Russian Federation (RF) troops in Ukraine have three days’ of supplies or less left before they run out, and at some locations RF units are refusing orders to attack, an Army General Staff (AGS) intelligence estimate made public on Tuesday, March 22, said. RF forces are facing increasingly severe supply shortages the estimate said. Continuing Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) attacks targeting RF munitions and fuel trucks have seriously damaged the Kremlin’s ability to keep its troops fed and fighting, and now RF forces in contact with the UAF across the line face a real possibility of running out of diesel, ammunition and fuel, the statement said.
Behind-the-lines attacks by UAF special forces units, air strikes, and Ukrainian civilian partisans have, the estimate said, forced RF army units to abandon attempts to lay fuel pipelines to forward troops. The only other way to get fuel to RF combat units is by fuel truck – a high priority UAF target, the army statement said.
According to a Tuesday statement from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, in the Akhtyrsk District of the northern part of Sumy Region, UAF intelligence confirmed more than 300 RF soldiers flatly refused attack orders, and turned around with 70 combat vehicles and headed back to Russia. The official statement, which KP could not confirm independently, did not give details on how the intelligence was collected.
Lyudmyla Denysova, the Ukrainian Parliaments human rights committee staffer, said RF forces are likewise grappling with a severe manpower shortage, due to heavy casualties suffered by RF troops since Russia’s 24 Feb. invasion of Ukraine, and shortages of volunteers within the RF to replace the casualties.
Denysova said in a Facebook post that in sections of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk Regions occupied by RF forces since 2014, authorities are carrying out mass mobilization of all men aged 18 through 65, and forcing these Ukrainian citizens into combat units, often without training.
Ukrainian official and social media in recent weeks have seen the regular appearance of new images and statements by purported men living in the “occupied territories” of Luhansk and Donetsk, and captured by UAF units, confirming RF authorities are pressing men into the ranks. The manpower shortfall is so severe that university students, normally a cohort not subject to military draft, are being forced into military units, specifically in the Luhansk Railroad Institute, and at the Luhansk medical university, Denysova said.
