Swat: A soldier on the run with a Russian army in Ukraine, when the Kremlin learned of his troops, was surprised to discover his troops had left
Russian forces were on the run, as the Ukrainian military made gains in the south and east of the country.
There is a shift happening in Russia’s tightly controlled information space. Ukraine’s military has been making dramatic advances in a counteroffensive, making it increasingly difficult to conceal the Russian military’s losses. And Putin last month declared a partial military mobilization, sending a message to the general population that their leader was going all in Ukraine, and that sacrifices are now in order.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote an article on Sunday stating that Russian forces were plagued by desertion, poor planning and delayed arrival in the last few days of their occupation.
The Kremlin reflected the disarray of its forces on the ground, where territory was rapidly changing hands, acknowledging that it did not yet know what new borders Russia would claim in southern Ukraine. According to the Putin spokesman, they will continue to consult with the population of the regions.
The military conscription Mr. Putin ordered on Sept. 21 to bolster his battered forces has set off nationwide turmoil and protest, bringing the war home to many Russians who had felt untouched by it. Many men have been drafted who were supposed to be ineligible based on factors like age or disability.
The abandoned Russian armored vehicle was spotted by a battalion commander as he ran down the road with his men chasing Russian soldiers. Inside there was a sniper rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and belongings. The men were gone.
“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”
The Kremlin, the Military, and Cross-Band Attacks on Ukrainian Occupied Regions: A Correspondence with Stremousov
Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.
“The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of operational military details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has come to resemble the milblogger discourse over the past week. General statements of progress were the focus of the Kremlin narrative. The Kremlin had never openly recognized a major failure in the war prior to its devastating loss in Kharkiv Oblast, which prompted the partial reserve mobilization.”
There has been public criticism of the top brass running Putin’s war. Within limits, of course: Criticizing the war itself or Russia’s commander-in-chief is off limits, but those responsible for carrying out the President’s orders are fair game.
Andrei Kartopolov, a former colonel-general in the Russian military, said that the first thing to do was stop lying. “We brought this up many times before … But somehow it’s apparently not getting through to individual senior figures.”
Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.
There is a border between Russia and Ukraine at Valuyki. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.
Vladimir Kadyrov, the commander of the Lyman rebellious revolution, and Vladimir Putin’s threat to declare war with the whole NATO bloc
Boris Rozhin, who also blogs about the war effort under the nickname Colonelcassad, said that “incompetence and an inability to grasp the experience of war continue to be a serious problem.”
But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.
Kadyrov blamed the leader of Russia’s Central Military District on him for the debacle, accusing him of not adequately providing for his troops.
The Russian information space has deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense that things are generally under control.
Putinism has a penchant for World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. And those in Russia’s party of war often speak admiringly of the brutal tactics employed by the Red Army to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht, including the use of punishment battalions – sending soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice or wavering against German positions as cannon fodder – and the use of summary execution to halt unauthorized retreats.
Kadyrov, who was promoted to the rank of Colonel General by Putin, argued against the use of the past methods. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.
“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.
The aftermath of Kiev’s bridge attack in the early stages of the Ukrainian War on Resolved Relations between Russia and the United Kingdom (Reply to CNN)
Michael Bociurkiw is an analyst with World Affairs Pro. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN. The opinions are of his own. View more opinion at CNN.
To add to Putin’s sense of humiliation, the bridge explosion came amid a surging Ukrainian counteroffensive that has seized key pockets of Russian-controlled territory, including in regions Putin recently annexed.
Throughout the weekend, the Ukrainian military sought to target Russian forces as they tried to regroup after their retreat from Kherson. The Ukrainian air force launched strikes on the east side of the river, with the Ukrainian military saying it had fired on 33 Russian positions.
There was a strike at a school housing Russian conscripts that took place on New Year’s Day, according to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts.
As of midday, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet as there were reports of missiles and drones being shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).
Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.
In a video filmed outside his office Monday, a defiant President Volodymyr Zelensky said it appeared many of the 100 or so missile strikes across Ukrainian were aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said several important infrastructure facilities have been damaged and some provinces are without power.
Some of the media outlets in the city moved their operations to underground bomb shelters in scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war. A group of people took cover from a small group of people singing patriotic songs in a metro station serving as a shelter.
Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.
Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.
For Putin the symbolism of the only bridge between mainland Russia and the peninsula can be overstated. That the attack took place on his 70th birthday can be viewed as a blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to endure humiliation and shame can be weakened by it.
Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was connected to the Portuguese and British territories by Beijing after it reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.
The tragedy of Vladimir Putin: a warning to the West and a blueprint for the emergence of a new security threat at Putin’s home
There was a rapid reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion, with hilarious jokes that lit up social media channels. They shared their jubilation through text messages.
Sitting still was not an option for Putin because of his pride and self-interest. The only way he knew how to respond was by unleashing more death and destruction.
Facing increased criticism at his home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on thin ice.
The Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate at the Ukrainian defense ministry told a journalist, Roman Kravets, in late August that it would take at least a year to enter the peninsula.
It’s important that Washington and other allies use urgent telephone diplomacy to convince China and India to refrain from using more deadly weapons.
Against a man who probes for weakness and tends to exploit divisions, the most important thing for the West right now is to show unity and resolve. Western governments also need to realize that rhetoric and sanctions have little if no impact on Putin’s actions. If it means sending military experts closer to the battlefield then they need to keep providing training and weapons to the Ukrainians.
High tech defense systems are needed to protect important infrastructures around the country. With the upcoming winter it’s important to protect heating systems.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/opinions/putin-russia-war-ukraine-strikes-crimea-bridge-bociurkiw/index.html
Shell boom in the Kharkiv city of Kiev: a shock as the Russian army unleashed its assault on a critical civilian population
The time has come for the West to impose restrictions on travel and trade in order to make Russia less attractive to tourists. Turkey and the Gulf states which get a lot of Russian tourists need to come on board.
They join an army already degraded in quality and capability. Russian military force in Ukraine has been altered over the course of the war because many of its pre war active duty personnel have been wounded or killed. Russian military leadership is unlikely to be able to tell if the undisciplined force will respond to rumors of Ukrainian assaults or cold, exhausting combat conditions. In September demoralized forces in the Kharkiv region abandoned their positions and equipment in panic as a result of recent experience.
In that case, Mr. Putin could lash out more broadly against Ukraine. The attacks of the past week — particularly striking critical civilian infrastructure — could be expanded across Ukraine if missile supplies hold out, while Russia could directly target the Ukrainian leadership with strikes or special operations.
There was a loud boom of shells from the important EasternUkrainian town on Wednesday as the Ukrainian military launched offensives in an effort to wrest positions from the Russians.
Our guide is Ukrainian military medic, who goes by her nom-de-guerre “Katrusya.” Our convoy is thrown into the centre of the city at a rapid pace with tinted sunglasses and fatigues.
She took us to see a building that had just been shelled. Our car hadn’t even come to a complete halt as another artillery shell hit nearby. We had to scramble for cover as we watched more and more shelling come our way.
The fight for Bakhmut: Soldiers, civilians and Russian soldiers in a Kremlin-approved war-torsion settlement
There are some people on the streets of Bakhmut. Buildings have no windows; the streets are pockmarked with craters and industrial garbage bins have merged into small pools of trash.
People who are still in this universe seem to live in a parallel universe. They are out on their bikes, running their errand and elderly women are behind them in their shopping carts.
Bakhmut has some inhabitants still walking the streets. Asked if he was worried about the shelling, he replied that he wasn’t. Everything is going to okay.”
The intense fighting has cost the lives of many soldiers and civilians. “I cannot give you the number, but it is a lot… there are lot of injured from both sides and also lots of dead.”
The struggle for Bakhmut has gotten more intense in recent days. The fighting in the city was called the toughest by Zelensky.
Bakhmut lies at a fork that points toward two other strategic towns in the Donestk region: Konstantinivka to the south-west and Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk to the north-west. All three are key to Vladimir Putin’s total control of the region.
Here, Russian forces have made small, steady gains, largely thanks to the Wagner group, which is considered by analysts to be a Kremlin-approved private military company.
The fighters from the Wagner clan seem more like a bunch of soldiers for hire than they are, according to Katrusya.
They are a revolting bunch of people. There a few very well-trained professional fighters, but the majority of them have found themselves accidentally fighting in this war looking for money or for the ability to get out of jail,” she said.
In September, video surfaced appearing to show Prigozhin recruiting prisoners from Russian jails for Wagner, offering a promise of clemency in exchange for six months’ combat service in Ukraine.
“The price for Ukraine will be enormous,” she acknowledges. The best of the best, the most motivation and trained will leave but we will definitely win because our land is ours. Absolutely, we will win.
