Russia's military is sending wounded soldiers to their deaths to discover the location of Ukrainian snipers, officials say, as Vladimir Putin's generals force men on crutches onto the battlefield as part of their callous “flesh attacks.”
Harrowing footage captured by a Ukrainian scout drowner shows him picking up limping soldiers one by one as they cross an empty field.
The incapacitated soldiers head towards Ukrainian positions, but are easily hunted down by the grenade-throwing drone.
The video was shared by Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the National Security and Defense Council's Center for Combating Disinformation, on his Telegram.
“The Russians use such disabled people to try to detect the firing positions of the armed forces, and there are also cases when the wounded have already been taken away, but they survived, so they are given these final tasks,” Kovalenko wrote.
The defenseless soldiers often form the first wave in Putin's “flesh attacks,” leading the advance so that the fitter troops behind them can identify the threats ahead.
During the war, the Ukrainian military reported capturing dozens of Russians who had already suffered serious injuries in previous attacks.
“Paralyzed regiments” of soldiers, who typically received little medical attention before being sent into battle, are being thrown back into the fray by their commanders as they try to keep up the number of attacks even as the number of dead and wounded rises.
A Russian soldier crawls away from the spot where a grenade was dropped by a drone
Soldiers are seen limping across a barren field near the front line, apparently towards Ukrainian positions
A drone drops a grenade on a Russian foot soldier as he staggers across a field
The body of a Russian soldier lies helpless after a drone drops a grenade on him
The so-called 'meat grinder' units consist of both maimed and released prisoners, with the first wave often protecting the soldiers behind them in an attempt to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses and make increasing gains.
While the tactic has proven effective in pushing Russia's front line, with Moscow's forces gaining ground in eastern Ukraine and Kursk over the past year, it has also resulted in massive manpower losses.
Russian forces last year suffered their heaviest losses since the start of the full-scale war, with around 150,000 dead in battle by 2024, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said yesterday.
“In this year of fighting, Russian President Vladimir Putin has lost more than in the previous two years of war (combined),” he told Ukrainian news channel TSN.
It comes after reports that North Korean soldiers sent to side with the Russians are being used as 'human mine detectors' on the front line of the invasion of Ukraine.
About 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to fight alongside Vladimir Putin's beleaguered forces in Ukraine.
But Lieutenant Colonel 'Leopard' of Ukraine's 33rd 'Big Cats' Separate Assault Battalion revealed that their lives have little value to their higher-ups.
Footage shared by Euromaidan Press shows what appears to be Russian soldiers huddled in ditches and under trees as they are hunted by Ukrainian drones
He told the Times: “The North Koreans have a 'meat grinder' strategy. Where Ukrainians use a mine clearance vehicle, they only use people.
'They just walk in a line, three to four meters apart, if one is blown up, the medics go behind to pick up the dead, the crowd moves on one after another. This is how they pass minefields.'
Leopard said the soldiers sent by Kim Jong Un often refuse to be captured alive, preferring to be killed in battle or simply flee. Regardless, he said, their commanders are apparently unfazed.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which has been monitoring developments on the front lines of the invasion of Ukraine since it began in February 2022, said in an assessment on January 16 that “the entirety of this North Korean contingent in the oblast Kursk could be killed or wounded in about twelve weeks.”
In early January, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 3,800 North Korean soldiers have been killed or injured in Kursk so far.
Images show the bodies of Russian soldiers who tried to take cover in the frozen wasteland of Kursk
Fighting in the Russian region has intensified in recent weeks after part of it was first captured by Kiev's forces in August.
It has been defended by Ukraine since Vladimir Putin sent wave after wave of troops to die as “cannon fodder.”
So exhausted by the speed with which they killed their enemies, Ukrainian machine guns are being replaced regularly, according to reports.
One soldier compared the attack to the bloody sieges of eastern Ukrainian cities like Bakhmut, saying that “after two hours [gun operators] couldn't handle it anymore.'
“Here the Russians must take this territory at all costs, and are putting all their strength into it, while we are giving everything we have to hold it,” Sergeant Oleksandr, 46, a leader of the Ukrainian infantry platoon, told the New York Newspaper New York. Times.
“We are holding on, destroying, destroying, destroying – so much that it is even hard to comprehend.”
