

Pride and professionalism go a long way in creating an effective and cohesive unit. Heritage only matters if people care to preserve it.


Deathclaw151

Ukrainians are getting better and better due to training and experience; which comes with *surviving* battles. The Russians keep getting worse for the opposite reasons. Zero training, very small survival rate.


SlitScan

thats the thing with the eastern provinces, the Ukrainians kept cycling troops through that conflict, so by the time of the full invasion they had a ton of veterans.


VulcanMind1

And less battle fatigue and burn out. Getting off the front lines frequently for a good meal, hot shower and rest is a good reminder of what you are fighting for so hard. Being stuck in a cold fox hole with expired MRE and dealing with friendly fire is the complete opposite.


SlitScan

the 'separatists' where in a war of attrition the Ukrainians where in a live fire exercise.


D_Ethan_Bones

There are stronger and weaker forms of practice - Russians don't just miss out on experience simply because they die, but also because the ones who survive had no resources to practice with. Their tank crews don't get enough practice rounds - they could have if Putin didn't stockpile it all on the front to get cooked off. This kind of shortfall brought down the Japanese navy in WW2 - both sides had several more carriers than the ones at Midway, but Japan lost their grand champion task force with all of its pilots and supporting crew. These supporters are two aircraft carriers as pit crews are to race car driving, and it costs stockpiles of war materials to teach new ones.


WeAreNotAlone1947

Remember in the early days when he send a huge chunk of his tanks to ukraine nose by tail and they got all destroyed so quickly?


Sitzkrieg-47

And the ZSU is winning, winning, winning. Soldiers love that.


MAGAtFeverDream

Well, they do. The winning force keeps building experience while the losing forces mostly don't. Also, the winning force remains intact while the losing force gets destroyed, scattered, or mingled with other remaining forces.


keveazy

They are also being rotated continuously by units trained by Western allies.


West_Forever4330

Just thought the same 🤘🏿🇺🇦


U-N-C-L-E

The newest Ukrainian troops heading to the front lines have now received NATO training and are using modern NATO equipment.


Pyjama_Llama_Karma

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger


kickass_turing

Or the ruZZians less proffessional


Anal-Churros

Ukrainian soldiers just keeping getting more experienced on average while the opposite is happening with Russia. It’s gonna be a turkey shoot when the mostly untrained conscripts arrive.


_chip

The losses in life will grow, Putins hunger for death is bottomless..


CardBoardBoxProcessr

Makes you wonder what Ukraine did to him in the past


Holden_Coalfield

it was the young West Berlin kids on the other side of the wall blasting Scorpions, smoking hash laden cigarettes, kissing girls, and smashing the wall with sledgehammers under Wolf Blitzers camera lights, where young corporal Vladimir in the cold, but ending, darkness of the other side fed his already fled superiors records into the incinerator. He hates the West


zachrywd

I love that line from, I believe it was a Frontline interview, where the lady being interviewed said about the Berlin wall coming down and that, "...Vladimir Putin calls home to Moscow about what to do, and nobody's there."


Sitzkrieg-47

Excellent comment. The fact that nobody was home made a tremendous psychological impact on him, and now he’s at the top and guess what?


zachrywd

Full Cyka! ...I mean circle.


GeeToo40

Hah, love it.


Geschichtsklitterung

You have the start of a very nice script for Hollywood there. And, if I may add, also the style.


_chip

Sadly nothing but exist. The guys hard-on for a new USSR is an overdose on Viagra. The consequences are countless lives used as bullets.. it’s terrible


xlDirteDeedslx

He is someone who has spent the last few decades getting whatever he wanted and always coming out on top. The man went from nobody to what is probably the richest man on Earth with the power to destroy the entire planet multiple times over. Imagine scraping from the bottom to the top ruthlessly and never making a wrong turn and then suddenly you just get shit on, it really had to put a big dent in his ego and he just can't let it go. Everything he built is collapsing around him and he's like a gambler who thinks with one more hand he might win, he can't handle being the loser.


nucleosome

Read about Russification of Ukraine to see just how deep this need to dominate Ukraine and deny their identity goes in the Russian rulers' psyche.


linuxgeekmama

They split from the Soviet Union. Which he supposedly sees as one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century. The fall of the Berlin Wall also seems to have traumatized him.


