Ukrainian intelligence services said on Wednesday that members of the Russian Armed Forces’ 5th separate tank brigade are surrendering their military benefits to resign because of their refusal to fight. “At the same time, there is a catastrophic lack of personnel in the units participating in the war against Ukraine,” said the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The agency did not specify how many service members were reportedly exempted. Ukrainian intelligence says Russian troops are routinely caught speaking out about the dysfunction of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation,” apparently with increasing frequency after Ukraine launched several surprise counterattacks in recent weeks and retook large swathes of land. In the latest audio released by Ukraine’s defense ministry, a man identified as a Russian soldier in the Kharkiv region can be heard angrily complaining about the army in ruins, in what is described as an intercepted phone call. “I imagined all this differently, because there is no kind of organization. I thought there was an army here, but it’s not an army here,” he tells a relative. “It’s every man out for himself,” he says. U.S. officials said Ukraine’s gains on the battlefield have forced Russian troops to literally flee, abandoning equipment as they retreat. According to a report by The Moscow Times, Russian forces near Izyum in the Kharkiv region lost half of their equipment in just four days this month. Amid growing anger among Russians over the casualties, the Kremlin is said to be maneuvering to deflect blame from Putin, pitting it against military advisers. However, the losses in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions appear to have hit ordinary Russians harder than earlier losses in the Kiev region and Snake Island, so much so that it has sparked speculation on many pro-Kremlin social media channels that Ukraine has start the war well. Russian territory. “Since no one is listening to our message and no one is preparing the defense for big things [Russian] cities, and the enemy is simultaneously massing huge forces on the border with the Belgorod region, there is a high probability that they will significantly take one of the major cities under their control,” a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel warned, predicting that the “enemy will act more dexterously’ and will choke communications in a late-night takeover. The tone among Russian officials also changed quickly, with the mayor of a city in the Kaliningrad region announcing this week that celebrations for the city’s annual holiday had been canceled because of the “tense situation” on the battlefield. “After the funeral of one of the participants of the special military operation, which will take place this Thursday, we consider it extremely immoral and unforgivable to sing and dance joyfully in memory of the fallen and their relatives,” said its mayor Grigory Sokolovsky. Sovetsk, announced on social media. Authorities in Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh also canceled upcoming celebrations.
