Russia’s ‘Most Elite’ Tank Unit Raised For Defense Of Moscow & Clash With NATO Trains For ‘Kyiv Invasion’ In Belarus
james
4 min read
Russia’s ‘Most Elite’ Tank Unit Raised For Defense Of Moscow & Clash With NATO Trains For ‘Kyiv Invasion’ In Belarus
Ukrainian Intelligence officials have claimed that gadgets from Russia’s 1st Guard Tank Army (GTA) had been despatched to Belarus to exercise fight coordination.
The Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, stated in a latest press conference: “As a part of the deployment of the local grouping of the allied state, the Russian gadgets of the second Motorised Rifle Division of the first Tank Army of the Western Military District are present process schooling and fight coordination.”
Gromov stated that Belarusian army teachers had been additionally concerned withinside the schooling exercises.
According to the UK’s Ministry of Defense, the first GTA is one of the maximum prestigious of Russia’s armies, allotted for the protection of Moscow, and supposed to guide counterattacks withinside the case of a strugglefare with NATO.
The 1st GTA has been withinside the combat because the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Army’s attack on Kyiv withinside the preliminary weeks of the strugglefare turned into led with the aid of using the first GTA.
However, it turned into pressured to retreat while Ukrainians prevailed withinside the conflict with the assist of numerous Western-furnished anti-tank guided munitions (ATGMs) and Turkish-made Bayraktar drones.
Whatever turned into left of the first GTA after struggling humiliating losses in its attack on Kyiv, in particular, regiments of the 4th Guards Tank Division (GTD) and regiments of the second Guards Motor Rifle Division, had been redeployed to the the front round Kharkiv.
However, Kyiv released a counteroffensive withinside the Kharkiv place on September 6, which amazed the Russian Army, forcing the troops to rapidly retreat to the Belgorod place throughout the border into Russia.
In this counteroffensive, Ukraine’s 4th Tank Brigade comprising T-72s and T-64s, reportedly destroyed 1/2 of of the Russian 4th GTD in an attack outdoor the town of Izium.
Reports advocate that by the point the Russian tank department withdrew closer to the Russian border, it had misplaced round ninety T-80U tanks, that’s 1/2 of the wide variety of tanks the department could have at complete strength.
The Ukrainian forces captured a number of the T-80Us intact, which they might have fixed, painted with the Ukrainian army’s go insignia, and despatched them returned into conflict.
Some of the captured tanks additionally blanketed Russia’s maximum superior T-90M types, at the least one in every of which the Ukrainian forces have fielded towards the Russian forces, as suggested with the aid of using EurAsian Times in advance this month.
Putin Trying To Drag Belarus Into The Ukraine War?
The modern claims with the aid of using Ukraine of the gadgets from Russia’s 1st GTA having been dispatched to Belarus got here amid President Putin’s go to to Belarus on December 19 to fulfill together along with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko.
Experts have warned that President Putin might also additionally try and strain Belarusian President Lukashenko to devote Belarusian forces to help Russia’s strugglefare attempt in Ukraine.
Since the beyond few months, Ukrainian Military Intelligence (GUR) has additionally been elevating alarms approximately a build-up of Russian troops in Belarus for an forthcoming invasion of northern Ukraine.
In September, the GUR stated that the employer anticipated round 20,000 Russian conscripts to be despatched to Belarus for army schooling.
Brigadier General Gromov warned that Moscow endured to ship army gadget and guns to their gadgets in Belarus, which blanketed tanks and MiG fighter jets which can hearthplace hypersonic missiles.
“Last week, one battalion set of tanks every turned into moved to the Obuz-Lesnovsky and Losvido schooling grounds,” Gromov stated.
President Putin and President Lukashenko regarded at a palace in Minsk following their talks. President Putin stated that the 2 leaders had additionally mentioned forming a “unified protection space,” with out describing what that might entail, and had agreed to keep joint army exercises.
Also, the Russian and Belarusian Defense Ministers signed an unspecified settlement to reinforce army ties among the 2 international locations this month. Last week, Belarus stated it turned into checking its troops’ fight preparedness. The final time Belarus did that turned into simply days earlier than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from its territory.
Therefore, officers in Kyiv had been involved that Russian forces may want to put together for a brand new attack from Belarus to capture the Ukrainian capital, best approximately 88 kilometers from the Belarusian border, or to disrupt the glide of Western weaponry and useful resource into Ukrainian coming from Poland.
However, americaA-primarily based totally Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated in its latest record that a brand new Russian attack into northern Ukraine appears unbelievable because “there are nevertheless no signs that Russian forces are forming a strike pressure in Belarus.”
Some army specialists have additionally advised towards analyzing an excessive amount of into the latest uptick in army hobby in Belarus, along with the advent of heaps of Russian troops ostensibly for schooling, suggesting it may simply be geared toward forcing Ukraine to divert its troops to the north from lively fronts withinside the east and south of the country.
Konrad Muzyka, an unbiased protection analyst, stated open-supply intelligence shows that Russia has 10,000 to 15,000 squaddies engaged in schooling sports in Belarus. However, that turned into a small fraction in their wide variety after they started the complete-scale invasion.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri S Peskov, has brushed off speculations that Belarus may want to end up without delay concerned withinside the strugglefare, telling newshounds on December 19 that such reviews are primarily based totally on “completely stupid, groundless fabrications.”
However, Peskov had in addition brushed off warnings from americaA on the begin of the yr that Russia turned into getting ready to invade Ukraine, insisting that Russian troops had been despatched to Belarus best for schooling exercises.