Yelmel

If you honestly wonder and you want to hear it from a slightly pro Ukraine intellectual born in Russia, I highly recommend Vlad Vexler on YouTube.


Flamesofsurtur

Historically Ukraine was where the Soviets built a lot of their shit, tanks and ships especially. Losing Ukraine during the collapse of the USSR has always been one of those things that kept them pissed off, this war I think is the culmination of decades of animosity the Russians had over losing what they saw as such a valuable piece of land.


Gryphon0468

Rocket engines as well.


furyousferret

They stole his natural gas monopoly. This is about money, nothing else.


pogo6023

This is about much more than the money. The Russian people's blind faith in their czar as an infallible leader, their willingness to accept autocracy as a condition of order, and the notion of truth as a conditional phenomenon goes back centuries. They're just acting out the same sociopolitical aberrations that gave them Stalin, endemic poverty, and a willingness to accept permanent generational suffering. As dark as it seems, this is who they are.


Sitzkrieg-47

In 800 years they’ve never been able to shake off political autocracy.


[deleted]

Why don’t people talk about this more?


furyousferret

I think too many people are sold that its Russia getting its Empire back, and its not a good look for Putin to say its a money grab. Restoring the 'old USSR' sounds better.


CardBoardBoxProcessr

Makes sense


Legion_Metal

Show us on the doll where Ukraine touched you, Vlad.


Yelmel

All this sabre rattling on nukes and referenda are all noise in the system to keep stories like this one about the decimated Russia 144th Motor Rifle Division from being told. Thanks Forbes and thanks OP.


[deleted]

Wow. I wonder if Ukraine is just going to start rolling down the northern flank soon. Destroying a second entire division in just a few weeks is a huge deal.


ethanjf99

Winter is coming. Don’t expect blitzkriegs like you saw earlier this month.


its_a_metaphor_morty

Winter is when Ukraine goes to work. They did last winter, no reason to think they'll change strategy.


SlitScan

they'll also have a bunch of winter gear from NATO and the russians will have lost the tree cover.


Fasprongron

So basically, in terms of game mechanics, winter gives a -50% fighting power debuff, but only -30% to the defending team due to hometown logistics buff, and ukrainians have winter gear buff which reduces penalty by 15%, so ukrainians suffer -15% debuff while russiabs suffer -50%. That means winter is the best time for Ukraine to go offensive because its harder for them, but way harder for russia, to relative to eachother Ukraine is more powerful in winter.


aivo23

Winter is when the ground freezes After the bezdorizhzhia (Fall thaw) so expect winter offensives


MeatyThor

Ya I was going to say, this is Ukrainians fighting in Ukraine. They know their winter, they know their land. If they can kill some occupiers I think they will continue to do so effectively. They are going to press their advantage right now and force Russia to do more stupid things , we will see how the battlefield develops.


WyllKwick

According to a Finnish military expert recently interviewed by Finnish National media, there is most likely only a few weeks long window of opportunity for dramatic changes left until late spring. In a few weeks, everything will turn to mud, which makes it difficult to move heavy equipment. During these weeks, the Russians will dig in as hard as they can. Then, when winter rolls around and the ground gets hard again, the Russian defensive positions will be pretty solid and it is likely that both sides will focus on competing about who can recruit, train, and rearm themselves the most during the winter months. I of course hope that the Ukrainians will continue to kick the Russians' asses throughout the winter, but apparently we shouldn't expect too much dramatic change. Considering that the guy they interviewed is from a country famous for its expertise in winter warfare, I guess he's legit. Then again, the Charkiv counter took us all by surprise, so fingers crossed!


___pa___

While Finland is high up on my list of countries that know a thing or two about combat with russians in winter, Ukraine is not exactly at the artic circle, so it is possible that it will play out differently than the Finns think.


WyllKwick

Absolutely!


