russians Form New BARS Brigade to Fight Against Ukrainian Forces in Kharkiv Region
To support the actions of its “Sever” grouping of troops operating in the Kharkiv region, russia has begun to form a new “volunteer ” brigade with a manpower of up to 5,000 soldiers.
It is known that to form this brigade, russins intend to use units called BARS-Bryansk, BARS-Kursk and BARS-Belgorod.
According to the spokesman for Kharkiv operational-tactical group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Colonel Vitaly Sarantsev, the formation of such a brigade was launched by order of russian Minister of Defense AndreyBelousov on August 21, 2024, as well as by order of the Chief of the General Staff of russian Armed Forces ValeryGerasimov on August 22, 2024.
It is currently unknown when russian BARS “volunteer” brigade might arrive in the Kharkiv region to fight against the Defense Forces of Ukraine, or how long combat cohesion might take. But it is worth paying attention to the mechanism of mobilization that russians decided to use.
It should be noted that BARS stands for Combat Army Reserve (Russian: Boyevoy Armeyskiy Rezerv Strany). The Defense Ministry of the russian federation began working on its creation back in 2021. It was assumed that this would be a kind of mobilization reserve that russian forces could use relatively quickly in case of emergency.
The 205th Separate Cossack Motor Rifle Brigade of russian forces, which took part in the war crime of blowing up the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023, was involved in the formation of BARS. Various “Cossack volunteer units” that fought as part of russian forces against the Defense Forces of Ukraine after February 2022 were also recruited through the BARS mechanism.
As we can see, even after the “partial mobilization” in the fall of 2022, russians continued to use the Combat Army Reserve to recruit people for the occupation forces. It is known that as of May 2024, occupiers claimed to have 13 assault brigades and 35 battalions belonging to the BARS system.
No data on the specifics of payments for personnel recruited to such units have been published. So, it can assumed that the amounts of payments there were “standard” for all contract soldiers of the russian Armed Forces, and that at the same time, special emphasis could have been placed on the ideological orientation of the personnel.
Earlier War Ukraine-Russia News Hub reported that russia had sold latest Spartak AFVs to Gabon after it helped in acquiring aircraft parts.