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A Ukrainian drone pilot told Business Insider how he found a Russian arsenal of horses and Ladas.
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Russia increasingly seems to use non-conventional transport, such as horses or bicycles.
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The pilot commander said that it is a sign of how Russia fights and calculates its losses in a different way.
Cosmos moved his quadcopter over the ruined warehouse, guiding it through a corner of the roof where shattered metal sheets had fallen to form a hole.
The drone pilot’s unit, the Wild Division, suspected that the building was a logistics center for Russian soldiers, roughly 15 km, or about 9 miles, from the contact line in southern Ukraine. These hidden locations often held stockpiles of ammunition or fuel, and Cosmos’ fiber optic drone was armed with explosives to destroy them.
However inside, the drone turned its camera to reveal what looked more like a farmer’s garage: Four civilian cars, a pair of motorbikes, and two restrained horses.
“We shouldn’t have expected to see this. It was unusual,” Cosmos told Business Insider, speaking on condition that he be identified only by his call sign.
“We were expecting to find some armored vehicles,” he added.
The video of the find went viral last week in Ukraine, as the war has increasingly seen Russian soldiers use unconventional transport tools, such as pack animals and bicycles, to carry out attacks or logistical missions. Cosmos said its drone mission took place in early February.
The smaller profile of a civilian horse or car may be more difficult for a drone to detect, although Russia’s repeated use has also raised questions about the viability of its tactics and whether it was producing enough military equipment to support its invasion.
Cosmos’ teammates and officers in the Wild Division, a first-person view drone company in the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, had previously seen footage of Russian soldiers riding on horses to attack Ukrainian positions.
A famous example they remember was in Zaporizhzhia, when a Ukrainian drone crew attacked Russian infantry crossing the front lines on horseback last month.
Cosmos, who has been running drones for a year, said it was the first time he had personally seen the animals on the front lines.
He flew his explosives-laden drone right into the back of one of the cars, and said his crew later hit several other vehicles inside. When the Russian troops moved their transport assets, the Savage Division found the next warehouse and attacked that as well, Cosmos said.
“The enemy usually lives hidden near these places,” Cosmos said of the warehouse. “It is common for us to check all the targets. Sometimes we can see the enemy’s infantry, or you can see their vehicles.”
Russia calculates the war differently
The Wild Division declined to say where exactly the warehouse was located, but its brigade is generally deployed in the Donbas.
Cosmos’ battalion commander told Business Insider that the discovery of the horses also surprised him.
“I thought it was a place for transport vehicles, a kind of transfer center,” said the major, whose call sign is Fizruk.
Fizruk said the appearance of horses and cars in his area of the front line could be a sign that Russian forces are running low on standard resources, but it also reflects the attritionary nature of Moscow’s fighting.
The cars discovered by Cosmos appear to be Nivas, inexpensive civilian off-road vehicles from the Russian car brand Lada.
“They treat these as if they will still be a loss, that they will still be destroyed,” he said. “Look, a Niva costs, let’s say, $2,000. A Hummer, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine uses in many places, costs $20,000, maybe more.”
“Since they lose their equipment in attacks, from that point of view, why pay $20,000 for one vehicle if you can buy 10 Nivas for $20,000?” Fizruk added.
The Kremlin is known to pressure the front line with repeated ground attacks, sending small groups of infantry to approach Ukrainian positions on foot or in cheap vehicles. The strategy has been costly, with NATO now saying that up to 25,000 Russian soldiers are dying every month.
Sustaining that style of warfare has pushed Moscow to informal means of recruitment and arms acquisition, including leasing troops from abroad and receiving ammunition from North Korea.
Read the original article on Business Insider