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A Russian battalion in Kharkiv’s Balakliia sent out calls for more drones in late July as Ukraine stepped up its eastern counteroffensive with US weapons support and some troops were eventually held back by a software installation, according to a new Reuters investigation.
A trove of thousands of military documents left behind by defeated Russian forces in Kharkiv, which retreated in mid-September, and obtained by Reuters, shed light on their brief torture regime and, later, their failed aerial capabilities.
The troops asked their superiors in Russia for more drones as Ukrainian forces increasingly relied on US HIMARS missile launchers in the summer ahead of their northern counteroffensive, according to Reuters.
“Quadcopters!!! Urgent!” a soldier wrote to his superior on July 19, according to Reuters. Quadcopter drones are not military grade, which provided a sign of desperation for troops before the Ukrainian counterattack. Drones are often used by Russia as they are low-cost, short-range rechargeable drones intended for launching small arms. They are also used in part to offset the high cost of explosive, high-tech surveillance drones, such as Iran’s kamikaze drones, according to the New York Times.
According to Reuters, the next day, the forces received four Mavic-3 quadcopter drones, but they could not be used immediately as needed. The soldiers, while under fire, had to install new software for the drones and then train 15 soldiers on how to use them.
Other notes obtained by Reuters showed soldiers begging for ammunition, with one soldier complaining that “the machine gun still won’t work if it doesn’t have bullets in it.”
Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in northeastern Kharkiv began in late summer and intensified in early September. By mid-September towns such as Balakliia and Izium had been liberated and the Russian leadership announced that it was withdrawing from almost all of the Kharkov region and was moving troops.
Russia had occupied areas in the Kharkiv region starting from the first days of the war in late February, until the spring when Ukraine began to push back. According to the Associated Press, at least 257 men, 225 women and 19 children were killed by Russia during its occupation of the area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that within days of the September counteroffensive, Ukraine had recaptured more than 1,158 square miles of territory from Russian forces. Along with sound military strategy and a steady flow of weapons, Ukraine said it had stepped up a southern offensive as a disinformation tactic to catch Russian troops in the northeast by surprise.
“[It] it was a big special disinformation operation,” Taras Berezovets, a press officer for Ukraine’s special forces, told the Guardian. “In the meantime [our] the children in Kharkiv were given the best western weapons, mainly American ones.”
