In every war there are units that stand out and others that become symbols of failure.
This is the case of the Parachute Regiment 549 from Russia, which had high hopes of stand out in the invasion against Ukraine, but now it represents the unraveling of the Kremlin’s plan to promote a war with a quick end.
The commanding officer of the regiment, Colonel Sergei Sukharev, was assassinated in Ukrainian the March and posthumously received the Hero of the Russian Federation medal.
At his funeral, the Deputy Minister of Defense, the General Yuri Sadovenko, said that the colonel “lived for the future, for the future of our people, a future without Nazism.”
Casualties among Russian forces are not widely reported in that country, but using information from open sources, the BBC has pieced together the story of his progress and discovered that at least others 85 members of the Regiment 39 elite have died.
The men were part of a column that advanced into Ukraine from Belarus, led by the Russian Airborne Forces, known by the acronym VDV. Their objective was to advance towards the capital, kyiv.
The mobilization stalled in the districts on the outskirts of kyiv, such as Bucha, Irpin and Hostómel, where the cruelty of the war soon became apparent.
A video found by the BBC shows VDV light armored vehicles damaged and abandoned in the area after an attack by Ukrainian special forces.
The chosen ones
The men of the Regiment 331 considered themselves to be the chosen ones of the Russian army. In a video posted online last May, a general tells soldiers they are “the best of the best.”
The unit served in the Balkans, Chechnya and the Russian intervention of 2014 in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and regularly participated in parades on Red Square in Moscow.
The 300 was also a showcase for the Russian policy of replacing national service soldiers with contraktniki, who were professionals under contract.
It is understandable that the generals gave them an important role in the invasion.
Deaths
But since the beginning of March, reports of deaths of members of the Regiment began to circulate 39. Also, it took time to get their bodies to Kostroma, the community where they are based, 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
When the funeral began, a debate developed on social networks. The walls of VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, promised “eternal memory” to the fallen and featured images of candles.
A woman who claiming to be the wife of Petty Officer Sergei Lobachyov wrote: “Seryozha, my most reliable, loving and caring husband. You are now in heaven and will protect us from there! You will always live in our hearts and you will.” Always be a true hero to me!”
Although many publications seem to accept the unfounded explanations of the Kremlin that the war is being waged against alleged Ukrainian fascists, some also show anxiety about the lack of reliable information.
On the memorial wall for Sgt. Sergei Duganov, a woman wrote: “No one knows anything. The Regiment 331 is disappearing. Photos of our guys from Kostroma are published almost every day. It gives me chills. What’s going on? When will this end? When will people stop dying?”
His post was followed by another, which exclaimed: “Kostroma has lost so many young people, what a tragedy”. Another pleaded: “God, how many more death notices will we get? Please have mercy on our children, help them survive, bring them back home to their wives and mothers. I beg you!”.
The questions
Talking about the war in Russia carries great risks, but there are signs of a loss of faith in the Kremlin’s arguments about the conflict.
On a sergeant’s memorial page, a woman asks: “Why are the children of parliamentarians not in the front? Most of them live in Europe anyway. Ordinary children die for no good reason”.
Another uses a swear word to describe President Vladimir Putin and says: “Playing war” has “sent thousands of guys to die”.
However, the majority of those who react on social networks remain faithful to the official narrative.
Meanwhile, on some VKontakte memorial walls, Ukrainians have posted comments mocking the dead.
“More than have already died ,13 and they will continue to die as long as they continue to march on our land. Nobody invited them damned saviors”, says one.
“Alexander, go away, damned Nazi”, a Russian responds to another mocking post. “Our soldiers are true heroes. The Russians have never killed civilians or children, something that cannot be said for the Ukrainians”.
However, the fury of these online exchanges is nothing compared to the experiences of the VDV forces, which have been hit by Ukrainian artillery, ambushes and infantry attacks during weeks of bloody fighting.
The flaws of the 300
In these close-quarters battles, they have discovered what previous VDV units learned in Afghanistan: that armored vehicles designed to be light enough to be transported by aircraft do not provide much protection against enemy fire.
From the roads outside the Hostómel airfield, to a side street in Bucha or a road junction in Irpín, videos taken by Ukrainians have shown burned vehicles and abandoned belonging to the airborne group.
It is These fragments of images recorded with a cell phone also speak of a more basic fault.
Russian VDV BTR-ZD, BTR-D, BTR-MDM, BMD-2, and BMD-4M vehicles in Bucha. https://t.co/Z6rqTQa7Ag pic.twitter.com/etQPv8fzt1
– Rob Lee (@RALee29) March 29, 2022
In these destroyed neighborhoods around kyiv, the Russian paratroopers were overtaken by the Ukrainians. And since the defenders were in many cases simply local defense units or reservists, that speaks to a basic flaw in the VDV’s training and recruitment system.
The Ukrainians have clung to the losses of the 331, and enthusiastically claim that the regiment has been “annihilated”.
Ilya Ponamarev, former parliamentarian Russian and opposition figure who now lives in kyiv, says that people see the fate of the regiment as a perfect example of karma”.
During the fighting of 2014 in Donbas, the Ukrainians blamed the 331 for killing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in Ilovaisk, in violation of a ceasefire agreement.
Leonid Panteleev, a Russian soldier of the Regiment 331 that failed It was born on Ukrainian territory. BBCHowever, although the regiment has suffered considerably, Ukrainian claims that they have been annihilated could be exaggerated.
However, it is likely that the Parachute Regiment has recently been withdrawn from Ukraine. Indeed, unidentified elements of the VDV task force were filmed on 29 March when they were returning to Belarus.
The price of failure increases daily. At the time of writing this article, BBC Newsnight had compiled a list of 39 members of the Parachute Regiment killed in Ukraine.
But since none of these deaths is more recent than March, it can be assumed that dozens more will emerge in the coming weeks.
Kostroma locals have told us that believe that about 29 members of the regiment they may have died. And many families will never receive the body of their loved one because they were left behind on the battlefield.
Even a conservative projection of the deaths we now know about, and their dates, suggests that the town’s losses in a few weeks in Ukraine they already exceed those of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
The regiment that departed full of confidence in February has acquired the kind of reputation no soldier would ever want.
The names of have been verified by the BBC deceased soldiers: Klim Abramov, Artem Arbuzov, Oleg Bedoshvili , Yurii Borisov, Ilya Chernyshev, Yuri Degtaryov, Konstantin Dobrynin, Sasha Dolkin, Sergei Duganov, Kiril Fedoseyev, Andrey Kovalevsky, Sergei Krylov, Stanislav Kutelev, Yanosh Leonov, Alexander Limonov, Sergei Lobachyo, Ivan Mamzurin, Ilya Martynenko, Lev Ovchinnikov, Maksim Ovchinnikov, Leonid Panteleyev, Oleg Patskalyev, Stanislav Petrutik, Roman Pomelov, Pavel Rudenko, Alexander Shalygin, Nikolai Smirnov, Sergei Sukharev, Maxim Svetlenko, Nikolai Symov, Daniil Titov, Maxim Trokai, Ivan Turyev, Maxim Vorotyntsev, Alexei Vyshegorodtsev, Alexei Yelimov, Artem Yergin, Ravshan Zhakbaev, Danila Zudkov.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss our best content.
Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!