Video tapes filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian infantry being hit by a bombardment in poorly prepared positions have supported the claims, as have reports about soldiers telling their families about high casualty rates. The videos have not been independently verified and their exact location on the front line could not be determined.
Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander of the Ukrainian military, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app on Thursday that Russian forces had tripled the intensity of attacks along some parts of the front. He didn’t specify how long the attacks were taking place or where they were coming from.
The general said they discussed the situation at the front. Ukrainian forces, he said he had told his U.S. colleague, were beating back the attacks, “thanks to the courage and skills of our warriors.”
According to an assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, the increase in infantry in the east did not result in new ground being gained by Russia.
The assessment said that seeking a quick advance, the Russian Army was “wasting the fresh supply of mobilized personnel on marginal gains” by attacking before massing sufficient soldiers to ensure success. The attacks have been directed at several towns and villages, including Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
In the south, where Ukrainian troops are advancing toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military said Friday morning that its artillery battalions had fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but it also reported Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.
The residents of Kherson have been getting food and fuel to survive the battle with Russian and Ukrainian forces, which they seem to be preparing for.
The Dnipro has become the new front line in southern Ukraine, and officials there warned of continued danger from fighting in regions that have already endured months of Russian occupation.
Through the afternoon, artillery fire picked up in a southern district of the city near the destroyed Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro, stoking fears that the Russian Army would retaliate for the loss of the city with a bombardment from its new positions on the eastern bank.
People saw smoke coming from the bridge after mortar shells hit it. There were loud rounds near the river. It was not immediately possible to assess what had been hit.
The mines in Mykolaiv and the Kryvyi Rih towns: a warning to everyone on the status of Ukraine
The Ukrainian government is setting up evacuation routes to the cities of Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, said Iryna Vereshchuk, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister. “We will not have time to restore power supplies enough to heat homes where children, the sick and people with reduced mobility live,” she said. It won’t be a mass exodus. It will cover those who are sick, the elderly and those left without care of their relatives.”
The mines are a significant danger. Four people, including an 11-year-old, were killed when a family driving in the village of Novoraysk, outside the city, ran over a mine, Mr. Yanushevich said. Railway workers were hurt while trying to restore service after lines were damaged. The Ukrainian officials said at least four more children have been injured by mines in the region.
The deaths underscored the threats still remaining on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson, a tangible sign of Ukraine’s soaring morale.
“We are, step by step, coming to all of our country,” Mr. Zelensky said in a short appearance in the city’s main square on Monday, as hundreds of jubilant residents celebrated.
Russian forces continued to fire from across the river on towns and villages newly recaptured by Ukrainian forces, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command. Two Russian missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is just north of a critical dam, the military said. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.
One resident from Kherson City said during a secure message on the app thatOccupants were robbing local people and exchanging stuff for Samogon, homemade vodka. They get drunk and are more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She wanted her name kept out of public view for security.
Ivan wrote in a text message that “Russians roam around, identify the empty houses and settle there.” He lives in Skadovsk, which is south of Kherson city, and asked that his surname not be used out of concern for his safety. “We try to connect with the owners and to arrange for someone local to stay in their place. So that it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.”
The streets outside Vyacheslav Tarasov’s home on Ukraine’s eastern frontline are pocked by shell blasts. The buildings around are mostly empty, windowless and cold.
Tarasov, 48, was sheltering from the shelling in his basement where he now has to live. But last week he dared to venture out – to buy vegetables to make the national dish, borscht.
The aftermath of the shelling incident: Khassan El-Kafarna and his surviving brother, Tarasov
He looks pale as he remembers the graphic images from his past. “I was wearing a leather jacket and if it wasn’t for that, I would have blown apart. I mean, my guts would have been all over the place… I lost a lot of blood. I remember seeing it — a huge puddle.”
He realized he might not make it, after the blast killed Tarasov and the shelling continued. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he says. “I prayed to survive.”
When Tarasov arrived, he begged the doctors to save his limb. The first question I asked was if my arm could be sewn back on. I saw that it was completely torn off and still in the sleeve. I felt like my stomach was burning. I thought it to be the stomach contents coming out. There was blood everywhere.”
The power goes out sometimes according to the chief surgeon. Water doesn’t come regularly, it comes by the hour. There was no water at the weekend because there was a catastrophic shelling incident.”
