from Eurasian times
German Leopard tanks have already begun to operate in the Kherson region, and one of them has already been ‘sunk’ by a Russian sabotage unit, the commander of one of its units told RIA Novosti.
Here, the shelling of checkpoints by German-origin Leopard tanks was repeatedly recorded. The Russian sabotage detachment captured a Leopard tank. They could not drag it to the rear, so they drowned it in a swamp. The Leopards are here, they are already fighting,” the officer said.
He added that Russian fighters recorded the use of German anti-aircraft missile systems from the Ukrainian side. Presumably, they were controlled by German mercenaries.
EurAsian Times cannot independently verify the assertions of the officer who claimed to have ‘sunk’ the German-origin tank.
Meanwhile, videos on social media show several Ukrainian tanks and armor getting bogged down in the seasonal wet ground, with some of them being hit, indicating Russia might exploit the geography to destroy more of them.
This also appears to repeat the famous World War 2 episode in the summer of 1941. Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa in June, after piercing 500 miles deep into Russia and being within 200 miles of Moscow, had to suddenly contend with the freezing winter that incapacitated troops and machinery.
Along with a trail of broken down tanks and heavy vehicles that could not traverse the crude roads in the infamous muddy season of ‘rasputista’ owing to the rain and melting snow in October, the Red Army nearly pushed out Wehrmacht. It was later revealed that the Soviet Union used the time to prepare industrially and train better.
The same “rasputitsa,” also known in Ukraine by the same name, renders fields and unpaved roads impassable for around a month in the fall and spring. Tanks, troop carriers, and artillery pieces all become mired down in the soggy earth.
Two other videos showed a Turkish Kirpi armored vehicle being dragged away by Ukrainian tanks in what is being called Bakhmut’s “road of death,” which is constantly under fire from Russian troops.
Another video showed a Ukrainian tank stuck and abandoned in the mud, getting hit by what is presumed to be an artillery round. The location of this video is unknown, but based on the various Ukrainian and Russian social media pages it has been seen on, it can be concluded it is near Donetsk.
One video showed a Ukrainian MT-LB towing a US-supplied M777 lightweight howitzer through the mud.
Had Russia Forseen This?
In Donbas, this mud is called “mulyaka.” “It is a real nightmare when it sticks to vehicles and becomes dry hard as stone. If you don’t wash it off on time, it will disbalance the wheels and the structure (of the truck and tanks),” said one comment on a Facebook group that discusses the war from the Russian perspective.
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