Analysts say the dictator is using Wagner’s heavy casualties, reports of bad morale and war crimes to distract the public from similar or possibly worse problems in the Russian military.
“Most of the Russian coverage of the battles for Bakhmut focuses mainly on the heavy losses of the Wagnerites, which allows the Russian Ministry of Defense to hide or downplay other losses of Russian forces,” the report says.
The ISW also indicates that the Ministry of Defense, in turn,
The Institute for the Study of War explains that Prigozhin has earned a bad reputation for treating his forces like cannon fodder, and his public pleas for ammunition are unlikely to make service in the ranks of the “Wagnerites” attractive to recruits.
- Iranian state media announced on March 11 that Iran had completed an agreement to buy Su-35 fighter jets from Russia.
- Russian forces conducted limited ground strikes along the Kupyansk-Svatovo-Kremennaya line.
- Russian troops continued offensive operations near Bakhmut.
- Russian troops conducted ground strikes near Avdiivka and along the western outskirts of Donetsk.
- A Russian milblogger said that there is a high level of desertion among the forces of the Special Forces.
- The British Ministry of Defense on March 12 reported that Russian troops from the eastern regions of Russia die in Ukraine on average forty times more than Russian troops from Moscow. The Kazakh and Tatar minorities make up 75 percent of Russian military casualties from the Astrakhan region.
- Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk said that Russian officials illegally deported 2,161 Ukrainian orphans to Russia. According to her, the total number of children deported to Russia could be about 150,000.
