‘Morale and discipline issues’ hitting Russian troops, says MoD
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
A main grievance from troops probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
At least some “outright corruption” among commanders was probably involved, as well as an “inefficient military bureaucracy”, it said.
The Russian military has consistently failed to provide basic entitlements to troops deployed in Ukraine, including appropriate uniform, arms and rations as well as pay. This has almost certainly contributed to the continued fragile morale of much of the force.
Key events
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmygal, is set to visit Germany on Sunday – the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit the country in months.
The trip is a sign of eased tensions after a rocky patch between Kyiv and Berlin, Agence France-Presse reports.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has repeatedly vowed Germany’s strong support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia’s invasion. But in the immediate weeks after Russian troops marched on Ukraine, Kyiv criticised German aid as too little and too late.
A visit by Scholz to Kyiv in June and the arrival of weapons from Germany have since led to a change in tone.
Shmygal told German media ahead of his trip, in a transcript published by his press office:
Germany has made huge progress in its support of Ukraine with weapons.
But the prime minister said Kyiv needed more from Berlin, including “modern combat tanks” such as the Leopard 2.
Scholz is to welcome Shmygal with military honours in the Sunday afternoon. Shmygal will to start his day with talks in the morning with the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose offer to travel to Kyiv in April was rebuffed, sparking a row.
‘Morale and discipline issues’ hitting Russian troops, says MoD
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
A main grievance from troops probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
At least some “outright corruption” among commanders was probably involved, as well as an “inefficient military bureaucracy”, it said.
The Russian military has consistently failed to provide basic entitlements to troops deployed in Ukraine, including appropriate uniform, arms and rations as well as pay. This has almost certainly contributed to the continued fragile morale of much of the force.
Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine, now it its 193rd day. Here are latest developments as it passes 9.30am in Kyiv.
-
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Previously, there had been reports the plant in south-eastern Ukraine had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.
-
Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch.
-
The Russian energy company Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.
-
The European Union expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.
-
Gazprom’s announcement that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart came after G7 finance ministers said they planned to implement a price cap on Russian oil to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression”.
-
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told Vladimir Putin that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, according to his office.
-
An eight-year-old child has died after Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv on Sunday morning, according to the head of the regional council, Hanna Zamazeyeva. Two other children were among those injured in Russian shelling in the city of Mykolaiv and Bereznehuvate, she said in an update on Telegram.
-
Russian troops launched overnight rocket attacks on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
-
The leader of Chechnya has reportedly said he plans to take an “indefinite and long” break from his post. In a video posted to his Telegram, Ramzan Kadyrov, 45, reportedly said he believed the “time has come” for him to leave.
-
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has accused the west of playing a “chess game with death” in its support of Ukraine and accused western countries of trying to take advantage of the conflict to push Russia to “a new round of disintegration”.
-
Ukrainian forces have “likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise” with the ongoing counter-offensive, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. In its daily intelligence briefing, it said Ukraine had done so by taking advantage of “poor logistics, administration and leadership” in Russia’s military.
-
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has said in a BBC interview that while the economic impact of the war in Ukraine is tough on its allies, Britons “count pennies” while Ukrainians “count casualties”.
-
Russians paid their final respects to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, in a ceremony held in Moscow without much fanfare and with President Vladimir Putin notably absent. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, travelled to Moscow to pay his respects.