Balakliia, Ukraine:
When Russian troops withdrew from the eastern Ukraine city of Balakliia in late 2022, pursued by Ukrainian troops and under artillery fire, they left behind an ill-equipped group of volunteers to monitor their retreat.
The force of about fifty men came from the National Army Combat Reserve – known by its Russian acronym BARS – a loose collection of units totaling several thousand fighters that the Russian Ministry of Defense has deployed in Ukraine to supplement the regular armed forces.
About four hours of footage from a bodycam worn by one of the fighters, obtained by Reuters, provides a rare firsthand view of a BARS unit's combat operations, according to three military experts who reviewed the video to make a judgment to give information to the news agency about the military capacity of the unit.
The invasion of Ukraine marked the first time BARS, founded in 2015, has deployed units in combat. The video, coupled with interviews with four platoon members, shows that the BARS unit had to defend Balakliia without heavy weapons or air support, poor communications and confused coordination with the regular army.
“Where is our air force?” asked one of the BARS fighters. His squad, tasked with defending an intersection north of the city, shared a can of charcuterie stew during a lull in the Ukrainian shelling.
Squad leader Anton Kuznetsov, whose bodycam recorded the exchange, told the men there had to be a good reason there was no air support. “Do they understand we're surrounded?” complained another soldier, off camera.
Contacted Reuters, Kuznetsov said he shot the bodycam video and then lost the camera's memory card, but he declined to comment on combat operations. The memory card was left in a backpack after the retreat.
Russia's Defense Ministry and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment about the video or the military's dependence on BARS irregulars. A deputy commander of the BARS 9 force fighting in Balakliia, contacted by Reuters, confirmed his position in the unit but declined to comment on its activities.
The news agency could not independently determine how representative the conditions in the video were of the operations of the wider BARS force.
Russia has made territorial gains along parts of the front line in recent months. Ukraine, which replaced its military top brass in early February, has repeatedly said it needs more equipment and support from Western allies to continue the war.
On at least two occasions, President Vladimir Putin has publicly praised BARS's contribution to the Russian campaign. In an annual address to Parliament on February 21, 2023, he said the BARS fighters were patriotic volunteers and thanked them for their services.
As the war enters a third year, BARS is part of a patchwork of irregular forces helping Russia avoid an unpopular overall design, the military experts said.
Rod Thornton, associate professor in the Department of Defense Studies at King's College London, estimated that BARS contributes between 10,000 and 30,000 troops to a Russian force of around 200,000 operating in or near Ukraine. Russia does not reveal the number of BARS fighters.
In recent months, BARS units have been fighting in northeastern Ukraine and the southern region of Zaporizhia, two of the most hotly contested fronts, according to updates on social media by Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow's appointed representative for Zaporizhia in the upper house of parliament. of the Russian parliament, and a report by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
BARS units were useful in filling gaps in Russian manpower, says Nick Reynolds, Research Fellow in Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British defense think tank.
“Now that the Russian state is clearly mobilizing for a longer conflict, a system like BARS offers an additional opportunity to mobilize parts of the population, train them and provide additional mass,” said Reynolds, who viewed the bodycam footage.
He said the group shown in the video did not appear “particularly professional or well-trained.”
“WE ARE FORGOTTEN”
On September 6, 2022, the core of Russian forces in Balakliia withdrew in the face of a major Ukrainian counter-offensive. Ukrainian forces have already captured the nearby settlements of Verbivka and Lagery. But the BARS fighters stayed behind.
Kuznetsov, 29 years old and from Siberia, was one of the team leaders of a BARS 9 platoon and commanded about a dozen men, the video showed.
The commander of the BARS platoon in Balakliia ordered Kuznetsov's squad to move to the intersection and repel the Ukrainian forces, the video showed.
They knew they would be outmatched by the Ukrainians, as conversations captured on camera showed. The heaviest weapons Kuznetsov's team had at its disposal were machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Two members of the BARS force were sent to find a spot with a radio signal to contact a nearby artillery unit to get support, said one of the four fighters who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
After about 24 hours they found an artillery unit, but they were already retreating towards Russia and so could not help, the person said.
“My first impression was that we had been forgotten,” he said. “It hit me very hard psychologically.”
TOY SOLDIERS
On September 7, the last day recorded on bodycam, Kuznetsov's team stood guard from an apartment building overlooking the intersection as radio traffic reported that Ukrainian troops were approaching.
While they waited, Kuznetsov and two of his men played with a toy plane and a toy tank, imitating a soldier calling for air support.
Shortly afterwards, a radio message came in stating that five Ukrainian Humvees had been spotted in the area. Kuznetsov tells his crew, “Alright guys, let's get in the mood for a fight.” The video footage ends as Kuznetsov takes to the street.
Two of the fighters told Reuters that they had attacked Ukrainian forces but that the Russians were outnumbered.
After the retreat, BARS 9 was temporarily disbanded, according to the same two fighters, although they said it has since restarted.
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