Wild Day in the Wildlands of Ukraine

This is a ‘brief’ update report that I just had to do after what was one of the wildest days of the war thus far, in terms of the sheer absurdity of events.

First, we had the next Ukrainian incursion attempt into Belgorod region which was an absolute cluster of an event as it was filled with a sheer soundwall of propaganda and zany circumstances.

First, the Ukrainian units posing as the ‘RDK’ posted footage of themselves supposedly inside the small border village of Novaya Tavolzhanka in the Belgorod region. But the footage was then debunked by the Russian side as being faked, because Russian correspondents and journalists quickly noticed that the houses the Ukrainian troops were pretending to skulk around in did not actually exist in that village. Most notably, there was a house with a certain street number 23 which reportedly does not exist in that town, nor do the taller looking buildings seen in the background. It was decided this was a psyop filmed elsewhere.

It’s not clear from the blurry screenshot but the above house number was debunked as fake by Russian reporters.

However, not long after, the assailants posted footage of what they claimed to be captured Russian border troops, which they were treating as hostages in an attempt to blackmail the Belgorod region governor, Gladkov, into “meeting them” at a certain time and place. Initially it was stated that Russian forces captured some of the Ukrainians as well, and the UA troops were trying to setup an exchange, but I’m not sure if there was any truth to that because the next video the Ukrainians released, showing upwards of 10+ claimed captives did not appear to indicate any such exchange but rather the desire to meet the governor for a ‘small talk’. They did mention an exchange, but only in the context of using these new Russian captives for the future exchange fund, at least as I understand it.

Here’s the subtitled video of the terrorists’ first message followed by the Belgorod governor’s response:

The third longer video which they released later, and which appears to show more Russian captures was not subtitled but here is a rough translation:

«Well, friends, I just returned from a new one, as we expected, Mr. Gladkov did not consider it necessary, did not find the courage to exchange his precious time for life and freedom, as he managed to put it, our boys. Here are those very boys of yours that the master killed with our hands in his video. As you have noticed, during my absence, your boys in our captivity have become much more. These Russian men, not for their free purpose, can. Soon the whole region and injustice will come to them, debauchery, then perhaps in the near future they will become our ranks, the ranks of those who will liberate Russia, unlike Mr. Evgeny Viktorovich Prigogine, just by no means found the courage for himself and was ready to agree to our conditions, you are the lord of the conditions, we will no longer dictate also I want to note that our governor does not control the situation in the region, he does not know how many of your captive boys are in our captivity, we will communicate with those who make decisions in Moscow. We have already decided the fate of these guys. They will be transferred to the Ukrainian side for the exchange procedure.»

Some have speculated, at first at least, that the video and captures could be fake. However, governor Gladkov’s response clearly appears to validate the fact that POWs were taken.

But the AFU units were said to suffer many casualties as well so it’s difficult to know who truly got the better of the exchange. Videos appeared showing their transports being hit by strikes and unverified reports indicate at least some moderate level of vehicle losses and casualties as they slunk back to their stronghold in the town of Volchansk on the other side of the border.

As for people I’ve seen on social media wondering how is it that Ukraine is able to take Russian POWs in such ‘raids’ across the border. It’s difficult to know for certain how they did it in this circumstance, but the general idea is that the infiltrator has the element of surprise and the area is covered with forests. So that means typically they can go through the forests and get “behind” a certain lightly-manned checkpoint, for instance, and then surround it, giving the Russian troops there no pathway to retreat.

This is the main problem with this particular border area. It’s that in this current spring/summer weather, the trees are in full bloom and it’s heavily forested here, unlike the huge empty fields of lower Ukraine. So this gives the UA infiltrators the ability to gain a lot of initiative and the element of surprise while hiding from surveillance drones in the tree cover.

Secondly, there’s a huge disparity in troop skill levels as the Russian border guards may be some middling local militia types whereas the infiltration teams Ukraine sends are the most elite special forces, typically made up of the hungriest and most driven mercenaries.

