• Ukrainian forces took out more than 100 Russian soldiers with an ATACMS missile, per OSINT analysts.
  • Four ATACMS were used to target the group, one analyst said.
  • The soldiers would have been out of reach of Ukraine’s shorter-range ATACMS missiles.

A Ukrainian ATACMS long-range missile strike killed more than 100 Russian soldiers in an occupied region 50 miles from the front line, according to OSINT and military analysts.

Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military training area some 50 miles behind the front line in the occupied Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, per an assessment by The Institute for the Study of War.

According to two aerial geolocated videos posted on Wednesday by X user Osinttechnical, an account affiliated with the Centre for Naval Analyses, Ukraine appeared to strike the training area with three US-supplied M39 ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.

    • venusaur@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      a lot of these Russian soldiers don’t want to fight. when you hear 100 soldiers dead, it’s not 100 Putins. it’s just 100 regular people like you and me in a fucked up situation. good for Ukraine for protecting themselves, but “wiped out 100 russian troops” sounds like you’re killing ants. they’re still people.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Right now we should care about the Ukrainian casualties because they are the ones defending themselves against Russian occupation. Russian soldiers are part of an invading force and the fewer Russian troops the sponer the war will end. It does not matter how many are there willingly or not when they are part of an occupying force.

        We can care about the conscripted Russian soldiers who were forced to fight against their will after the war.

      • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Only professional and volunteers in Ukraine… contractniki. Conscripts are used to fill homeland positions.

        Granted… some are voluntold… but I would not characterize it as “a lot” but “some”…

        Counting the volunteers who went to war willingly only to find themselves as cannon fodder and now regret their decision as “don’t want to fight” is not correct… because if properly supplied or when easily winning these guys would be wiping out ukranians with a smile on their face.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        If they don’t want to die they’re free to march on the Kremlin, instead. Kremlin guards have fewer weapons than the Ukrainian army.

        • venusaur@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Imagine you’re in Russia. You see every person who was ever a real threat to the government die or disappear. You can’t flee the country. A coup is highly unlikely; Prigozhin just tried it and the plane he was on mysteriously blew up. You don’t have a lot of options. Makes sense to take your chances against Ukraine than try to overthrow the Russian military/government.

          What really needs to happen is for war law to be changed to allow heads of state and government buildings to be targeted. Then they’d be a lot more careful about going to war.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            You don’t have a lot of options. Makes sense to take your chances against Ukraine than try to overthrow the Russian military/government.

            Not in a strategic sense, no, because Kremlin guards are still less well armed than Ukraine. The trouble, of course, is that people are too scared to make that kind of cool-headed analysis but as soon as there’s a crack in the regime because, say, Omon can’t respond to lesser incidents because they’re lying in a ditch in Ukraine the dam would break. Which OTOH is rather unlikely to happen because regime security is Putin’s #1 concern, he’d let go of Ukraine before risking it, so he won’t kill off their response capability like that. He may be mad but he’s not crazy.

            What really needs to happen is for war law to be changed to allow heads of state and government buildings to be targeted. Then they’d be a lot more careful about going to war.

            Bad idea. If Putin loses, the Siloviki have a good justification for a coup. If Putin gets assassinated, they’d be forced to declare him a martyr and continue the fight.

            And Ukraine thinks the same or the SBU would already have gotten to him. They’re also not touching the likes of Shoigu, they only target competent people: The more of a clown show the Russian regime is the easier the war becomes.