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Ukraine – Killing Surrendering Soldiers, Shelling Civilians
At 8:30 UTC today I checked the priorities of the day on major U.S. news websites.
- On the New York Times homepage the word "Trump" appeared 10 times, "Ukraine" appeared 5 times.
- On the Washington Post homepage the word "Trump" appeared 12 times, "Ukraine" appeared 5 times.
- On the Wall Street Journal homepage the word "Trump" appeared 9 times, "Ukraine" appeared 3 times.
The Google Trends graph for Ukraine has fallen to near zero.
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This is a problem because it takes pressure off the Biden administration to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine and the future security architecture in Europe.
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Today's daily 'clobber list' by the Russian Ministry of Defense includes an additional chapter taken from the verbal briefing:
I would like to note that in recent weeks, incidents involving the shooting of Ukrainian servicemen in the back by nationalist units have become more frequent in areas of military operations.
Thus, after a fire preparation for an attack by Russian troops near Novomikhailovka in Donetsk People's Republic, more than 30 servicemen of the 25th Battalion of the 54th Mechanized Brigade of the AFU decided to lay down their arms and surrender.
Ukrainian servicemen occupying a stronghold near Zvioroferma asked the Russian unit command via radio to cease fire and provide a corridor for exit.
Around 10 p.m., AFU servicemen with white flags began moving towards Russian positions.
At that moment, a Ukrainian nationalist barrier unit arrived at the stronghold in armored vehicles and opened crossfire in the back on the servicemen of the 54th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
As a result of this shooting, 32 Ukrainian servicemen were fatally wounded and killed.
This incident, as well as many others like it, clearly demonstrates that amid growing military failures and demoralization of Ukrainian troops, the Kiev nationalist regime is trying to stop the retreat and surrender of its units by punitive actions of barrier squads.
I have seen no evidence that supports the details of the above incident. But there have been public reports that somewhat prominent people who are opposed to the war or criticize the Zelenski regime get picked up the Ukrainian SBU (the former KGB) or some 'nationalist', ie. fascist goons to then vanish. It is thereby not astonishing to read that similar events, on a likely larger scale, are happening at the frontline of the war.
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The Ukrainian artillery is said to fire only 6,000 rounds per day for lack artillery ammunition. Yesterday 300 projectiles were fired by the Ukrainian army or by 'nationalists' onto civilian areas of 'rebel' held city of Donetsk. There were at lest 7 dead and 22 wounded. Graham Phillips provides a video report of the impacts and damage (vid). To use 5% of the daily ammunition ration to terrorize civilians in Donetsk is not only despicable but dumb as those artillery troops will now receive intensified attention they deserve.
Levi @Levi_godman – 11:42 UTC · Jun 14, 2022
❗️The DPR asks Russia to use additional Iskanders and aircraft to destroy the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Meanwhile Russia is providing a humanitarian corridor for civilians and surrendering Ukrainian troops who leave the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk. The scheme is similar to the corridors at the Azov steelworks in Mariupol where it worked well.
In response to Moaobserver@359,
The posters you’ve quoted appear to be talking past each other, although there are grains of truth in both cases.
The effectiveness of strike-drones as used by Ukraine really hasn’t lived up to the hype, to the point that Turkey started complaining that Ukraine didn’t know how to utilize drones properly and, presumably, even refused to supply more of them as their continued use in Ukraine started harming their sales and reputation elsewhere. Enter American strike-drones and comparably poor performance. By that logic, the statement that upset whoever it is you’re quoting,
These systems are an absolutely useless instrument of war, when talking about a conflict between real armies…
has a solid enough foundation, particularly in the context that it is used. After all, what’s being talked about is an upcoming Polish-Georgian production line of, what appears to be, the very same type of strike-drones. At the very least, relying on these systems to have a significant impact on a battle-field where the opponent controls the airspace should produce disappointing results, and it’s accurate to describe these collaborative projects (I believe Kazakhstan also announced something similar with Turkey) as a fad.
Having said that, small and disposable recon drones, which Russian forces never used in any large number, appear to be a hot commodity among ground forces, particularly in mopping-up operations of urban territory and on approach to fortified positions. It seems that Russian MIC has been tasked with setting up production of small drones to be part of the standard kit of regular formations, unlike the selective designation of the comparatively large drone scouts which can be called in as support. So, there’s certainly been a positive assessment of the use of civilian drones on the initiative of war journalists, Chechen detachments, DLPR and Wagner that even the regular army bureaucracy sat up and took note. But, nevertheless, this is at heart a field-kit topic that isn’t worth getting hung up about. If it improves combat effectiveness by X% in specific situations and helps to save lives, that’s great, but in terms of strategic importance it’s on par with advances in boots and helmets.
