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I need to say that those things that U gonna read are personal experience and represents Russian actions at the Western (the hardest since November till December) flank.
I hope it will help future historians to write a decent research.
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And yes. This thread is not about the problems the AFU faced, Koreans or anything else.
This one is quite «technical», I would say. Because if I would like to write more and in complex — this thread would be close to a word «endless».
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During those 4 months I have witnessed only a couple of times that Russians used tanks: 2-3 times in November and three times in a row in the end of January by 155 marine brigade.
In January for 3 days they used 13 BMP-3 and 3 T-80BVM. All of them got burned.
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I don’t remember the last when I saw such a big concentration of Russian elite forces:
- 76 & 106 VDV divisions;
- 83, 11 & 56 VDV regiments and brigades;
- 810, 155 & 177 marine brigades;
- the best FPV operators.
It tells a lot how «non important» for them it was.
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As a result, all of theirs AFV and tanks didn’t look like turtles. They’ve been firing during the assaults (at the wrong directions, but still).
I cannot recall at least 10 videos of theirs attack where AFV are firing during an assault for the last 6 months.
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I think that October was the hottest and hardest month for us. We had a perfect weather and Russian aviation used a lot of bombs.
For 24 hours they beat their own record from Vovchansk: 84(!) guided bombs against one village and a couple of tree lines near it.
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October was so hard that during one day in the morning, for example, Ukrainian AFV columns attacked Russians and than in a couple of hours Russians using the same road were attacking us.
A lot of armour, a lot of manoeuvres and huge amount of guided bombs.
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As I mentioned a couple of times before, they used and lost at that flank more than 20 engineering machines at my flank for 4 months.
If we compare it with the battle for Avdiivka where RUAF lost 6-7 these kind of machines U May see a big difference.
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In my opinion, since November Russians had a perfect weather for assaults — almost every day we had a fog because of a river Snagost near us.
It was perfect for rotation and assaults. But instead of that they attacked only when had a very shiny day.
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Most of RUAF mechanised attacks consisted of 4-8 AFV.
From time to time they used a fog and even smoke to cover their manoeuvres while attacking. I need to say that because of smoke it was hard for us to find them. It’s effective.
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This is the first time since Kyiv and Bilogorivka that I witnessed so much efforts to place a bridge through a river.
Every time. Every fucking time it was a disaster but they continued doing that.
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As I mentioned, we fought against elite forces:
1) a lot of AFV (and the newest one);
2) well equipped (soldiers);
3) we saw a lot of technical stuff such as antennas, for example
Russian satellite antenna. We saw dozens of them.
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Due to the bad weather both sides almost didn’t use long range UAVs. But when Russians did they were able to find their targets, unfortunately.
As a result — a lot of fibre drones against our armour.
UA tank being spotted by RU UAV.
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Bad weather covered a lot of theirs actions. It was very hard to find and destroy their artillery.
That’s why we almost didn’t use HIMARS, for example. But sometimes we did.
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Russian counteroffensive started 7.11.2024. They had not enough time to solve this problem with Kursk. But also they were very confident in themselves: they wanted to deal with it in 3 months.
U see the result. They are delayed a little bit.
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And because that they did stupid things: they had only one road with dragon teeth’s near it, a river and a ditch. And they still decided to attack using the only one road having no place for manoeuvres and it would very hard to proceed a potential success if they breakthrough.
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As a result of these actions ZERO Russian mechanised assaults reached any success. Every time they were losing from 90 to 100% of AFV that took part in charge.
Only when they started using infantry they started achieving something.
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It was impossible to say whether Russian VDV are Rembo soldiers or not: because of those mech attacks they even didn’t reach our positions.
But here, in Kursk, for the first time since 2022 I saw 2 POWs with iron helmets and KIA near them being well equipped.
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They had even more success using 5-9 ATVs rather than 8-9 BMD-2/4M.
That’s ridiculous.
And it was possible only because we don’t have enough infantry. And because of that Russian suicidal attacks may be successful.
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That area was a top priority for Russians. And there a lot of evidence. Here for the first time I saw a new Russian EW that every (from UAZ to a tank) vehicle had. And there was only one type that firstly appeared here and only after I saw it near Pokrovsk.
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Most of Russians attacks were during the day light. Only a couple of them during the early morning.
After a lot of theirs AFV found mines at the field they started using IMR with the help of…ATV. The guy on it was the first driving and looking for a mine.
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Random facts:
- their drone pilots were closer to the frontline and more effective;
- we had 0 evidence that RUAF here were executing their own soldiers;
- they placed mortars closer than we did;
- we saw 0 TOS here;
- a minimum influence from their artillery
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It was easy for them to find our drone operators. And they used against them a lot of FPV drones and maybe 9-12 artillery rounds (that’s not a lot. In 2022 they were firing at me for almost 5 hours because they THOUGHT I was at that position).
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A very bad coordination from from. Artillery firing only after their AFV were destroyed, not firing at our positions before the advance. Their drivers didn’t orient and we’re missing locations. As a result — burning.
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There was one remarkable event. 51 VDV attacked our positions with 2 BMD-2, dismounted infantry mb 150 m away from our positions. BMDs retreated and didn’t support their infantry before, during and after the attack.
As a result:
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15 Russian VDV members were KIA. They didn’t manage to walk those 150 m. One guy decided to walk away. Not even run. Hi took off his helmet, armor, left his weapon and decided to walk away. Was KIA.
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U know, in 2022 I asked myself (I am not a Nostradamus) whether I was willing to fight abroad. And I was against it.
In 2024 my folks and I were happy like kids when we found out that we are entering Russia.
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And U know, Ukrainian army showed that they can fight bravely literally everywhere. And I am very surprised by that.
I have mixed emotions and thoughts about Kursk. But I have definitely learned a lot and it gave me a little bit more motivation. Cause I was killing 76 VDV.