Elite Russian Naval Unit Reacts to Stunning Loss of 300 Men in Pavlivka: 'Baffling'

High-ranking unit in the Russian navy is reeling after experiencing significant losses in a recent offensive.

The 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade was involved in Wednesday attack on a Ukrainian military garrison in Pavlivka, a town southwest of the recently annexed Donetsk region, according to The Moscow Times on Monday. The offensive intended to give Russian forces access to a key supply line in the area.

In the wake of the offensive, the elite naval unit is reportedly pointing the finger at "baffling" leadership decisions that led to the loss of roughly 300 men. These complaints were made in a letter shared by a handful of Russian media figures online, which was sent by the unit to regional leaders in its home region in Russia's Far East.

The introductory paragraph saw the marines of the unit accuse their leaders of being motivated by pay bonuses, promises, and military honors.

"Once again, we were thrown into a baffling offensive by General Muradov and his fellow countryman Akhmedov in order for Muradov to earn bonuses in front of [Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff for the Russian military] and Akhmedov Muradov promised a hero of Russia," the letter reads, as translated by the online program, Yandex. "As a result, we and the Kamchatka Marines are advancing on Pavlivka. As a result of a 'carefully' planned offensive by the 'great commanders', we lost about 300 people killed, wounded, and missing in 4 days. 50 percent of the equipment. This is just our team."

The letter accuses their leaders of hiding the true statistics from higher-ups for fear of facing accountability for their failures. They also accused them of leading men into doomed offensives for the sake of boosting their own prestige.

What a propagandist!! You can’t even spell the name of the town whose battle you claim was faked. Pavlivka.

the Russian chain of command does not stop troops from writing or calling home.

PS they are not enlisted (professional contract troops) - they are conscripts - draftees.

Please use the correct terms in any further Russian propaganda you spew.

Did your Russian forces reach the English Channel in 72 hours - despite tactical and strategic nuclear weapons use, as was the reality at the time? If you did not, you lost.

As I recall, the land combat was all in Germany. But if you had the best part of a weekend to spare, you could combine the Red Storm Rising board game with the Hunt for Red October board game, and fight WWIII, from Pensacola, to Severomorsk.

None of this happened. Go find a Russian speaker to translate the letter. It was clearly not created by native Russian speakers.

As for conscripts, Russia has mandatory 1 year service requirements of males of . . . an age range you will find in the wiki. They have had this conscription process in place for many years.

Conscripts are not allowed, by Russian law, to serve outside Russia. In early March, some BTGs enroute Kiev were found to have conscripts in them. They were sent home. It was an error.

The 300K partial mobilization is explained in the Russian speeches if you will just take the time to read them, rather than some British newspaper telling you what they want you to hear. The 300K mobilization are Reserves. Some of them are former conscripts who completed their service and were then placed in the inactive reserves (as the US does with former military, for a period of time). The total reserves of Russia numbers in the millions because of this somewhat normal procedure. So 300K is partial, a portion of the total of millions.

Latest word is about 80K of the 300K have been deployed to administrative duties in the Donbas, freeing up longer term enlisted troops (US enlisted are contract troops) for duty near the combat areas.

Note, carefully, this is an artillery war. There is very very little face to face, hand to hand stuff going on. Killing is done miles away. Even satellites can’t count casualties because when the satellite has passed over and is below the horizon, the figure it saw on the ground may get up and walk away.

Casualty estimates are via Artillery Effectiveness Models. This is software using extensive databases of past measurements of casualties created from the use of the weapon. The Russian databases are huge. Their estimates are not bad.

Ukraine is shooting artillery it had not even seen a year ago. They have no AEMs. They have no idea what killing they can do, if any. The Russians have been withdrawing before battles start when satellite imagery tells them they do not have overwhelming advantage. So in general Ukraine casualty estimates have no basis at all.

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