UK Defense Ministry: Freshly mobilized Russian soldiers ordered to storm Ukrainian positions with ‘firearms and shovels’

MSN-- ---Kyiv Independent ^ | 3-4

[dennisw]

According to the March 5 U.K. Defense Ministry's intelligence update, Russian soldiers are forced into hand-and-hand combat due to lack of ammunition. The reservists were thus ordered by the Russian Command to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point with only “firearms and shovels.”

“The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologized in Russia. Little changed since it was designed in 1869, its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterize much of the war,” the report states.

The U.K. Defense Ministry also commented that one of the reservists described being “neither physically, nor mentally” capable of the action.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported on March 5 that Russia had lost 153,120 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, including 930 casualties over the past day.

[Kazan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVzFxqLZivE

Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for March 6, 2023:

- Russian forces continue the encirclement of Bakhmut;

- Western media admits Russian operations around Bakhmut is exhausting Ukrainian forces and may diminish them ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian spring offensive;

- US announces another military assistance package for Ukraine with fewer items listed and absent of any specific quantities despite previous packages featuring such information;

-Ukraine has urgently asked the West for more artillery shells in particular, highlighting the inability for Western industry to match or exceed Russian military industrial output;

- German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall claims to be considering building a tank factory in Ukraine. Older articles claim only if approved by the German government and after the conflict is over, newer articles suggest the factory may be built sooner;

- Ukrainian pilots are in the US to assess their skills for potential training on US warplanes (likely the F-16);

- Training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s or other Western warplanes will admittedly take years, if F-16s arrive in Ukraine beforehand they will likely be Western operators posing as Ukrainian pilots;