Russian Unit Waiting for Commander's Speech Struck by HIMARS: Report
Russian pro-war bloggers are livid over a report that a unit was made to wait hours for a commander's speech.
The Russian division came under fire from Ukrainian HIMARS while gathering, per the bloggers.
While the unit was reported to have suffered heavy casualties, exact losses haven't been revealed.
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Russian military bloggers said a Russian unit suffered heavy casualties from Ukrainian artillery while waiting in formation for a commander to give a motivational speech.
The claim triggered a flurry of furious posts Wednesday from the pro-war bloggers, who slammed the unnamed commander, The Moscow Times first reported.
According to the military blogger Rybar, the incident occurred in Kreminna, a city in Luhansk, just before a Russian division was about to begin an assault.
"For two hours, people stood in a crowd in one place and waited for the division commander to give his motivating speech," Rybar wrote.
But instead of hearing their commander's words, the division took heavy fire from Ukrainian HIMARS and artillery, the blogger wrote.
Several reports say casualties over the incident may have been as high as 200, with as many as 100 dead, Insider's Sam Fellman reported. Rybar claimed that more people had died on this occasion than during several days of heavy fighting in the region.
"You can't stand in a column for two hours in one place!" wrote another blogger under the name Two Majors. "What are you doing, father commanders, you people in charge!"
"We are at war with our own stupidity and sloppiness, coated with fancy reports from above," the blogger continued.
Another Russian military blogger, known by the pseudonym Older than Edda, had harsh words for the unidentified commander.
"If by the middle of the second year of the war, there are commanders who bring columns to the front and gather personnel in one big pile, waiting for the enemy artillery to strike, then such commanders must be shot before the formation, even if they are colonels or generals," the blogger wrote.
Radio Free Europe reported Wednesday that some influential pro-war bloggers had begun blaming Maj. Gen. Zurab Akhmedov, though they provided no evidence to show he was responsible for the incident.
Ahmedov previously commanded Russia's 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet. The brigade suffered heavy casualties in Donetsk under Ahmedov, including the loss of some 300 men in a matter of days, according to an open letter written by the brigade to the government.
Kirill Fedorov, another Russian blogger, posted a photo of Ahmedov, highlighting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had met military bloggers the day before and made pointed comments about some Russian generals being "inefficient."
Yet another blogger, who writes under the name Notes of Midshipman Ptichkin, complained that Ahmedov had received a promotion from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu even after his failures in Donetsk.
Russian military bloggers appear to be growing increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin's military mistakes in Ukraine, amid continued reports documenting failures or oversights that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Russian troops.
Representatives for Russia's defense ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
Source: Business Insider