This fact was also revealed today with a new report that showed a Polish mercenary group admitting to being part of the vanguard of the earlier attacks on Grayvoron, Belgorod region last week. The Polish group even posted videos of themselves during the attack and an online message stating that it was an honor to do so, though they later deleted the statement.

Furthermore, Russian units in the area have reported that the intercepted communications feature a lot of English language being spoken as well as other foreign languages, which means that elite mercenaries are heavily involved. If you look at the video above of the captured Russian troops, they look like a ragtag force of mostly older men.

So the big question is, why is the border so poorly manned? If Russia knows that highly elite mercenary special forces are aiming to attack them, why aren’t they beefing up the border security?

Well, firstly, the whole point of these raids is for Russia to divest other regions of needed troops and bring them here so that Ukraine can try to launch their counter-offensive against weakened lines. Russia is trying to handle the border problem with as few troops as needed without falling exactly into UA’s trap.

However, even with that said, there are some mysteries that remain, that even I can’t figure out. For instance, here’s a sensible complaint from one Russian analyst:

New columns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine go to the border with the Belgorod region

According to sources from Ordinary Tsarism, small columns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine passed through Stary Saltov in the Kharkiv region all night. The columns were heavy equipment and artillery. Locals say they haven't seen anything like it in over six months.

All these columns go to Volchansk, from where they attack the Russian border area, including the long-suffering Shebekino.

Sensitive strikes are indeed delivered by Russian aviation, but extremely few for this direction.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine move freely almost to the very border, where artillery is already beginning to seriously work on them. Also, aircraft of the Armed Forces of Ukraine regularly fly over the Kharkiv region. Over the past 24 hours, up to five sorties have been observed in various parts of the region.

All this testifies to increased pressure on the Belgorod direction. New attempts to break into Russian territory can be expected in the near future.

We remind you that the main routes of movement of Ukrainian troops are well known, as well as bridges and other communications, through which the Russian Aerospace Forces for some reason refuse to work.

The enemy can and should be destroyed on the distant approaches, otherwise we will once again get an unpleasant surprise.

He describes the following route of AFU convoys heading from Kharkov up to Vovchansk and into Shebekino. There are bridges there over the Donets river that Russia could theoretically hit but is not doing so:

I could argue that Russia is not hitting those bridges because it intends to use them itself in the not too distant future for crossing back over into Kharkov once it starts its own offensives. However, it’s possible during such time the AFU would in turn blow the bridges themselves as they retreat, so there may be no way to save them anyway.

Also, a separate report has now shown that Belgorod region has overtaken Donetsk in the amount of shelling it now receives daily:

❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Belgorod region overtook the Donetsk agglomeration by 20% in terms of shelling intensity

Data for today is not yet available, but so far the sad statistics for the week looks like this: 2,383 shells on the Donetsk agglomeration against 3,035 shells on the Belgorod region.

The pressure on the Russian border area will only intensify: we have repeatedly written that this is a sore point, which the enemy is putting pressure on.

But the report correctly points out what I said before:

The Russian Ministry of Defense and other power structures are forcing to shift the focus of attention to the border with the Kharkiv region, stretching out forces and means, and forcing them to waste resources. Panic is being sown among the population - in general, they are implementing the plan of the already ongoing counteroffensive.

Ex-Russians from the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Legion of Freedom of Russia, hired cannon fodder from the Polish Volunteer Corps and the International Legion are used as a media cover to promote ideas about the liberation struggle for the Russian borderlands.

❗️ There is no “liberation struggle” on the part of the ex-Russians and there cannot be. The operation to put pressure on the Russian frontier in this area is being carried out by British specialists and tech experts - and all this rubbish promoted in the media space is just a crappy hammer with a cracked handle.

So, yes, Belgorod, or rather Shebekino, is being hammered right now in every way. From nonstop shelling which has now killed multiple civilians over the past few days, to these daily incursions which are aggravating and trying to provoke disproportionate responses. And many quick-tempered people on the Russian side are indignant with the Russian MOD for not responding with more authority.

