For at least the sixth time in eight months, Russian troops gathered out in the open for training or inspection within range of Ukraine’s American-made artillery rockets. And for at least the sixth time in eight months, Ukrainian batteries hit the assembled Russians with rockets packed with hundreds of grenade-sized submunitions—inflicting terrible carnage.
The most recent strike apparently took place this week, at an outdoor gun range in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southern Ukraine. A Ukrainian surveillance drone observed around 15 Russian soldiers practicing with their weapons—and passed along the coordinates to elements of the 27th Rocket Artillery Brigade, the Ukrainian army’s sole unit operating American-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers.
The wheeled HIMARS opened fire with at least one M30/31 rocket packing 400 grenade-sized bomblets. The first rocket scored a direct hit. The drone observed at least one bomblet exploding directly where a Russian trainee was standing. The death toll could be catastrophic for the targeted unit.
Russian troops routinely conduct training out in the open within range of Ukraine’s best American-made rockets, including the GPS-guided M30/31s. This risky practice reflects a lack of professionalism in an army that’s been losing more than a thousand people every day on average in Ukraine, and letting its standards slip as it rushes 30,000 new recruits to the front line each month.
In mid-September, a HIMARS raid on a Russian training facility in the Petrovskiy district of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine 15 miles from the front line, left at least a dozen Russians dead. HIMARS had struck Russian training grounds in the same area at least twice before since February, killing around 100 people. Two more Ukrainian rocket strikes in the same period—one each in southern and northeastern Ukraine—added at least another 150 Russian trainees to the death toll.
Surveillance drones are everywhere all the time along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 31-month wider war on Ukraine. And all of Russian-occupied Ukraine is within the 57-mile range of the 650-pound M30/31 rocket or the 190-mile range of the 3,700-pound M39 rocket—the latter fired by Ukraine’s tracked M270 launchers. If you and your comrades are gathering out in the open in Russian-occupied Ukraine, there’s a good chance Ukrainian forces are watching … and taking aim.
This dynamic works against the Ukrainians, too. All of Ukraine is within range of Russian drones and missiles. A Russian strike on a Ukrainian training base in Poltava, in northern Ukraine 70 miles from Russia-Ukraine border, killed 53 people last month. But there’s much more evidence of Ukrainian strikes on exposed Russian trainees than there is evidence of Russian strikes on exposed Ukrainian trainees.
Sloppy and inexperienced Russian commanders might be at fault. But it’s also possible the commanders just don’t care whether their trainees are in danger. The Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. noted “a callous disregard for the lives of Russia’s own soldiers throughout the war thus far, both within Russia and amongst Russian troops on the battlefield.”
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