A tactic developed to bring ammunition, mines and other military equipment to the front lines during the battles of Bakhmut between August 2022 and May 2023 is still being used by Russian forces despite the growing threat from drones.
The method established by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner private military company (PMC) was very simple: runners, known as “camels,” would be dispatched on foot to carry critical military materiel to Russian forces most likely in contact with the enemy.
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The camel is not even armed, a weapon would only slow him down but wears body armor which offers little more than psychological protection as he runs forward carrying the supplies his combat unit needs.
It was risky two years ago when the main threat was from snipers or the odd, unexpected artillery strike. Now in the era of first-person view (FPV) drones it is often little more than a suicide mission, as the video posted by Ukraine’s 28th Separate “Knights of the First Winter Campaign” Mechanized Brigade near Toretsk on Saturday amply shows.
Despite all the talk of remote-controlled unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) to support combat operations and deliver supplies to the line of combat “risk free,” Moscow’s troops persist with the “kamikaze camel” approach – yet another example, perhaps, of how Russia prioritizes protection of its equipment over its “meat.”
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Saturday’s video taken by a drone from the Ukrainian brigade’s “Gyurza” aerial reconnaissance unit which spotted the camel, weighed down with his additional body armor and logistic load, as he “waddles” from cover to cover between buildings wrecked by fighting near the Toretsk settlement in the Donetsk region.
After a while a shot rings out, probably from a Ukrainian sniper alerted by the drone team, bringing the futile resupply mission to an end.
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