However, as I said before, these are all exactly the AFU’s aims in these operations. We’ve said all along, even months ago, that prior to the offensive, such psychological and asymmetrical warfare would massively increase. And now it has. The AFU has few options left and they are acting as nothing more than a terror guerilla force now, resorting to civilian strikes and provocateur actions more than ever before to make up for their failings on the field.

But as usual, today’s incursion appeared to mostly be a smokescreen for another large failed probing assault in Zaporozhye. Ukrainian forces attacked south of Velyka Novosilka and they were brutally rebuffed, having lost a total, by some estimates, of 50 vehicles and 250 men.

Videos like this one showed at least one small portion of the assault. Here are the relevant screencaps from the video showing some of the vehicle and armor losses, which include MaxxPros, Humvees, and T-72Bs:

And another huge batch destroyed in a separate area near Volnovakha:

So, Ukraine captured a few border troops in a PR stunt, but they lost dozens of armor/vehicles and potentially hundreds of men in the same day—who really won the day? As per usual, they win the Twitter war.

Not to mention that non-stop Russian strikes are taking out even far more materiel than we can see through such videos. If you recall, in yesterday’s report I ended with the note that a new round of missile strikes was beginning. And today we had confirmation from Ukraine’s airforce spokesman himself that a major UA airfield near Kirovograd was hit:

Of course, to save face he has to give the obligatory lie that they shot down some standard number of the missiles, but this is all fake. They didn’t shoot down a single one. We know this because Ukraine uses any conceivable opportunity to boast and on the rare occasion they actually do shoot down a Russian missile they typically show the actual wreckage.

When missiles are shot down, they are often in ‘whole’ condition because their warheads do not actually go off. We’ve seen this occasionally when UA did successfully shoot down one of Russia’s flagship missiles, they dance all over it and post a plethora of videos.

Either way, that’s all to say that the doomers, propagandists, and 2D bloggers will have a field day with today’s little PR stunt but will conveniently ignore that Ukraine incurred massive losses from air strikes, failed offensives, etc.

Here’s the official Russian MOD writeup for the failed Zaporozhye offensive today:

[6/4/2023 6:27 PM]

The Ministry of Defense about the attempts of the enemy to go on the offensive in the Zaporozhye direction.

On the morning of June 4, the enemy launched a large-scale offensive in 5 sectors of the front in the YuzhnoDonetsk direction with the introduction of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades from the strategic reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the support of other military units and subunits.

In total, 6 mechanized and 2 enemy tank battalions were involved.

The enemy's goal was to break through our defenses on the most vulnerable, in his opinion, sector of the front. The enemy did not achieve his tasks, he had no success

As a result of skillful and competent actions of the Eastern Group of Forces, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to more than 250 personnel, 16 tanks, 3 infantry fighting vehicles, 21 armored fighting vehicles.

The commander of the united group of troops, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Gerasimov during this period was at one of the forward command posts in this direction.

[6/4/2023 6:41 PM]

By the way, an important detail. If, according to the Ministry of Defense, Gerasimov was at one of the command posts in this direction at the time the enemy attacks began in the Zaporozhye direction, then our command has a very high level of awareness of the enemy’s deployment and plans. There are no coincidences in such matters.

And as you can see in the videos, much of the losses were visually confirmed.

Lest I be accused of “coping” though, keep in mind I do think the Belgorod situation is dangerous and unhealthy. And I don’t think Russian leadership is doing absolutely everything they can or handling it in the absolutely best fashion.

One particular issue on that front is that Russia is forced to use actual conscripts, at least to my understanding. If you’ll recall, Russian conscripts are prohibited by law from participating in the SMO zone. Yes, that small technicality reads not that they’re prohibited from the SMO itself or any hostilities, but simply prohibited from being sent to the SMO zone, which in practice means Ukraine.

However, on the Russian border, they are not inside Ukraine, and so it’s said that Russia is not only using them but one or two may have already previously either died or been captured. But, it’s important to note these conscripts do not make up the majority of the units but are simply part of the border zones. And this complicates matters for the Russian MOD and perhaps even indicates a weakness—that the Russian MOD perhaps didn’t quite think the border situation all the way through as clearly as they could have, relegating it to the back burner in favor of other more exigent priorities.