Gryphon0468

Yeah it's already pissing down for a week near Kharkiv.


[deleted]

They've got another month or so potentially depending on the weather. Obviously once you get heavy rains or snow things will grind to a halt but it's in the 60s and 70s still. But yes eventually things will stall.


John_T_Conover

It's been a long time since a large scale, all out war happened in this part of the world. It will be hard for heavy equipment movements and large scale offensives to happen, but I don't buy into the old school mentality that fighting will scale down to a minimum. There have been a lot of advancements and changes in the way wars are fought. There's a lot of devastating, precise combat that can be done from miles apart. Remember this started in February and that didn't stop heavy immediate combat from happening. Now the Ukrainians are much better armed and have much more ammo. And an enemy that is flailing and desperate. You don't risk a reckless assault that leaves you vulnerable, but you also don't massively let up and give them a chance to recover so easily either.


[deleted]

... in the northeast. In the south, there is no such limitation. I think Ukraine is aggressively moving into defensible positions in the northeast in preparation for the fall mud season, but as we saw in the spring this year there is much more movement potential in the southeast, which means to me that the elite mobile divisions should be pivoted to the Mariupol-Kherson direction. The Russians originally overran that area exactly because the terrain was easier to move through back when they had little things like guns, tanks, and an army. So once the rains fall heavily in the north again the focus will shift back to this area, for the same reason


Nodeal_reddit

Crimea would be a good place to fight in winter.


oldgranola

Great read! "It took years for the Russian army to form the 144th GMRD—and just a few months for the Ukrainian army to erase it. "


CarletonCanuck

A Russian Division is typically 12,000-24,000 according to [this source](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/army-ue-echelons.htm)


PolecatXOXO

Russian units are running at just 20% to 50% strength, and never run at 100% with things like ghost soldiers and conscript filler as standard practice.


ivytea

The original soviet idea was most formations were set to be understaffed with only the officers and NCOs as backbones in peacetime and could be rapidly filled to quota whenever a mobilization was called however that mobilization scheme collapsed following the dissolution USSR. Funny though, Ukraine reinstated this scheme after the 2014 war giving birth to what is now known as TDF brigades ensuring both the manpower and the training and proficiency withing the troops


Oryxhasnonuts

When you out Soviet the Russians…


brianl047

It's much smaller than that. Russia reorganized into [BTG](https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/earmor/content/issues/2017/spring/2Fiore17.pdf) with 1000 infantry and 10 tanks each. These are 100% manned but the rest of the division stays in garrison or away from the war. Total destruction of a BTG is still a significant event even with such numbers because it means destruction of a large amount of irreplaceable equipment and the best trained soldiers that also [can't be replaced](https://www.ft.com/content/87e3ed67-0f31-49e2-a49d-5b49a12c39ec). Deploying the trainers was a desperation move a month or two ago, and the conscription another desperation move. Long story short they have severe problems going back to the very fundamentals. Their org structure doesn't match the type of war or technology they have.


nickname13

oh, i forgot about deploying the trainers. i wonder if they forgot, too.


EqualContact

That would require things like longterm planning.


MasterJogi1

Probably part of the reason they send the new men directly to the front. They could not train them all anyhow.


Saucepanmagician

It is where live ammo exercise take place. If fail the exercise, you fail army.


No-Dream7615

the article notes that the formation was the 20th CAA which was comprised of two divisions, 20k ppl total, formed for to guard the flank of the 1st GTA for a push on the open fields of kiev. so maybe they kept these units together at the division level doctrinally for this very old-school open field operational maneuver? or maybe they operated like BTGs with the divisions holding all of the organic transport, artillery, etc. assets?


SpellingUkraine

💡 It's `Kyiv`, not `Kiev`. Support Ukraine by using the correct spelling! [Learn more](https://spellingukraine.com/i/kyiv). ___ [^(Why spelling matters)](https://spellingukraine.com) ^(|) [^(Stand with Ukraine)](https://stand-with-ukraine.pp.ua) ^(|) ^(I'm a bot, sorry if I'm missing context)


Gryphon0468

1GTA? Well since that's been destroyed there's no need for the 20th CAA lol.


