Vladimir Putin’s army is reportedly resorting to advancing in golf carts in Ukraine as equipment losses cripple the Russian army, in a humiliating blow. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated in its daily report on the conflict for yesterday that a Ukrainian tactical group had claimed on Monday that Russian forces recently conducted a company-sized mechanised assault near Yasenove, a village in Pokrovsk, an attempt to seize the village of Bohdanivka, Troitske, a rural settlement in Sloboda; and Horikhove, another village. The combatants detailed that they destroyed two Russian tanks, two armored personnel carriers, four all-terrain vehicles, four motorcycles, and 50 troops during the assault.

The ISW added: “Additional geolocated footage published on April 7 shows that Ukrainian forces repelled another company-sized Russian mechanised assault near Sribne (southwest of Pokrovsk) on April 6 and damaged three armored vehicles and five tanks during the assault. The commander of a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Pokrovsk direction stated on April 8 that Russian forces have recently begun using more armored vehicles in the area but have also resorted to using motorcycles and golf carts to make advances.”

Another Ukrainian brigade operating in the area reported last week that Russian equipment losses have tripled in the region since the start of negotiations, likely referring to the middle of February this year.

Experts reported: “Russian forces have advanced marginally closer to the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk administration border as a result of mechanized assaults in the area in recent weeks, particularly west of Preobrazhenka (southwest of Pokrovsk), but Russian forces have not advanced the remaining three kilometers into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as of this report.”

In addition, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly reported that the Russian military chiefs are “sending wounded and medically unfit soldiers on assaults to draw Ukrainian fire and expose Ukrainian positions before better trained Russian forces attack”.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov could order the cessation of these “abuses” if the Russian ministry of defence “prioritized addressing this issue”, the ISW said.

It added that the Kremlin may also be attempting to “mitigate budgetary concerns by centralising control over medical evaluations for wounded servicemembers and possibly limiting the number of future veterans of the war in Ukraine who qualify for state support”.