So that is all to say that the Belgorod situation is a bit of a mess, and Ukraine is certainly using it to their fullest advantage, sowing all kinds of issues, which is precisely their plan. However, we must not let it deter us from the overall battlefield which, in the grand scheme of things, vastly overshadows these minor border scuffles.

The other, and maybe bigger, issue was the other ‘wild’ occurrence today which was responsible for the title of this report.

Wagner’s Prigozhin just could not keep out of the spotlight. And in grand fashion he’s outdone himself like never before. He uploaded documents with an official complaint claiming that Russian forces tried to shoot at and mine Wagner vehicles ‘from the rear’ to prevent them from leaving Bakhmut. The translated version:

We all laughed and balked at the ridiculousness of the claim. Har, har, Yevgeny, that’s a good laugh. What a comedian. The Russian MOD perhaps laughed with us, and it seems it’s exactly what Prigozhin wanted, as he set the trap. In an interview elsewhere, he stated that he deliberately ‘saved the cherry on top’ to be revealed afterwards.

And the cherry he dropped was a mega bombshell. Wagner forces “captured” the Russian commander of the 72nd Brigade who, whilst drunk, was caught shooting at the Wagner vehicles with his men. Yes, you read that correctly: Wagner captured a Russian commander as a POW.

Okay, maybe that’s sensationalist. The truth is, we don’t actually know the full circumstances of this exchange. Some have theorized it may not even be Wagner that interrogated the man but rather he was reported to the local DPR authorities who took him in for questioning. Either way, here he is on video admitting to the crimes. Unfortunately, no official subtitles/translation exists yet so here was a somewhat scuffy auto machine translation:

Well, didn’t I say today was a clusterf##k? But you’ve gotta admit it’s entertaining.

Boris Rozhin aka Colonel Cassad writes:

Case for the military prosecutor's office.

Shooting at your own out of personal enmity + drunkenness at the front. This is a flyover.

Under Stalin - a direct road to the penal battalion.

But in general, the situation of the ongoing conflict between the leadership of the PMC "Wagner" and the Ministry of Defense continues to be unhealthy. The military-political leadership of the country must take measures to solve it.

It seems Prigozhin’s constant squawking about the enmity between Russian troops and Wagner were not empty bluster. There does appear to be great professional rivalry, but it should be said that rumors are much of that rivalry has to do with Prigozhin’s unprofessionally antagonistic comments towards this very 72nd Brigade.

You see, the 72nd are the ones Prigozhin absolutely chewed out and ridiculed publicly when he repeatedly said they were cowards who ran away from their positions during the final leg of the Bakhmut capture. These were the guys stationed on Wagner’s wings which Prigozhin infamously referenced in his daily rants.

What would you do if some civilian upstart pretending to be a military commander pulled your pants down in public, calling you cowards and disgracing your name? That’s not to say I’m siding with the 72nds or anyone. I’m simply saying that this is literally Prigozhin’s second hugely caustic internecine fight in just as many days, as, if you’ve read my report from yesterday you’d see he had already threatened the Chechens and bragged about how Wagner would destroy them in a ‘bloody fight’.

My point is, even if Prigozhin is right about many of his complaints, for instance that the 72nd retreated or what have you, the way he handled it, publicly shaming the brigade’s troops is certainly completely unprofessional and everyone knows he only did it to get under the MOD’s skin. Which means he basically used the troops of the 72nd as pawns to fight a war of words against the Russian MOD; and this doesn’t seem copacetic to me.

On top of which, it’s strange that on the day where Ukraine has scored its largest PR victory in a long time by capturing what amounted to Russian hostages (I use the term hostage rather than POW because of how the UA terror group subsequently tried to barter and negotiate the captured troops as in a classic hostage exchange negotiations) Prigozhin chooses to deal another massive PR blow to Russia in this way. If one didn’t know any better, one would think Prigozhin is working with the AFU. After all, they both captured Russian POWs today, no?