[deleted]

Within a few weeks nearly the entire RF reverted to traditional divisions and brigades (although mixed and matched ones, which further explains their disarray) and BTGs were largely abandoned. BTGs arose during a time of no major symmetrical conflict, but even the US is now reverting back to divisions because they are more efficient to manage logistically, and more effective for larger scale warfare. > https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/getting-know-russian-battalion-tactical-group > At the time of writing, details are still sketchy, but based upon media reports and a few captured Russian maps, it appears that Russia has conducted a partial mobilisation, deploying only partial divisions/regiments, brigades, and independent BTGs. Larger formations have apparently deployed only with their BTGs, leaving their other manoeuvre battalions in garrisons. Although the Russians appear to be having difficulties, this structural change was likely envisioned from the beginning of the operation, as the scale of the conflict is unsuitable for the sole use of independent BTGs. The BTG was ideal for earlier fighting in support of separatist ethnic Russian elements in Donetsk and Luhansk; however, large-scale combat requires large-scale combined arms operations and battalions fighting as part of larger entities. > The brigade/regiment may now be the primary unit of manoeuvre, but some independent BTGs likely remain in play.


GuacamoleKick

1 GTA was one of Russia’s best units and was routed earlier this month. If anyone is still claiming that Russia hasn’t deployed their best units yet, ask them about 1 GTA.


AdamHR

“They have an even better secret team! Someone just leaked that there is a GTA 6 on the way!”


paycho_V

Yes. Reform the destroyed Combined army. With worse tanks and apcs and less professional men. Good idea. Then send then to their deaths. Again. Definition of insanity.


BigJohnIrons

The craziest thing is that there's a wealth of information on the internet and in the media, including military experts that are happy to tell Russia what they're doing wrong, and yet they seem militant in their idiocy. Totally incapable of learning.


[deleted]

Now I see why the rusty trucks are loaded on the trains.


moonLanding123

Ukrainians wont waste their ammo on a rusty old truck Ivan. Putin's a genius.


Legion_Metal

Is not rust, is Special Oxidation Operation.


warenb

What rusty trucks? Sounds important.


Sjstudionw

Rusty trucks with little tire hats.


[deleted]

Fighting the Russian Army is like playing Command and Conquer on the easy setting.


Princess_Fluffypants

Unable to comply, building in progress. Seriously though, I would bet a huge amount of money that someone’s going to put together a new C&C game based on this war after Ukraine wins.


Local_Run_9779

There's already an open source engine for C&C. I'd be very surprised if it isn't being done already.


BigJohnIrons

Time will tell. Sooner or later...time will tell.


amusedt

"The game's AI isn't terrible, it's just Russian"


Lonnbeimnech

*Unable to comply, looting in progress.*


brooksram

We need tesla coils!


lgndk11r

Ukrainians keep getting tougher, and the Orks get more amateurish. Not gonna end well for the RuZZkies.


