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The life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is just 4 hours, says a former US Marine.
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He said the fighting is particularly deadly in the war-torn city of Bakhmut, dubbed a “meat grinder”.
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Ukraine resisted the Russian advance on the city before the first anniversary of the war.
The life expectancy of a front-line soldier in eastern Ukraine is just four hours, a former US Marine fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbass. Tell hv news.
“It was very bad on the ground. Too many casualties. Life expectancy is about four hours on the front line,” said American Troy Offenbaker.
The war-torn city of Pakhmut in eastern Ukraine has seen some of the bloodiest fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor began nearly a year ago. The battle for the city, which had a pre-war population of about 73,000 people, is the longest of the war.
The fighting in Bakhmut was so bad, Offenbaker said, that he called it a “meat grinder”. In early January, a senior US military official described In and around this city, which seems to have limited strategic importance for both Russia and Ukraine, as “truly brutal”.
“You’re talking about thousands and thousands of artillery shells fired between the two sides,” the official said at the time. “In a lot of cases, you know, you look at, you know, several thousand artillery shells in one day that’s exchanged.”
Bakhmut was a major target for the Russian offensive forces, which included both the regular army and the notorious Wagner Group, a private mercenary organization linked to the Kremlin. Russia is under “increasing political pressure” to score some victories before the anniversary of the invasion, according to an intelligence update released Monday from Britain’s Ministry of Defense.
UK intelligence said “Russia is likely to claim that Bakhmut was captured to go along with the memory, regardless of the reality on the ground.” subscriber.
Bakhmut, located in the occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine, has been under siege by Russian forces for most of the total war. Late last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky He said It has been reduced to “burnt ruins”.
Despite the Russian forces’ months-long attempt to surround the city, the Ukrainian forces put up a tenacious defense and so far prevented the Russians from capturing it. Meanwhile, Western intelligence estimates that Russia may have suffered as many as 200,000 injuries During the fighting in Ukraine, up to 60 thousand soldiers were killed.
“They have lost in some categories more than half of their military hardware in this war, and more than a million of the brightest and best Russians have left the country,” Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, said earlier. week. “So what does this war bring to the average Russian? Nothing.”
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