Aggressors exploit occupied Donbas inhabitants as ‘cannon fodder’, sending them to locate Ukraine’s firing points - intel

Russian commanders are exploiting men mobilized in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions (abbreviated in Ukrainian as ‘ORDLO’) as ‘cannon fodder’ to locate the firing points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

That’s according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Ukrinform reports referring to the agency’s Facebook page.

“The Russian occupiers have been actively ‘drafting’ males in the occupied territories of the ORDLO. The feature of these units is that they are very poorly trained, lacking discipline and morale. As the ‘mobilized’ say themselves, Russian commanders use them as ‘live bait’. That is, as a vanguard echelon to conduct reconnaissance by fire. Units are deployed to the line of contact in military vehicles regardless of heavy losses. Thus, the firing points manned by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being located," reads the statement.

The intelligence agency notes that one of such units consisting of 250-300 combatants on March 16-17 lost about 200 of its mobilized personnel outside Mykolaiv. The survivors returned to Kherson region completely demoralized, and refused further participation in hostilities.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, Russian occupiers from February 24 to March 19 lost 14,400 military personnel. Moreover, 466 tanks, 1,470 armored combat vehicles, 213 artillery systems, 72 MLR systems, 44 air defense systems, 95 warplanes, 115 helicopters, 914 trucks, three vessels, 60 fuel tank trucks, 17 operational and tactical level UAVs, and 11 items of special equipment have been destroyed by Ukrainian troops within the said period.

Updates data is being verified. The calculation is complicated by highly intense hostilities.

Within the past 24 hours, Russian invaders fired 14 missiles at Ukraine and carried out 40 airstrikes.