It’s extremely bizarre. But then, so is mining the Wagner roads and shooting at their cars. Though one must remember, such things are relatively common in war zones. The U.S. and its paramilitaries frequently killed each other in Iraq. Remember Pat Tillman? He was an army soldier killed by friendly U.S. troops who covered up his death and staged it as ‘enemy fire’ because he spoke out against the war. Many such incidents abound.

Either way, Wagner is certainly not making any friends on its own side, as now the Chechens have been incensed by them. We can expect in the future that any Russian unit which takes up flank or rear positions next to Wagner will continue retaliatory sabotaging actions. But the Russian MOD will probably have no choice but to send Wagner somewhere they can be kept out of trouble. They’re like a chained pitbull you have to point at the enemy and let them go, then run away and hope they cause as much damage as possible and none of it is to you.

By the way, no one still quite knows who or what this 72nd brigade even is, exactly. There’s next to no information about it and the only thing I can find is that it appears to be a part of the newly formed 3rd army corps which was a mostly volunteer unit formed in the wake of last year’s Kharkov assaults. My point being that the 72nd could very well be a volunteer brigade, which would explain many of its alleged problems. One of the reasons some claim they ‘retreated from the flanks’ was that they were undermanned and undergunned, not equipped with enough weaponry.

And it’s rumored that some of the friction with Wagner relates to this, as the 72nd and other nearby units all consider Wagner to basically be a spoiled mama’s boy group that receives everything they ask for, and way more than anyone else gets, not to mention that they’re shown favoritism by other generals and groups which give them their own ammo/supplies (this could, for instance, relate to the rumors of how Chechens and certain Russian generals like Mizintsev and Suvorikin were giving Wagner preferential treatment, sending them secret stocks of weapons above their allotment, etc.). They get their own aviation, missiles, tanks, thermobarics and everything in between, while ragtag groups like the 72nd are lucky to have shovels and small arms.

So when Prigozhin boasts that Wagner never retreats and other units give up their positions, it’s a bit unfair and disingenuous of him because the Wagner units are said to be the best equipped in the army, so of course they’re going to have a much easier time always advancing compared to units that aren’t even equipped for true ‘assault’ operations. So imagine being a volunteer, who isn’t even called for service, but signed up of your own volition to serve your country, and were under-trained and under-equipped compared to other units, and now you’ve got some loudmouth gangster type calling you a worthless coward and a disgrace who ran away from the line.

Either way, I can personally empathize with both positions simply because, even though Prigozhin does treat the war as some kind of personal mob fiefdom or mafia turf war, it still doesn’t take away the fact that many of his issues with the MOD could very well be genuine. After all, the Russian MOD is not free from blame; they should be in charge and handling these situations. But particularly when it comes to the newly mobilized and volunteer battalions, there is much to be desired in the way they’ve husbanded and utilized them thus far.

And by the way, under the cover of all this drama, Russia continued to gain territory in several directions. Not only did they restore all positions that were initially taken by Ukraine’s Zaporozhye push, which had initially claimed to have captured one small settlement just south of Velyka Novosilka:

But they advanced in several other directions, most notably gaining ground in the Kupyansk direction, where Russian forces were said to have crossed the river and captured some ground near Dvorichne:

Against the backdrop of today's attacks by the AFU along (https://t.me/rybar/48014) the entire front, another important event fell out of the agenda: Russian soldiers crossed the Oskol River and liberated the village of Novomlynsk in the Kupiansk sector.

There is still no official confirmation, however, given the presence of a bridgehead (https://t.me/rybar/47920) south of Dvurechnaya, controlled by the AFU, and ongoing battles nearby, this option is quite likely.

Most likely, the Russian fighters crossed the Oskol and occupied an important tactical height north of Novomlynsk: the village itself is in the lowlands and a direct assault without control over the dominant hill is meaningless. In this situation, the AFU had nothing left but to leave unfavorable positions.

🔻If the control of the Russian Armed Forces over Novomlynsk is confirmed, Russian units will have more and more prospects for the liberation of Dvurechnaya, an important settlement, without which the attack on Kupyansk is meaningless.

