Anger and unease among Russian soldiers is growing along the increasingly contested front lines in Ukraine’s Kherson region, new footage appears to suggest, as confidence in Moscow’s military slips.
In a clip widely circulating on social media, a soldier who appears to be a Russian marine deployed around the Kherson village of Krynky criticized his superiors, telling the camera: “No idea what the commanders are doing.”
“It’s all s***,” the soldier continued, then quoting another unnamed Russian soldier as saying: “Ukrainians have three drones for each one of ours.”
“This is very bad and very sad,” the soldier added in the video translated by the @wartranslated account on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which monitors the war in Ukraine.
Low morale, high casualty counts and problems with the chain of command have plagued Russian forces in Ukraine throughout the 21-month-old war, Western analysts have long said. Newsweek has not been able to independently verify the details of this clip, and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
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Positions of soldiers “change all the time,” the soldier said. “Everything is happening in the most f*****-up way. Nothing is clear, and it’s all bad.” Wounded Russian soldiers who have not recovered from their injuries are being sent into active operations, he added.
Reports suggest the soldier in the video may belong to Russia’s 810th Naval Infantry Brigade, the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Tuesday, adding other complaints from soldiers around Krynky have been publicized in the past few days.
This comes as new polling suggests Russian citizens have lost some of their confidence in Moscow’s military as the war heads for its second full winter season.
On Tuesday, U.S. analytics and polling firm Gallup found that three quarters of Russians interviewed over the country’s summer season expressed confidence in Moscow’s military. The polling showed a decrease in confidence from the 80 percent registered in the early stages of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Some prominent military bloggers and ultranationalist voices have made clear their reservations about Moscow’s commanders throughout the war, “which may have impacted how certain Russians who closely monitor the progress of the war feel about trusting the Russian military,” the ISW said on Tuesday.
Ukraine made sweeping gains in Kherson in its first counteroffensive in late 2022, pushing Russian forces back to the east bank of the Dnieper River that has roughly marked the front lines in the region throughout 2023. Kyiv’s forces has been whittling away at Russian defenses on the east bank, establishing pockets of control in villages such as Krynky.
“Our soldiers continue to hold occupied positions on the left bank of the Dnieper, lead a counterbattery fight [and] inflict a fire impact on the rear of the enemy,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday.
Russian military bloggers “complain that Russian forces are unable to suppress Ukrainian operations in the area,” the ISW said in its latest analysis.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.