I remember that Lieutenant Colonel, probably from the LPR Army, who was captured during the Kharkiv counteroffensive back in September and was mistaken for Sychevoi by several “sources”.

Hi and thank you! Ukrainians have been often talking about potential Russian counterattacks south of Bakhmut over the last 2 weeks, there was definitely one yesterday, nice to see it wasn’t a success. This video would confirm the deployment around Klishchiivka of the 102nd Motorized Regiment (in this case, of the 1307th Territorial Regiment which should be attached to the 102nd) of the 150th Division from Marinka, which followed the 68th Tank Regiment of the same division already sent during June. Both the latter regiment and the 80th Tank Regiment (sent from Kreminna) field T-90Ms, so I would say that elements of at least one of these units were definitely involved in the attack. In general the Russians have sent a lot of reserves in the last two months around Bakhmut, particularly in the southern sector, including lots of VDV units. Today, counting the territorial (mobilized) regiments too, I would say that I find it possible that there are no fewer Russians than Ukrainians in the area. But at the same time this tells us that the Russians have had to commit significant reserves in the area from elsewhere and they had to as a result of difficulties in the sector.

I read from Russian sources that the village would have been abandoned entirely between the early morning and the afternoon of August 13, and the last units to leave would have been detachments of the 40th and 155th Naval Infantry Brigades (brought in from Vuhledar?). The village in the last few days was defended mostly by Storm Z units attached to the Pacific Fleet. There was also a social media controversy between the Vostok Battalion and the 36th Army over the defense of Urozhaine. At the moment, the southern part of the settlement is supposed to be no-man’s land.

Russian Naval Infantry is basically used in the same way as VDV - to provide troops competent enough to be exploited for counterattacks or particularly hostile battles. It’s also less autonomous compared to VDV, and dependent on the Armies to which the various naval infantry brigades are attached, whereas the VDV operates more as a separate Corps regardless of the sectors in which they are deployed, afaik.

We need to consider two things: naval infantry brigades are small in size. For example, the 336th Brigade (that is in the second line in the Velyka Novosilka sector and at the moment it’s still fresh) in peacetime consisted of about 1500 men, now pretty surely more having received Storm Z units though.

At the same time, Vuhledar is always associated with the 155th NIB and to a lesser extent with the 40th, but of course they weren’t alone there and only part of the losses sustained during the two failed attacks in November and especially February are theirs. Elements of the 36th and 29th Armies, as well as the 3rd Corps, were certainly involved. By Mediazona’s figures the Russian marines had more casualties in November than in February in fact. In general naval infantry and VDV surely had very heavy losses during the conflict, but not to the point of ceasing to exist as operational formations.

Afaik the losses were replenished with the mobilized, but probably the better quality ones, such as those who had served there in the past. The Russian Army at the front today consists largely of mobilized men. The quality of these varies greatly. You have the former paratroopers in the VDV, a good part of the personnel of the 42nd Motorized Division are mobilized too as far as I read, yet they are having a good perfomance. Then you have the mobilized from the territorial regiments who are pretty bad in terms of capabilities.

As for Novodonetske, as far as we know, it should be the border between the sectors of the 37th MRB and 40th NIB… The former stretches from Novodonetske to Urozhaine while the latter is concentrated around Novomaiorske and extends from Urozhaine to the Vuhledar sector. The 155th NIB on the other hand was always in Vuhledar along with (the rest of) the 29th Army, I find it very interesting that detachments from this brigade were deployed in Urozhaine. Probably, according to what the Ukrainians say, elements from this brigade are used as a “fire fighters” to be sent to the most difficult directions between Velyka Novosilka and Vuhledar. According to what I have read, they exploited the convicts of Storm Z for the urban battle of the last week and then used squads of regular marines to cover the retreat of other units such as the Cascade and Vostok Battalions and perhaps elements of the 60th MRB.

The controversy of the last days was that Khodakovsky and the “Military Informant” Telegram channel accused the 37th Brigade of failing to intervene in defense of Urozhaine and having a part of its personnel drunk in the rear. The latter also doubled down by saying that: the 37th Brigade allegedly ran from its areas of responsibility around Urozhaine; Ukrainian gear captured in the area (e.g. AMX-10RC) would actually be the marines' work for which the 37th took credit; that this brigade was very seriously at fault for having lost territory captured by marines around Vuhledar back in the autumn/winter. Recall that the 36th Army, of which the 37th MRB and 5th TB are part, wants to retain the latter brigade for the defense of Kermenchyk. “Voin_dv” which is a Telegram channel close to the Eastern Mlitary District dismissed the accusations, saying that the Pacific Fleet marines have nothing to recriminate to the 37th Brigade and accusing the DPR-related units of wanting to shift the blame to others (even though the channel acknowledged that the latters fought well).

For everything else, I totally agree! Russian strategy has been based since April 2022 on the combined use of expendable personnel + regulars if not elite units. Who is better suited to defend a village maybe considered already lost and under heavy Ukrainian artillery fire than Storm Z? Their goal with these desperate defenses is to bleed as many Ukrainian personnel as possible. These defenses are still done quite reasonably anyway, though - for instance they still retreat before risking of finding themselves surrounded.