It will also make it possible to further expand the bridgehead near Oskol, including in the direction of Krasnoye 1st and Kamenka, villages where firing positions of the 1st Tank Brigade of the AFU are equipped.

All that’s left to be said is that the psyops, propaganda, and hybrid warfare attacks now seem to be hitting critical peaks. Ukraine even reportedly briefly hijacked Crimean airwaves today, broadcasting an ‘ominously foreboding’ message on TV screens that appeared to imply the coming offensive, or at least that’s how Ukrainian propagandists subsequently interpreted it:

That is all to say that things are at a fever pitch. The big NATO Air Defender games are one week away. So if there will ever be any Ukrainian offensive to speak of, it would be expected to launch at any moment. That means for now the wisest choice for the Russian MOD would be to ignore all provocations no matter how painful they may be and focus on the task at hand. That’s not to say leave the civilians in Belgorod to die. All accommodations and precautions possible should be made. However, taking the eye off the ball at this critical moment of moments is exactly what the AFU is gunning for and Russia should not give it to them.

And by the way, despite his disparaging slant, even Strelkov of all people agrees with the sentiment that the Russian MOD should not give in to the AFU’s goading attempts. Read the last part of his statement:

Strelkov: "Due to the massive shelling and fighting in the Belgorod region, the Russian government found itself in the position of a"worm caught on a fork". The enemy "put on the ears" of a densely populated and fairly prosperous (by Russian standards) region, and the Kremlin can't do anything to prevent Belgorod region from turning into the same permanent battlefield that the Donbass has been for 9 years.
After all, if you scrape together reserves (and it will take a lot of them), put together a strike group and try to create a "security zone" on the territory of the Kharkiv region (with a depth of 30-40 kilometers (at least) - then, firstly, it is not a fact that it will work (it is always easier to hand over territories than to take them), and secondly, the entire collected grouping as a result (whatever the result is-what is successful, what is not) "get stuck" in this sector of the front and use it as a reserve will not work from the word at all. And the enemy-just what it needs - it has enough "second-rate" units and formations to support the newly formed front line without much stress, without touching the shock reserve corps, ready to throw in the direction of the Sea of Azov.
That is, to launch an offensive on the border of the Belgorod region is a "game according to the rules of the enemy" with the corresponding final result. The General Staff of the Russian Federation and the Kremlin probably understand this."

And if the AFU’s offensive does come, recall how they promised to start it with a massive drone barrage. Well, here’s the crazy amount of FPV drones the Russian side is now natively manufacturing and pouring into their troops:

And a quick unrelated note, few commented on the fact that the 2023 Bilderberg meeting had occurred a week or so ago in Portugal. Interestingly, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba was spotted at the meeting:

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba departing Lisbon following the #Bilderberg Meeting and high-level intergovernmental meetings in Portugal. #Ukraine

Full video of him being confronted leaving the meeting below:

Interesting, huh?

Lastly:

I suppose it would only be fitting to finish off the report on a similarly absurd note. Two Taiwanese mercenaries in the AFU fought, one critically wounding the other with grenades before escaping the country:

Taiwanese mercenaries were fighting with each other

Taiwanese mercenary Cheng Xi was wounded by shrapnel from a grenade on 4/17/23, but not in a combat, but during an old conflict with another Taiwanese mercenary, Pan Liwei.

Both mercenaries had been recruited through connections in the French Foreign Legion, where they had previously served together and had already conflicted.

Pan Liwei came to Ukraine first, and in September 2022 he was recruited into Bravo3 and Chen Xi's unit.

According to Chen, Liwei tricked him into talking to him and met with three grenades. Chen sustained wounds, but another Taiwanese man Chen brought with him to the rendezvous ended up in the hospital with shrapnel wounds to his lungs.

Liwei was detained by Ukrainian police and could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Chen himself had already fled back to Taiwan in May 2023.

And not to be outdone, two Ukrainian women in France hospitalized each other when they both mistook the other as Russians. Doh!

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