Ukraine: Terminators and nervous breakdowns

By Richard North - May 19, 2022

One has to permit a small smile at the current performance of the British media. Despite being keen to treat anything in the Russian media as “propaganda”, the moment Izvestia runs an “action man” style story on a new piece of kit emerging in theatre, they are all over it like a bad smell – without, of course, revealing their source.

The original source was the state-run agency RIA Novosti but we’re not allowed to see that at the moment. However, Izvestia is good enough, telling us that:

As part of a special military operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces used a BMPT Terminator platoon. Together with tank platoons, BMPTs are involved in the fire destruction of Ukrainian positions, armoured vehicles, and crews of anti-tank missile systems.

There’s nothing particularly special about the “Terminator” – just another T-72 base with some different weaponry bolted on the top. In its current iteration, that amounts to four anti-tank missile launchers, two 30mm cannon, and one 7.62mm machine gun.

The vehicle is designed for the anti-infantry role in urban warfare, designed to protect tanks from ATGW teams and other nasties – much like the original role of the MICV, although with better survivability and mobility, and more firepower, but without the troop-carrying capability.

A number were actually spotted on a train near the Ukraine border on 21 February but they haven’t been seen since, until now when some were spotted recently in Sievierodonetsk.

The concept has never really found favour with the Russian military, though, who regard it as unnecessary. Only ten have been procured, of which nine remain on inventory. The Russians seem to prefer the Israeli concept of a heavily armoured MICV, as in the Namur. This was supposed to be produced in the form of the BMPT-15, a modified T-14 Armata tank, with heavier weaponry than the Terminator and with the ability to carry eight troops. However, none of these has been seen since 2015.

The appearance of the Terminator is hardly likely to be a game changer, with only a platoon deployed – i.e., three vehicles out of the nine on the Russian inventory. This hasn’t stopped the dear old Times blathering on about Russian soldiers “pinning their hopes for success in Ukraine” on the vehicle’s arrival.

President Putin, according to this revered source, had personally resisted deploying them but, we are told, in a sign of “increasing frustration”, the Kremlin has intervened. And, despite its powerful reputation for accuracy, the paper has managed to inflate the number, reporting that a company has been sent into Donbass – more vehicles than the Russians actually have.

The “Boys Own” coverage has extended to the Telegraph, the Mail and most of the media, including Sky News, which cites Justin Crump, a “veteran British army tank commander”, telling us that Russia was “quite proud” of the vehicle, even though he admits “they’ve only got about nine”.

At least this sort of dribble saves the media having to report on the boring details of the real war which, according to Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov – and to no one’s surprise – is moving into a protracted phase. There are “many signs”, he says, that the Russian army is preparing to conduct a long-term military operation.

With that, we get more confirmation of longer-term plans, with Reznikov observing that, in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, the Russian occupiers “are actively carrying out engineering and fortification works in order to switch to defence if necessary”.

That has not prevented the Russians taking more immediate action, with 15 helicopters reported to have been deployed in support of offensive actions in Bakhmut and Sievierodonetsk – where the Terminators were seen.

The main efforts of the enemy, we are told, are focused on these areas, seeking to achieve a breakthrough. In the Bakhmut area, the Russians are attempting to cross the Siverskyi Donets river near Serebrianka, 5 km north of Siversk.

While there is Russian activity along the entire line of contact in Donbass, it is the defence ministry’s view that the main aim now is to try to encircle and defeat the Ukrainian Joint Forces in the Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk areas.

Oleksandr Motuzianyk, spokesman for the Ukrainian defence ministry, said:  “The main goal of the enemy now is to try to encircle and defeat the Joint Forces, to establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions, as well as to ensure the stability of a land corridor with the occupied Crimea”. Currently, the Russians are also seeking to establish control over the village of Dovhenke, 15 km south of Izium.

As an indicator of the intensity of the fighting, the Ukrainians are claiming that in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions alone, their armed forces repelled 12 enemy attacks on 17 May, destroying three tanks, three artillery systems, six armoured fighting vehicles and seven other vehicles.

Despite the whole front line being “shelled day and night” by Russian forces, with Bakhmut, Kostiantynivka and Soledar — more than 20 km from the front line also suffering air strikes, CNN records Donetsk officials saying that the new Russian advance failed.

The Russians seem to have been trying to break through Ukrainian lines north east of the city of Sloviansk. According to local officials, this was the large-scale offensive in Donbas region, which started from the north of the region, from the Dolyna settlement, about 20 km north of Sloviansk.

Having lost a lot of troops and equipment, the Russians are said to have changed the direction of their attacks and moved towards Lyman. There were attempts at a breakthrough in the town of Avdiivka. Ukrainian defenders are said to be outnumbered, but are holding the line.

With that, an unnamed NATO military official has told CNN that the alliance does not expect significant gains for either side of the battlefield in the coming weeks, with a “standstill” expected for some time.
According to the official, the current Nato discussion is that the momentum has shifted significantly in favour of Ukraine. Debate within Nato circles is now over whether it is possible for Kiev to retake Crimea and the Donbas territories.

Says this official, “I think they could [retake Crimea and the Donbass] … not now, not soon, but if they can keep up the fight I think so”. He does, however, question if the Ukrainians should fight to get their territory back”, apparently concerned about a “potential backlash” by the local population in some of the occupied areas.

I would suspect that Zelensky has not read the memo on this, and neither have most of the Ukrainian armed forces. The Russians, it seems, are actually complaining that they are “exhausted” by frequent Ukrainian guerrilla attacks. In one of those attacks, apparently, an armoured train was destroyed.

According to the Ukraine security service, a recent phone intercept has a Russian soldier complaining to a friend that every night their unit is forced to fight “sabotage groups” that are “onto them”. The poor soul says he wants to go home. Some of his fellow combatants, he says, are already on the verge of a nervous breakdown and are ready to stop fighting regardless of the possible consequences.

In the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, though, the Russians claim that 959 Ukrainians have stopped fighting Monday, 694 over the last 24 hour, of whom 80 were wounded and 51 have been taken to hospital. The Ukrainians still fighting might be rather less than concerned about the mental health of the Russian invaders.

“We are struggling to bring life back to every corner of our home. And we are coming back”, says Zelensky, noting that Russian troops have suffered such defeats in Ukraine that Russia has not seen for decades, and many Russians influenced by propaganda are not yet aware of how big their losses are.