‘We Were Sent As Meat,’ A Russian Soldier Says After His Vehicle Rolled Right In Front Of Two Ukrainian Tanks
Russian forces are advancing all along the front line. But the attacks are sloppy—and costly.
David Axe | Oct 30, 2024 | 05:07pm EDTOn Oct. 15, Russian marines from the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade counterattacked the eastern edge of the 270-mile salient that Ukrainian troops carved out of western Russia’s Kursk Oblast starting in early August.
Barreling headlong into the Ukrainian army—the 61st Mechanized Brigade and 17th Tank Brigade, apparently—the Russian marines met a wall of steel and explosives. One Russian BTR-82 wheeled APC rolled right up to a Ukrainian T-64 tank. The tank opened fire with its 125-millimeter cannon from tens of feet away, striking the BTR.
It was the “closest tank engagement I’ve ever seen!” wrote Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general. Dazed and wounded Russians stumbled out of the damaged and smoking BTR, right before a second Ukrainian tank put another 125-millimeter round into the vehicle.
Two days later, Ukrainian troops discovered one of the BTR’s passengers lying nearby, half-dead. “Honestly, I was so relieved,” the 19-year-old Russian soldier said from his hospital bed, presumably somewhere in Ukraine.
The Russian recalled the skirmish that nearly killed him. “We were on a BTR, then boom,” he said. “I couldn’t see anything. I thought I lost my leg. It was cut off later. Somehow I escaped the BTR.”
That the BTR’s crew failed to notice the Ukrainian tanks—or recognize them as Ukrainian, at least—wasn’t just bad luck on the part of the crew. It’s part of a trend across the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 32-month wider war on Ukraine. In mid-October, Ukrainian tanks scored point-blank hits on attacking Russian vehicles on both sides of the Kursk salient . . .
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/10/30/we-were-sent-as-meat-a-russian-soldier-says-after-his-vehicle-rolled-right-in-front-of-two-ukrainian-tanks/
