Tom Røseth, head intelligence lecturer at the Norwegian Defense College, has previously said that it is entirely possible that up to 500 Russian soldiers die every day in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has been nicknamed the “meat grinder”.
According to Western intelligence estimates, the Wagner group is behind the fighting on the Russian side in the area, and it has prisoners recruited from Russian prisons to fight. Now it might seem like they’ve had enough.
It was Danish TV 2 that first mentioned the case.
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A video posted on Twitter by Christo Grozev, journalist of the investigative magazine Bellingcat, shows Russian soldiers who are supposed to be part of the Wagner group in Bakhmut. They are not particularly pleased with the leadership, especially Valery Vasilievich Gerasimov, who is the current chief of the Russian defense staff.
– Damn you, they say aloud about Gerasimov, before another continues:
– You’re a piece of shit. Where are our grenades? We have completely run out of grenades in Bakhmut, says the other soldier.
The Wagner Group is a group of private mercenaries, largely receiving their orders from the Russian authorities.
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Jacob Kaarsbo is a senior analyst for Tenketanken Europe and former chief analyst of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service. He has little good to say about the working conditions of Russian soldiers in Bakhmut.
– These videos indicate that Russian prisoners have had enough of being exploited and used as cannon fodder. The Wagner group lost many soldiers in the headless attacks on Bakhmut. The Russians appear to be completely indifferent to the casualty figures, because it is “only” the prisoners they have released from prisons, Kaarsbo tells television 2.
As early as September Nettavisen wrote about the brutal battles for the city. The American think tank “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW extension), then wrote that the bombing of the city had been going on for some time and called it useless.
Bakhmut is considered strategically important because the city serves as a railway junction. If the Russians gain control of the city, it will be easier for the Russians to occupy more land in Donetsk county.
– In that case, Ukraine will take new positions further west, but if Bakhmut falls, it will not change the course of the war, Røseth told Nettavisen in the middle of December.
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