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Russia turns to airborne troops in its offensive operations in Ukraine: ISW

17.04.2023 09:30
Russia appears to be shifting responsibility for its invasion of Ukraine to its airborne troops, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and the deputy commander of the countrys airborne troops, Anatoly Kontsevoy (2-R), inspect the progress of mobilized servicemens training at a training range in Russias Ryazan region on October 20, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and the deputy commander of the country's airborne troops, Anatoly Kontsevoy (2-R), inspect the progress of mobilized servicemen's training at a training range in Russia's Ryazan region on October 20, 2022.PAP/EPA/MIKHAEL KLIMENTYEV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL

The ISW made the assessment in its latest report on the war in Ukraine, published on Sunday night. 

The US think tank wrote: ”The Russian military command appears to be increasingly shifting responsibility for offensive operations in Ukraine to the Russian Airborne troops (VDV).”  

The UK Ministry of Defence reported on Sunday that Col. Gen. Mikhail Teplinsky, the commander of Russia’s VDV, “has highly likely returned to a major role in Ukraine,” having been “previously dismissed from the theatre in January 2023.”

According to the ISW, Teplinsky’s return to a “major” but unspecified role indicates that Russia may be looking “to reshuffle senior commanders” following the failed winter offensive and in preparation for a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive. 

The UK Ministry of Defence said that Teplinsky’s recent “turbulent career” suggested “intense tensions” among factions within Moscow’s General Staff about Russia’s military approach in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the ISW assessed that Teplinsky remained “highly unlikely” to restore the VDV to its “prior status as an elite force” due to widespread losses to the most elite Russian units.

On November 24, 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update that Russia had likely redeployed “major elements” of the VDV airborne forces to the Donetsk and Luhansk fronts in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. 

Ukrainian forces holding on in Bakhmut

Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Russian troops were fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, but Ukrainian forces were still holding on, the Reuters news agency reported on Sunday, citing Ukraine's military.

The death toll from Russia’s  missile strike on residential buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday has risen to fifteen, with a further 24 people injured, Polish state news agency PAP reported on Sunday night, citing regional officials. 

A mother and her daughter were killed in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Saturday by a Russian artillery strike, the regional administration said, according to the Reuters news agency. 

Monday is day 418 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

(pm/gs)

Source: PAP, ISW, UK Ministry of Defence, Reuters