06 Apr: Oops! Confused Russian Pilots Bombed Their Own Assault Groups - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 773: Apr 06

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Bakhmut direction.

The most intensive fights are taking place on the northern flank of Chasiv Yar.

Here, Russian forces conducted a series of powerful mechanized assaults and officially started their next great battle – the Battle for Chasiv Yar. Russian forces seem to have thrown every unit at their disposal – professionals and newly mobilized soldiers alike – because while some Russian assault units coordinated well, others had such disastrous coordination that most of them died due to friendly fire.

Last time, I told you how Russians managed to advance along the railways and reach the small forest just five hundred meters away from the stronghold.

According to the freshest updates, Russians tried to maintain their pace of advancement with the aim of entering Chasiv Yar from the east. In order to set conditions for the next wave of assaults, Russians conducted artillery preparation on the Ukrainian trenches and bombed the surrounding Ukrainian defensive positions with glide bombs.

After suppressing Ukrainian fire, Russians sent ahead a column of infantry fighting vehicles with infantrymen on board into assault. Russians sent forward a column of eight BMP infantry fighting vehicles, which is twice as much as before. The vehicles tried to keep their distance from each other while maintaining high speed on the road, which made them harder to target by Ukrainian artillery fire. As the assault group got closer, it split into two units, where one BMP drove directly to the town. This lone BMP was deployed as a decoy in order to divert the focus of the Ukrainian fire from the main assault group. The lone BMP that drove to Chasiv Yar was subsequently destroyed by artillery fire once it stopped, but it managed to dismount an assault squad of Russians, which quickly found themselves under fire as well. The suicide squad was too small, with only around seven troops that a BMP could carry.

Even if they were not killed by the Ukrainian strikes, other units could not resupply them due to intensive fire, and it would not be worth the risk of more losses to save a squad, so the Russian troops were left on their own and were likely killed. Meanwhile, the other 7 BMPs dismounted their infantry in the small forest. From here, Russians would try to take control of the forest in order to continue their attempt at taking control of the Kanal district.

Combat footage reveals that in one such assault, three BMPs were trying to flee from Ukrainian artillery. Even though all three vehicles successfully dismounted their infantry, the Russian soldiers were immediately targeted by Ukrainian precision strikes. To make things worse, Russian Sukhoi Twenty-Five close air support aircraft bombed their own forces by accident, minimizing the chances of survival of Russian troops to zero. This displays a lack of coordination and poor communication. Due to complex Russian bureaucracy and centralized command with long decision-making, it takes up to four hours for air support to arrive on strike at designated targets, which, in most cases, are relocated by that time. So, by the time the Russian close air support conducted the airstrike, the Russian ground forces moved into the targeted zone in trying to adjust to the fighting conditions. Furthermore, the centralized decision-making in relation to the deployment of air support cuts off regular units from regular soldiers and their platoon leaders from having any form of communication with close air support, thus preventing them from calling off air support that can endanger friendly forces.

Ukrainians knew that Russians would launch direct frontal assaults on the town and dug trenches in front of high-rise buildings and along Zelenaya and Gorbatova Streets while camouflaged observation points were set up in high-rise buildings for correction of artillery fire and guidance of drone strikes. While Russians did manage to enter eastern parts of Chasiv Yar, it was just temporary, and their only realistic gains are the positions within the forest between the town of Bohdanivka. The Russian goal is to establish control of the Kanal district of the town, but such head-on assaults on the town would be unsustainable, and it is questionable if Russians can bypass positions that were being fortified for months in advance due to high-rise buildings and trenches...