Russia Lost 300 Elite Fighters in 4 Days in Vuhledar ‘Meatgrinder’—Report

New details have emerged of Russia’s disastrous 2022 offensive around the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar, which Russian marines who were involved described as an “incomprehensible” action with servicemembers treated as “meat.”

BBC News Russian and independent Russian news outlet MediaZona conducted an investigation broadcast on Monday into the failed November 2022 offensive towards Vuhledar, which was thrown back by Ukrainian defenders, with heavy casualties among the attackers. The new report focused on the fortunes of the 155th Marine Brigade in its push into the settlement of Pavlivka to the south of Vuhledar.

Members of the 115th—known as the “Black Berets”—were in the vanguard of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, fighting into Kyiv and being accused of involvement in war crimes in the now-infamous capital suburb of Bucha. Part of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, the unit was among the elite formations sent to shore up what was expected to be an easy Russian military victory.

At the time, members of the unit described the battles around Vuhledar as “worse than hell,” criticizing the “mediocrities” of their commanding officers. “We lost about 300 people killed, wounded and missing in 4 days,” one letter from marines said, as well as “50 percent” of the unit’s equipment.

Newsweek is unable to verify the details in the report and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

The BBC and MediaZona identified one member of the unit—Ramaz Gorgadze—who was reported missing in December 2022. Searching for answers, Gorgadze’s mother tracked her son to the unit’s offensive staging location in Volnovakha, just southeast of Vuhledar.

The news outlets found that the marine had been killed during a drone strike on an occupied house in the battle area, sustaining serious injuries and dying hours later. The BBC report described the operation as a “meatgrinder.”

In a letter to Gov. Oleg Kozhemyako of the Primorsky Territory in Russia’s far east, which is home to the 155th’s headquarters, the marines blamed General Rustam Muradov and Major General Sukhrab Akhmedov for the carnage.

“How long will such mediocrities as Muradov and Akhmedov plan military operations for the sake of their reports and receiving awards at the cost of the lives of so many people?” the letter demanded. “They don’t care about anything, just to show themselves. They call people meat.”

The defeat around Vuhledar prompted outrage in Russia, coming as it did after several months of battlefield failures. “The situation in Pavlivka has been discussed at the highest level for several days, and the blood keeps spilling,” Aleksandr Sladkov, a Russian military journalist working for All-Russian State Television and Radio, wrote on Telegram in 2022.

Since the collapse of the Kyiv offensive in early 2022, Russia’s attacking operations in Ukraine have largely been characterized by massed, slow-moving, and lightly supported infantry formations, backed by hugely destructive artillery power. The approach has won limited battlefield success and led to massive casualties on both sides.

But Russia’s bloody tactics have stabilized the front in Moscow’s favor, forcing Ukraine to deploy significant forces to places like the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where the Kremlin’s troops have undertaken grinding offensives. As winter settles over the front lines, the Kremlin’s units are still being thrown into fierce fighting in Avdiivka.

Russia has adapted, but its punishing losses—some 120,000 dead and 300,000 total casualties per U.S. officials cited by The New York Times in August—will hamper its military for years.

“Russia put itself into fatal strategic disaster since February 2022,” Russian military analyst Pavel Luzin previously told Newsweek. The consequences will “weaken it for decades,” he added.