“It’s been quite loud lately,” Khassan El-Kafarna, a surgeon from Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF), stationed at the hospital, says. His colleague, nurse Lucia Marron, agrees. “I think there’s more movement around in general – more troops, more people,” she says. “We are used to the sound. You get to a point where you are aware of what is dangerous.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/europe/ukraine-bakhmut-injured-civilians-intl-cmd/index.html
Russian forces in the Bakhmut, Chernihu and Makiivka regions of the country have been killed in air raids
“If I had a lot of money, I would rather live abroad,” Tarasov says. Everything I had saved up was invested there, even though I have no money. I had no money and no place to go.
Putin said in a state television interview, excerpts of which were released on Sunday afternoon that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process.”
The Kremlin has stated repeatedly in recent months that it’s the people that refuse talks, something that he said was true.
The air raid sirens sounded across the country during the weekend as more and more Russian missile strikes hit. The attacks killed at least six people in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions, while a man was injured early Monday.
The report said “Ukrainian sources previously claimed that the Russian forces were completely pushed out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut around December 21.”
A total of 16 people have been killed, according to the official, including three emergency workers killed in the process of demining the Berislav district of the region. Yanushevich said that 64 more have been wounded.
In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight from heavy artillery, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. No injuries have been reported.
A large number of Russian soldiers are believed to have been killed by an apparent Ukrainian strike in eastern Ukraine.
The attack has led to vocal criticism of Moscow’s military from pro-Russian military bloggers, who claimed that the troops lacked protection and were reportedly being quartered next to a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when Ukrainian HIMARS rockets hit the school.
The Russian defense ministry stated on Monday that 63 Russian soldiers had died, making it one of the most deadly episodes in the war for Moscow’s forces.
Russian senator Grigory Karasin said that those responsible for the killing of Russian servicemen in Makiivka must be found, Russian state news agency TASS reported Monday.
The explosive attack on an occupied Makiivka building by a young general in the Russian-supported Donetsk People’s Republic
The video from the scene of the attack was uploaded to Telegram and broadcasted on the Ukrainian military channel. It shows a pile of smoking rubble, in which almost no part of the building appears to be standing.
“Greetings and congratulations” to the separatists and conscripts who “were brought to the occupied Makiivka and crammed into the building of vocational school,” the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Chief Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram. “Santa packed around 400 corpses of [Russian soldiers] in bags.”
The high command is still unaware of the weapons’ capabilities, according to a former official in the Russia-supported Donetsk administration.
“I hope that those responsible for the decision to use this facility will be reprimanded,” Bezsonov said. “There are enough abandoned facilities in Donbas with sturdy buildings and basements where personnel can be quartered.”
According to an article posted on Telegram, a Russian propagandist claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of the Ammunition Stores.
“Nearly all the military equipment, which stood close to the building without the slightest sign of camouflage, was also destroyed,” Girkin said. “There are still no final figures on the number of casualties, as many people are still missing.”
Russian generals have been dubbed unlearned and unwilling to listen to warnings because they direct the war effort far from the frontline. Girkin was previously minister of defense of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, and was found guilty by a Dutch court of mass murder for his involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Even though there has been several months of war, some conclusions are not made, hence the unnecessary losses, which might have been avoided if the elementary precautions regarding the dispersal and concealment of personnel were taken.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/europe/ukraine-makiivka-strike-intl/index.html
Bakhmut: What does it mean to break the defense of a fortress? Yugoslav Yevgeny Prigozhin tells us
The Ukrainian region that was held by the pro-Russian rebels for the past three years is one of four that Moscow wanted to annex in October.
Russian forces “lost 760 people killed just yesterday, (and) continue to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut,” the military’s general staff said Sunday.
The head of Russia’s Wagner private military company has attempted to explain his group’s failure to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which has for months been the scene of intense fighting.
During a New Year’s visit with fighters on the front line, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that there was “a fortress in every house” in Bakhmut, and that “only clowns that sit around and try to predict these things.”
“They say, ‘the combined forces have advanced into Artyomovsk and broken the defense,’” he said, referring to Bakhmut by its Soviet name. The name was changed back to Bakhmut in 2016.
“Then they say: ‘What does it mean to “break through the defense?”’ ‘Breaking through the defense’ means breaking through the defense of one house this morning, then you have to go break the defense of the next house, right?” He said so.
Artyomovsk and the Wagner Combined Forces: a Remark on the Operation of Odd Magnitudes in Perseus
“Therefore the question is: “Who is going to take Artyomovsk? Which forces came together? He claimed that it would be the Wagner combined forces. Who else? Who else is there than the other one?