Tag: Infantry

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front + The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.

While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say

Related:

Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city

But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.

Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.

Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.

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Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.

WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight

The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.

The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say

Army cutting force by 24K in major restructuring

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

They can’t fill the positions, so they’re eliminating them!

Army cutting force by 24K in major restructuring

“We’re moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency; we want to be postured for large-scale combat operations,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters Tuesday morning at an event in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

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To do that, the service seeks to phase out around 32,000 roles, with about 3,000 cuts from special operations forces and another 10,000 from Stryker brigade combat teams, cavalry squadrons, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades, the latter meant to train foreign forces.

In addition, the service found 10,000 engineer jobs and related positions linked to counterinsurgency missions it can cut; it will slash about 2,700 roles from units that don’t usually deploy; and it will decrease the number of transients, trainees, holdees and students by approximately 6,300. 

Officials stressed that the planned reductions are “to authorizations (spaces), and not to individual soldiers (faces),” meaning already empty roles. 

“The Army is not asking current soldiers to leave,” according to the document. “As the Army builds back end strength over the next few years, most installations will likely see an increase in the number of soldiers actually stationed there.” 

The plan also looks to add back 7,500 troops in missions seen as more critical, such as air-defense and counterdrone units and five new task forces for better capabilities in intelligence, cyber, and long-range strikes.  

Three of the task forces would fall under U.S. Army Pacific — with the Indo-Pacific theater considered the most important for national security in the years ahead — one will be within U.S. Army Europe-Africa, and the last likely focused on U.S. Central Command in the Middle East. 

The plans indicate a major shift within the Army as the military anticipates future conflicts as large-scale operations against more advanced adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. They also reflect the service’s struggles with recruiting, a phenomenon happening across the military.