In the first months after the invasion of Ukraine, the russian command most often used special forces brigades as ordinary infantrymen. As a result, the elite units, which take at least four years to train, suffered heavy losses.
Source. The Washington Post writes about this with reference to the estimates of the US military and experts, as well as satellite images that were among the documents leaked by the Pentagon.
This has deprived the russian army of the ability to conduct special operations, for which such units are intended. It may take russia about a decade to build up combat-ready units again, according to the Pentagon documents.
In particular, they say that of the five russian separate special forces brigades that returned from combat operations in Ukraine in late summer 2022, all but one suffered significant losses.
The scale of such losses is evidenced, in particular, by satellite images taken in November 2021 and November 2022. In the first, the training ground of the 22nd Independent Special Forces Brigade in rostov Oblast is clogged with military equipment. The second one, taken a few months after they returned from Ukraine, shows much less of it; according to the US military, the number of Tigr armored vehicles used by the special forces has more than halved.
In total, russian troops have lost 151 Tigr vehicles, according to Oryx experts.
U.S. intelligence has tracked the return of all special forces units, with the exception of the 25th Independent Regiment. Perhaps the absence of an intelligence signal about its return to the place of deployment in Stavropol may be explained by heavy losses among manpower and equipment, the document says.
The Pentagon documents do not contain estimates of how many special forces were killed or wounded in Ukraine, but there is data on one unit – the 346th Independent GRU Special Force brigade of the russian General Staff. It "lost almost all of its personnel, with only 125 of the 900 people sent [to Ukraine] remaining in service."
According to the US intelligence services, the losses in the 22nd and two other separate special forces brigades amounted to 90-95%.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies and an expert on the russian armed forces, explained to WP the reasons for such catastrophic losses in elite units. Since motorized rifle units proved to be extremely ineffective, the russian command sent special forces, airborne and marine commandos to the front.
And while the attempt to land at the Antonov airport in Gostomel with the aim of further capturing Kyiv can still be considered a special operation, on the southern and eastern sections of the front, the best units were simply killed on the front line.
Thus, the russian army initially lost professionals capable of conducting reconnaissance, sabotage, and covert operations, Lee says.
Background. As a reminder, Jack Teixeira, a suspect in the Pentagon Papers leak, has been formally charged.