Satellite pictures show new Russian military camp has sprung up near Ukrainian border
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A town in western Russia used as a temporary staging area for tanks to attack Kiev when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago is now the site of a new camp for Putin’s latest recruits.
The Pogonovo Training Camp, located on the outskirts of Voronezh approximately 170 miles from the Ukrainian border, was established in the early 20th century and was used by the Soviet Union for military training purposes.
In February 2022, the area played host to several thousand Russian troops massing along the Ukrainian border and housing tanks that would later surge to within 10 miles of Kiev, all while the Russian president denied his intentions to invade.
The training ground has been barren since the first days of the invasion, and last month it was covered in untouched frost.
But new satellite images taken last week show a huge new camp has been built on the countryside in a matter of weeks, raising fears that Russia will try to launch a new wave of attacks to consolidate its foothold in the east. of Ukraine in the coming weeks.
A new camp for Russian troops has sprung up at the Pogonovo training ground near the Russian city of Voronezh, roughly 170 miles from the Ukrainian border. The image on the left, taken on January 23, 2023, shows a largely barren field with some remnants of previous activity. The image on the right, taken just a few weeks later on February 7, shows a huge new camp.
On February 15, 2022 (L), the camp was buzzing with activity. The satellite image shows that the camp is densely populated with troops and machinery as the Russians prepared their invasion. On February 21, 2022 (R), much of the camp had been abandoned as troops headed for the border.
December 21, 2021 (L) – The camp appears largely barren with a few small pockets of activity. Over a month later, on January 28, 2022 (R), just four weeks before the invasion began, the camp still looks pretty empty.
Russia initially amassed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border ahead of its invasion on February 24, 2022, in which huge tank convoys threatened the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital as Putin’s forces rapidly gained territory in the northeast.
But Putin’s confidence that his ‘special military operation’ would come to a swift conclusion with the concession of kyiv in a matter of days was badly misguided.
According to the latest estimates by Norwegian intelligence, the almost year-long conflict has injured or killed 180,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
Other Western sources estimate that the war has caused 150,000 casualties on each side.
By comparison, some 15,000 Soviet soldiers died in an entire decade of fighting in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.
As a result of the huge losses, Putin announced in September a “mobilization” of 300,000 reservists, people with some kind of military experience who were recruited to be sent to the front.
Analysts say a disproportionately high percentage of those recruited were ethnic minorities living in remote regions of the Russian Federation, rather than reservists in and around Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and many of them had little or no military experience.
Russian conscripts board a train at a railway station in Prudboi, Russia’s Volgograd region, on September 29, 2022.
Russian conscripts wait to board a train at a railway station in Prudboi, Russia’s Volgograd region, on September 29, 2022.
A destroyed Russian armored vehicle seen on a road near the town of Vovchansk, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on November 1, 2022.
The newly mobilized Russian men ask for diesel to keep warm and complain that dozens of them have come down with pneumonia and bronchitis.
Putin announced in September a ‘mobilization’ of 300,000 reservists
Ukrainian soldiers often use the term “cannon fodder” to describe Russians sent to their deaths on the front lines, noting that they are often poorly trained and ill-equipped recruits.
Others are convicts recruited from Russian jails to join the ranks of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, which Kyiv and its allies say are deployed on near-impossible missions with the equivalent of a gun to their heads.
Countless videos from the war zone have shown squads of recruits complaining about the horrendous conditions they are subjected to and begging their commanders to provide them with even basic equipment.
Now Ukraine is concerned that Russia is poised to launch another major wave of attacks to coincide with the anniversary of its invasion.
Ukrainian intelligence officials warned earlier this month that they suspected a major attack was imminent, and Russian government spending rose sharply last month, suggesting the Kremlin may be pouring more money into the war effort.
Putin’s military commanders have already stepped up the intensity of missile attacks in recent days, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toured European countries in early February to push for long-range weapons to fight the invaders.
A Russian tank rusts in the field near Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.
Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery near the front line in Donetsk
The mobilized Russians criticize their lack of training while imploring commanders to have mercy on them.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a news conference in Minsk, Belarus, on February 16, 2023.
Ukrainian soldiers work in their artillery unit in the direction of Marinka.
Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed on Thursday that Belarus would join the Russian offensive in Ukraine “if attacked” first by kyiv’s army.
“I am ready to fight together with the Russians from the territory of Belarus in only one case: if a single soldier from (Ukraine) comes to our territory with a weapon to kill my people,” the veteran strongman told a rare conference of press with foreign journalists in Minsk.
“This applies to our other neighbors,” Lukashenko added. ‘If they commit aggression against Belarus, our response will be the cruelest. The cruelest!
Lukashenko, a wildly unpopular president who is closely allied with Putin, allowed the Kremlin to use the country as a launching pad for its military operation against kyiv last February.
Belarus still hosts an undeclared number of Russian troops, but Lukashenko has vowed not to send his forces, estimated at 60,000-70,000, across the southern border with Ukraine.
Despite Lukashenko’s repeated promises, fears have grown that his troops could also intervene.
But the longtime leader said: ‘I don’t plan to send my people, my soldiers (there)’, sad Lukashenko.
Fears have also grown that Belarus could announce a Russian-style mobilization.
But he did say that Minsk was testing some of its mobilization skills and taking Russian mistakes into account in its push.
It won’t be tomorrow. But we have to be ready in any case,’ he said.
Putin said last month that he backed plans to set up joint military training centers with Belarus. The two countries also regularly hold joint military exercises.