Russia ‘struggling’ to give troops in Ukraine breaks from combat: UK intelligence

The United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry said that Russia is “struggling” to give its military forces breaks as its months-long conflict with neighboring Ukraine continues to rage on. 

In a Twitter thread on Monday, the U.K. Defense Ministry noted complaints from wives of Russian military members, saying a video published showed the wives pleading to a local politician to have their husbands return to the country, citing that one Russian military unit is already “mentally and physically exhausted.” 

“One woman claimed that personnel of EMD’s 5th Separate Guards Tank Brigade are ‘mentally and physically exhausted’ because they have been on active combat duty since the launch of the ‘special military operation’ on 24 February 2022,” the ministry said in a tweet. 

The ministry also said that a “lack of scheduled breaks,” has caused damage and created personnel issues among Russian military units. 

“The lack of scheduled breaks from intense combat conditions is highly likely one of the most damaging of the many personnel issues the Russian MoD is struggling to rectify amongst the deployed force,” the ministry said. 

The ministry also noted in its thread that the Russian forces continue to focus airstrikes in the northern Donbas region, noting that Ukrainian forces also continue to attack Russian defensive forces in the Kherson region, even though they didn’t make any territorial gain. 

Russian forces have focused their attention on the eastern part of Ukraine, looking to gain full control of the Donbas and Donetsk regions after already capturing the city of Lysychansk, with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky saying in a statement on Sunday that Russian forces conducted airstrikes in the residential areas of the Donbas region.  

Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the deployment of U.S.-made long-range rocket systems has been a “game-changer” in their battle against Russia. 

The Pentagon unveiled an $820 million weapons package earlier this month for the embattled country, which included advanced air defense systems as well.