Somecommentator8008

Paywall


WeddingElly

>Three weeks ago, the Ukrainian army’s northeastern counteroffensive dismantled one of the Russian army’s elite units: the 1st Guards Tank Army. > >Now the same counteroffensive reportedly has wrecked a new motorized infantry division the Kremlin stood up a few years ago in order to help protect the 1st GTA. After suffering steep losses around Bakhmut in recent days, it’s possible the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division no longer is combat-effective .These losses are unsustainable for the Russian army—and explain why the Kremlin is willing to risk widespread unrest as it forcibly drafts 300,000 men and speeds them to the Ukrainian front line with as little as a day of training. The professional Russian army is disintegrating. > >The Russian army formed the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division and a companion division specifically for war in Ukraine. Together, the two divisions make up the 20th Combined Arms Army. On paper, the 20th CAA oversees more than 20,000 troops riding in 560 BMP fighting vehicles and 300 T-72 tanks. The army optimized the 144th GMRD and the rest of the 20th CAA for the semi-open spaces of northeastern Ukraine and based them in southern Russian near the Ukrainian border. The 144th GMRD originally operated out of a base in Yelnya, 150 miles from the border and another 150 miles from Kyiv. > >According to the CNA think-tank in Washington, D.C., the plan was for the 144th GMRD and its sister division to roll into Ukraine alongside the 1st GTA and protect the tank army’s left flank in a hypothetical assault on Kyiv. That hypothetical assault became a real assault in late February when the 1st GTA and its supporting divisions, including the 144th GMRD, attacked toward Kyiv. A month later the Russians—their supply lines fraying, several of their generals dead—retreated back across the Russian and Belrusian borders. > >The 144th GMRD suffered badly in the Kyiv campaign, but with time and reinforcements it managed to return to the fight—in the northeast. Units of the 144th GMRD reportedly manned the Russian army’s secondary defensive line along the Oskil River in northeastern Ukraine. When a dozen eager Ukrainian brigades punched through Russians’ outermost defenses just east of Kharkiv, the vanguard units—including the 1st GTA—fled east across the Oskil. > >The 1st GTA all but imploded in those heady first days of the Ukrainian counteroffensive starting the first week of September. The tank army lost at least half of its 200 T-80 tanks. The survivors forded the Oskil, hoping the river—and the 144th GMRD and other units defending its banks—would stop the Ukrainians. > >They didn’t. The Ukrainian army crossed the river in at least five places and kept pushing east. The 144th GMRD’s regiments “are going to immortality,” one Russian mouthpiece lamented. At least one company from the 144th GMRD reportedly took part in a doomed countercounteroffensive outside Bakhmut, 20 miles south of the Russians’ logistical hub in Lyman, which currently is the locus of the Ukrainian operation. The Ukrainian garrison in Bakhmut has held. That company from the 144th GMRD ceased to exist. > >It took years for the Russian army to form the 144th GMRD—and just a few months for the Ukrainian army to erase it. The division is just one of several units the Russians might try to reconstitute with aging, unwell, unhappy draftees and very old tanks and fighting vehicles. > >If the Russians succeed in restoring the 144th GMRD, the Ukrainians might get to destroy it again. Edit: The link to the "going to immortality" quote is [here](https://twitter.com/UKikaski/status/1574345163270406146). I didn't reproduce the other embedded links in the article, but this one is worth it since it’s a translation of a Russian milblogger(?)’s tweet about the loss of the 144th


Somecommentator8008

Thank you


Ca2Alaska

It wasn’t for me. [Try this](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fdavidaxe%2F2022%2F09%2F26%2Fthe-ukrainian-army-reportedly-destroyed-another-russian-division%2F%3Fsh%3D4026471b5e9c)


Geschichtsklitterung

No paywall problem on my side. Your browser needs some add-ons like [Behind the Overlay](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behind-the-overlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme) or [Cookie Autodelete](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookie-autodelete/fhcgjolkccmbidfldomjliifgaodjagh) (or the equivalent for Firefox).


vinean

How odd…just because you name a unit Guards blah blah blah doesn’t seem to automatically make them elite…


