Buy Artillery Or Buy Coffins: The Russian Marine Corps’ Dire Choice As Its Troops Die In Record...

It apparently was one of the worst single-operation losses for the small Russian marine corps since before the Chechen wars in the 1990s.

Worse for the Kremlin’s war effort, Russia’s marines—or “naval infantry,” if you will—are some of its best remaining troops after eight months of grinding warfare against an increasingly determined, experienced and well-armed Ukrainian military.

Russia’s best forces are getting ground up in Ukraine, leaving the worst forces—including the 300,000 unhappy, unfit draftees the army rounded up this fall—to do more of the fighting.

The doomed Russian assault targeted the Ukrainian garrison in Pavlivka, 28 miles southwest of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. The garrison repelled the Russian attack, the Ukrainian general staff reported on Friday.

The Russian Pacific Fleet’s 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade has been the main Russian formation along that sector since this summer. The brigade, based in Vladivostok, has been in Ukraine since Russia widened its eight-year war on Ukraine back in late February.