Russian Marines Revolt After Defeat Near Pavlovka

The Russian Defense Ministry released a fake to calm the military.

The Russian "offensive" near Pavlovka in Donbas ended in disaster and the defeat of "elite" units of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian Federation.

Russian generals launched an attack on the village near Ugledar on the same night of October 29, when Ukrainian drones defeated the Russian fleet in Sevastopol Bay.

The Russian media and Kremlin "war correspondents" presented this sortie as if it were a big city. They failed to seize the village of Pavlovka.

After a week of fighting, the scale of Russian troop losses became clear.

"Urgent!!! THE DIFFICULT SITUATION IN PAVLOVKA (DPR). Marines of our 155th Brigade appealed to the Governor of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako," Russian frontline blogger Sladkov wrote.

"Heavy losses, inability to report our high useless losses in manpower and equipment to the top leadership," he said. I have figures. The rest is the matter of the Prosecutor General's Office," Sladkov noted.

"Things are objectively bad in Pavlovka," another propagandist, Wargonzo, wrote. - Khodakovsky is openly attacking those who planned the operation."

Another blogger, Romanov, described the situation this way: "A rear General and the military police arrived at the spot. They stop civilian vehicles, take them to the commandant's office. Then the car is burned down, and those who were in it are sent to the assault squad to the front line," he describes the situation. - The number of marines is running out fast. One brigade only lost 300 men and 50 per cent of its equipment in four days.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War ISW note that the Russian Defense Ministry has to justify itself in response to numerous bloggers' outrages over data on high troop losses and poor troop command. We are talking about the personnel of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet, which the AFU "denazified" near Pavlovka in the Donetsk region.

On November 6, Russian bloggers published and disseminated a letter claiming that the Russian military leadership "threw" the 155th Brigade into an "obscure offensive" near Pavlovka. There it suffered losses of over 300 men killed, wounded and missing, as well as lost half of its equipment. It happened within four days.

The letter directly accuses Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, commander of the Eastern Military District, Colonel Zurab Akhmedov, commander of the 155th Brigade, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff. It also calls on Governor Oleg Kozhemyako to conduct an independent inspection of the actions of the officers who participated in the planning and conduct of the recent Russian offensive in western part of the Donetsk region.

On November 7, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a rare response to such outrage and stated that allegedly less than 1% of the brigade had been killed and less than 7% wounded in the past ten days, and instead "Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses." Governor Kozhemyako also tried to justify himself by claiming that the brigade's losses were greatly exaggerated and (without providing evidence) suggested that the letter was "a product of the Ukrainian secret services." He assured that he had contacted the brigade's command and referred the case to the Russian military prosecutor's office.

"The Russian Defense Ministry has remained remarkably silent on bloggers' criticism of the country's failures throughout the war in Ukraine - unlike the Kremlin, which occasionally indirectly touches on propagandists' narratives. The Ministry's public response to the outrage indicates that some Russian bloggers have significant leverage over the Ministry of Defense's interactions in the information space, and also suggests that the situation in Pavlovka is bad enough to warrant a response," ISW concluded.

Ukrainian media report that the surviving Russian Marines started to revolt and demand an answer from the military leadership for the huge losses at Pavlovka.

The Russian Defense Ministry released a fake to appease the military.

Three Russian Marines of the 155th Brigade of the Pacific Fleet, apparently following orders from their commanders, urgently recorded a video to deny the huge losses in their ranks inflicted by the AFU Defense Forces. The occupants with sad faces and speeches that have no guts in them try to cheer up the Russians and convince them that all information about their defeat is a "fake."

Apparently, the Marines have been ordered to deny the scandalous news of their elimination in Ugledar (to see the video, scroll to the bottom).

But not as significant as they report. Please don't believe the fakes. There are losses on the Ukrainian side too; there are soldiers there, people like us," the man with sadness in his eyes claims.

The invaders note that it is crucial for them to know that things are going right in Russia itself, and there is no panic. Therefore, according to the remaining marines, it is better for Russians to receive news not from Ukrainian or world publications but from propagandists broadcasting from Russian territory or annexed ones.