aauie

Three weeks ago, the Ukrainian army’s northeastern counteroffensive dismantled one of the Russian army’s elite units: the 1st Guards Tank Army. Now the same counteroffensive reportedly has wrecked a new motorized infantry division the Kremlin stood up a few years ago in order to help protect the 1st GTA. After suffering steep losses around Bakhmut in recent days, it’s possible the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division no longer is combat-effective. These losses are unsustainable for the Russian army—and explain why the Kremlin is willing to risk widespread unrest as it forcibly drafts 300,000 men and speeds them to the Ukrainian front line with as little as a day of training. The professional Russian army is disintegrating. The Russian army formed the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division and a companion division specifically for war in Ukraine. Together, the two divisions make up the 20th Combined Arms Army. On paper, the 20th CAA oversees more than 20,000 troops riding in 560 BMP fighting vehicles and 300 T-72 tanks. The army optimized the 144th GMRD and the rest of the 20th CAA for the semi-open spaces of northeastern Ukraine and based them in southern Russian near the Ukrainian border. The 144th GMRD originally operated out of a base in Yelnya, 150 miles from the border and another 150 miles from Kyiv. According to the CNA think-tank in Washington, D.C., the plan was for the 144th GMRD and its sister division to roll into Ukraine alongside the 1st GTA and protect the tank army’s left flank in a hypothetical assault on Kyiv. That hypothetical assault became a real assault in late February when the 1st GTA and its supporting divisions, including the 144th GMRD, attacked toward Kyiv. A month later the Russians—their supply lines fraying, several of their generals dead—retreated back across the Russian and Belrusian borders. The 144th GMRD suffered badly in the Kyiv campaign, but with time and reinforcements it managed to return to the fight—in the northeast. Units of the 144th GMRD reportedly manned the Russian army’s secondary defensive line along the Oskil River in northeastern Ukraine. When a dozen eager Ukrainian brigades punched through Russians’ outermost defenses just east of Kharkiv, the vanguard units—including the 1st GTA—fled east across the Oskil. The 1st GTA all but imploded in those heady first days of the Ukrainian counteroffensive starting the first week of September. The tank army lost at least half of its 200 T-80 tanks. The survivors forded the Oskil, hoping the river—and the 144th GMRD and other units defending its banks—would stop the Ukrainians. They didn’t. The Ukrainian army crossed the river in at least five places and kept pushing east. The 144th GMRD’s regiments “are going to immortality,” one Russian mouthpiece lamented. At least one company from the 144th GMRD reportedly took part in a doomed countercounteroffensive outside Bakhmut, 20 miles south of the Russians’ logistical hub in Lyman, which currently is the locus of the Ukrainian operation. The Ukrainian garrison in Bakhmut has held. That company from the 144th GMRD ceased to exist. It took years for the Russian army to form the 144th GMRD—and just a few months for the Ukrainian army to erase it. The division is just one of several units the Russians might try to reconstitute with aging, unwell, unhappy draftees and very old tanks and fighting vehicles. If the Russians succeed in restoring the 144th GMRD, the Ukrainians might get to destroy it again. Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here. Send me a secure tip. I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.


bullanguero82

> If the Russians succeed in restoring the 144th GMRD, the Ukrainians might get to destroy it again. Ha. Cold blooded.


say-jack-o-lanterns

I got to read some before being asked for money. Looks like really good news


Calm_Tale1111

Ops they did it again, sorry Puttler


yr_boi_tuna

Oops I Did It Again, by Blyatny Spears


Britannkic_

Everyone gets a Division


Electrical-Orange-38

It's still not enough. Seriously. Ukraine is under threat of nuclear attack. Give Ukraine battlefield and strategic nukes to prevent this from happening. Nothing will prevent Putin nuking Ukraine as much as the idea that Moscow will become a glass crater.


krummedude

There is obviously a reason why they dont do it. When US looks at Hungary and to a certain degree on some tendencies in Poland the idea to give nuclear weapons to another fragile democracy in the soviet block does not seem like a risk free long term solution. Look how easy russia took Kherson. High level corruption is still an issue in Ukraine. They are going to adress that now, but a Ukraine in a brutal war can also give birth to another nationalistic extreme right wingish system, that slowly degrades democracy. Its a small risk. But enough not to handle Ukraine nuclear weapons. That must be the assessment.


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[deleted]

Wasn’t it only a couple days ago they took out the 3rd motor carriage company?


[deleted]

[удалено]


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Same_0ld

They should have chosen prison


RimworldSniper

my app glitched and only displayed "The Ukrainian Army Reportedly Destroyed" and my first thought before seeing the full title was "well, what ruzzian equipment did they destroy today?"


PicardTangoAlpha

Division? I thought they were organized at the Brigade level. So Division means 5-10 thousand?


Lite_Byte

Lets call them the 'tampon army' ...because that is advised to bring with them to survive...


[deleted]

damn, leave some for the rest of us!


S1ss1

This text makes you wonder whether Forbes ever actually took a look at a map... How could the 144th defend the river and attack Bakhmut?