Reports of massive losses
Russian 11th Army Corps almost completely wiped out?
10/29/2022 1:13 am
Originally, the 11th Army Corps was to defend the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. But after Moscow’s defeats in Ukraine, the large association is relocated to the Kharkiv region. During the counter-offensive in September, the corps apparently suffered a heavy toll.
The 11th Army Corps of the Russian Armed Forces has, according to a “forbes“report suffered massive losses in the war against Ukraine. The US magazine calculates that it will take many months for the large association to regain even a fraction of its former strength.
The army corps was set up six years ago. Stationed in Kaliningrad, Russia’s exclave on the Baltic Sea, it also served as a threat to NATO, according to the report. According to this, the formation, which is subordinate to the Baltic Fleet, has a motorized division, a separate motorized regiment, artillery, missile and air defense troops along with support units on paper.
Before the war broke out, there were about 12,000 Russian soldiers in Kaliningrad with about 100 T-72 tanks, a few hundred armored personnel carriers and other heavy military equipment, the report says. Much of the guns and soldiers are said to have been part of the 11th Army Corps.
After the beginning of the invasion and the Russian defeat near Kyiv, the Kremlin moved the corps via Belgorod to the Kharkiv area in eastern Ukraine in May. Three months of grueling fighting is said to have severely weakened the large association. Evaluated by the Reuters news agency military documents show that by the end of August the corps was already down to 71 percent of its full strength. Some battalions had even shrunk to a tenth of their original strength.
The 11th Corps was particularly badly hit by the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region, which began in September, as “Forbes” reports. At the end of September, the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) described the corps as “severely battered”. The Ukrainian General Staff became more specific. The military in Kyiv concluded that the corps lost 200 vehicles and half its soldiers as a result of the counteroffensive.
The 11th Army Corps was to defend Kaliningrad and threaten NATO’s eastern flank. Now the association can no longer fulfill both tasks, is the verdict of “Forbes”.