Russian pro-war military bloggers are criticizing Russia’s military leadership after a video circulating online appeared to show a Russian military convoy destroyed by Ukrainian shelling in the Kursk region.
The footage shows damaged military trucks with what appear to be the burned bodies of Russian military personnel who were reportedly sent to the Kursk region as reinforcements against Ukrainian forces’ unprecedented cross-border incursion.
BBC Verify said later on Friday that it had geolocated the video and verified its authenticity.
Commenting on the incident, war bloggers said the convoy was allegedly destroyed by a U.S.-made HIMARS rocket system and slammed its command for the incident.
“All of this is not just the result of the unyielding stupidity of the individual who organized the convoy movement near the border in the third year of the war and then had it remain stationary, but also the result of the overall chaotic situation of hastily pulling reserves to the breakthrough area, for which they were completely unprepared,” the pro-war Telegram channel Voyennyy Osvedomitel (Military Informant) wrote.
Some military bloggers called for those responsible for the column movement to be severely punished.
“For [organizing soldiers’ movements] in columns [we need] executions today!”, military blogger Roman Alekhin wrote, referring to assault penal military units, which usually suffer high casualties.
“[Those] who gave the order to move in columns in the area of observation of copters and HIMARS…should also be sentenced according to the laws of wartime, today this is an assault [penal] squad,” Alekhin said.
The Russian pro-war Telegram channel Rybar, which has over 1.2 million subscribers, said that “recent footage from the Kursk region shows that nearly three years of fighting still haven’t taught some people anything,” adding, however, that such decisions “are far from the level of the General Staff.”
“By the third year of the war, even a monkey could have learned this, but not some staff general from the Defense Ministry who orders these deadly marches in the frontline zone,” wrote the Telegram channel Trinadtsatyy (Thirteenth).
According to the Mash Telegram channel, the Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a Kursk resident who filmed the destroyed convoy later on Friday.