Russia is prepping its elite airborne forces, the VDV, to be deployed to Donbas hot spots in eastern Ukraine amid fears its troops could start a coup, an alleged leak of a secret memo obtained by Russian dissident in exile, Vladimir Osechkin, appears to show.
Osechkin, a Russian human rights activist who runs the anti-corruption website Gulagu.net, said he received a secret memo from a source purporting to be from Russia's General Staff. The letter, which Newsweek couldn't immediately verify, appears to be addressed to President Vladimir Putin's top general, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
It suggests the VDV be sent to areas near Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region—Sloviansk, Krasny Liman, Bilohorivka (in the Luhansk region) and the village Orekhovo-Vasilevka, which is located near the highway from Bakhmut to Sloviansk—as "assault forces" under the leadership of Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, and asks for Gerasimov's consent.
Bakhmut has seen some of the most intense fighting of the 17-month war. Prior to his aborted mutiny on June 23-34, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin led Russia's armed forces in the industrial city, which has been described as a "fortress." Clashes continue in the area more than a month into Ukraine's counteroffensive.
The document, hand-dated and signed on July 18, was published by Gulagu.net after the dismissal of 58th Combined Arms Army Commander Colonel General Ivan Popov on July 12.
In audio released earlier this month, Popov appeared to be complaining directly to the Russian president, saying he had raised questions about "the lack of counter-battery combat, the absence of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery."
Troops from the 7th VDV Division subsequently published an audio message on July 15 warning against the dismissal of their commander Teplinsky, who has also complained about the handling of the war in Ukraine. They threatened to withdraw from the occupied Kherson region, in Ukraine's south, if anything similar were to happen to Teplinsky.
Osechkin's source said the letter confirms a report circulating on a prominent anonymous Russian Telegram channel that suggested the VDV is being sent for "slaughter" and to storm "the fortified area near Bakhmut, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine are most stubbornly defending themselves."
"They [Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gerasimov] are preparing to send them to slaughter," the Telegram channel said. "All of them [VDV] are essentially light infantry, and they are being thrown to break through the layered defense."
"If the Ministry of Defense succeeds in their maneuver, then with one blow they will kill two birds with one stone—they will thin out the population of the military, dissatisfied with their management methods, and slow down the surrender of Bakhmut, who is now in a semi-encirclement," the channel added. "If the idea fails, then Teplinsky will be made guilty. Or maybe they will help him with failure, limiting his equipment and ammunition (again, in their usual manner)."
Newsweek couldn't immediately verify the reports, and has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email, and Osechkin via a messaging app.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said on July 16 that Putin's current chain of command crisis will damage troop morale and "likely degrade Russian capabilities to conduct tactical offensive operations that are critical to the Russian elastic defense in southern Ukraine." It also "threatens to demoralize the wider Russian war effort."
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