Russian Special Forces Unit Takes Heavy Losses in Ukrainian Offensive

• Throughout Ukraine’s counteroffensive this autumn, Ukrainian troops surrounded the town of Lyman.
• Lyman is a crucial hub in jap Ukraine, and a bigger Russian drive was trapped there.
• Russian troops in Lyman and those that retreated took heavy losses, together with an elite GRU unit.

As September rolled round, everybody anticipated the Ukrainian navy to launch a significant assault in opposition to Kherson within the south.

For weeks, Ukrainian forces had been utilizing US-supplied M142 Excessive Mobility Artillery Rocket Programs to launch long-range precision strikes on Russian provide traces and communications networks in southeastern Ukraine.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainians shocked the Russians and the world by launching a fast-paced counteroffensive within the east round Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis. In only a few days, Ukrainian forces liberated lots of of sq. miles of territory and scores of villages.

The truth that the Russian excessive command had determined to mass appreciable forces within the south to defend Kherson, which Moscow ended up retreating from in November, aided Kyiv’s counteroffensive, which sliced via Russian traces like a sizzling knife via butter and repeatedly flanked giant Russian formations — together with at a significant logistical hub in far jap Ukraine.

The Battle for Lyman

The city of Lyman rapidly turned the focal point as Ukrainian forces partially surrounded it within the remaining days of September, trapping a big Russian garrison in there.

Lyman is a key logistical node commanding an vital highway over the Siverskyy Donets River in Ukraine’s Donetsk area. Its loss compounded Russian setbacks within the remaining weeks of summer season and stoked additional anger amongst pro-war commentators in Russia.

British navy intelligence assessed after the battle that the Russian drive defending Lyman was a hodgepodge of mobilized reservists and depleted models {of professional} troops.

The Ukrainians provided the appreciable variety of Russian troops trapped in Lyman a possibility to give up. The Russians opted to retreat underneath cowl of darkness however suffered heavy casualties from Ukrainian ambushes and long-range strikes.

After the battle, the BBC’s Russian service reported that the reconnaissance firm of the GRU’s third Guards Spetsnaz Brigade was caught within the combat and suffered heavy casualties, shedding as many as 9 members, probably the most for it in a single battle to date within the struggle.

Based mostly by itself analysis and that of Russian media and volunteers, the BBC estimated 56 members of the brigade had been killed since Moscow launched its invasion in February. Whereas the brigade’s dimension is classed, the BBC mentioned that 75% of the unit’s troops might have been killed or wounded to date, based mostly on estimates of attrition for Russian models in Ukraine.

The BBC based mostly its report in regards to the toll in Lyman on interviews with members of the family and a assessment of posts on the VKontakte social community from September 30 and October 1.

One VK put up mentioned the brigade had been “laid to waste” and “thrown into the meat grinder,” in keeping with a translation by The Moscow Occasions.

Arduous to switch

The GRU is Russia’s military-intelligence company. It conducts a number of totally different mission units, together with human intelligence, cyber-espionage, sabotage, and assassinations. Its cadre of Spetsnaz commandos is among the many finest within the Russian navy.

It will likely be laborious to switch these losses. Competent particular operators require years of fundamental and superior navy coaching, in addition to coaching tailor-made to their mission units. By the point they be a part of an operational unit, their militaries have invested tens of millions of {dollars} to arrange them.

Considered one of the US special-operations group’s core ideas is that “particular operations forces can’t be mass produced,” and the coaching pipeline for US operators can final years.

It may take six months from boot camp to choice and evaluation for troopers to hitch the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, the world’s premier mild infantry special-operations unit. It may take greater than a yr and a half to change into a Navy SEAL and greater than two years to change into an Air Drive Pararescueman.

After years of ordinary and superior navy coaching, tier-one US special-operations models, such because the Army’s Delta Drive, require an extra choice and superior operator coaching course that may take greater than six months and weeds out even skilled troops.

The Russian navy as a complete is taking a battering in Ukraine, although casualty estimates fluctuate broadly. Gen. Mark Milley, the US navy’s high basic, mentioned in early November that Russia had probably suffered “properly over 100,000” troops killed and wounded.

Moscow launched what it known as a “particular navy operation” with solely a part of its navy and has since introduced a “partial mobilization” to name up extra troops. Its losses have been so heavy that special-operations troops have typically been used as common soldiers in an try and plug holes in Russian traces.

Poor planning additionally led to the misuse of elite Russian models, just like the vaunted VDV airborne forces, which had been battered in a failed effort to seize an airport close to Kyiv within the struggle’s opening days.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a protection journalist specializing in particular operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (nationwide service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins College graduate. He’s working towards a grasp’s diploma in technique and cybersecurity on the Johns Hopkins’ College of Superior Worldwide Research.