If someone wants to discuss minutia like that, I’m all for it, even if I won’t pay much attention to it. But, look at the arguments presented by the individual you’ve quoted:
-UAV’s useless? Tell that to those who’ve been hit by UAV’s.
Great emotional argument. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more casualties from molotovs at the start of the operation, than from UAV’s. Inb4 molotovs are treated as a must-have wunderwaffe for the war of the future?
-Go to the front and fight for a bit, then tell us UAV’s are useless.
Another great emotional argument, but there are soldiers on rotation who talk about their combat experience and none of them are praising the might of Bairaktars. Ground troops do, occasionally, talk about the usefulness of civilian drones, but even then in the context of how they would use them and not how they were used against them. Ukrainian troops who are cut off, stuck in some trench or dilapidated building, are still dangerous to those who approach and a good use of UAV’s to scout or assault them, but they are already out of the fight for all intents and purposes.
-Study the military conflicts of the last 15 years, then tell us UAV’s are useless.
Either reading comprehension failure or historical illiteracy, since the few examples we have of UAV’s going up against air defenses in the last 15 years and not just going on “safari” shows the OP as being correct. Even on safari, it’s rather dubious whether UAV’s actually accomplished any objectives. I mean, they killed people, sure, but were they ever a deciding factor in achieving some sort of victorious outcome?
Going through the rest of the post, it’s false equivalence, then appeal to emotion, appeal to emotion, tall tales of ISIS (who weren’t being supplied by Turkey, Israel, US) achieving “glorious victory” with sticks and bubblegum, misunderstanding of the combat role of Russian air force, appeal to emotion, appeal to authority and historical illiteracy. If this sort of argumentation makes an authoritative source in your eyes, more power to you, but then it makes little sense to act indignant that other people would prefer Martyanov.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jun 15 2022 12:27 utc | 413
In response to moaobserver@408,
If the Russians have a (say) 3-1 advantage in casualty rates, …Make sure the Ukrainians have a 4-1 advantage in manpower.
That does sound like a strategy devised by tactical geniuses. Manpower at the front, vs artillery, has a direct relation to target density and subsequent casualty rate, meaning it’s a strategy that in its most basic form defeats its own purpose.
Manpower sitting in trenches and locking up urban areas has 0 impact until it is engaged at close distance. Even then, manpower has 0 impact unless it’s adequately equipped and supplied. A straight up manpower advantage gives Ukraine nothing — a weapons and supply line advantage over Russia is a pipedream. Russia continues hitting Ukrainian supply lines daily, Ukraine can’t touch Russian supply lines. Ukraine is currently requesting weapons and ammunition to a tune larger than Western stockpiles have available for their own security needs — inb4 Ukraine requests Western manpower to carry on its strategy of numerical advantage?
I’m sure that would impact on morale, not that we’re even considering that as a factor for a prolonged conflict where one side takes disproportionate losses for the entire duration. Maybe it’s not that important.
Combined with advanced SIGINT and real-time satellite imagery – which the RF do not possess to anything like the same degree – it can be possible to stalemate the Russians long enough that RF run out of trained manpower.
Hypersonic missiles are great but they need to know where they are going to target before said target moves. If it takes hours to ID the target and get C&C to coordinate a strike, then it is too late.
That’s rather speculative. Considering the inability of Ukraine to execute any counterattacks or cutoffs of Russian formations, it would appear more like they’re sitting blind out there. Maybe there’s some merit to the Russian claim of having blinded satellites with lasers, or maybe there are serious limitations on the intelligence sharing.
Meanwhile, the Russians intercept a large number of weapon shipments before they make it to the front, continue hitting training camps and staff hq’s far inland, while Ukraine primarily uses its long-range systems to hit non-military targets. I guess they’re being fed bad intel from those superior systems. Luckily for the Russians, Ukraine hasn’t figured out how to make large targets such as weapon stockpiles, army bases and training camps mobile, but I’m sure Elon Musk is working on it. They would only need to make them invisible and self-propelling to ensure victory.
If Putin had invested some of his €300 billion confiscated reserves in a few squadrons of SU-57s, then the airspace over enemy Ukraine could be used to perform SEAD missions in relative safety and real-time precision strikes on anything that moved.
Luckily the real figure ended up being more manageable at $30 billion, not that it would have changed the number of SU-57’s in production or the way they’re being used in Ukraine. It’s not like Russia can import SU-57’s using Gasprom’s foreign currency accounts, nor would matching Ukrainian stockpiles with jets be a cost effective strategy in any currency. There are pockets where Ukrainian air defenses serve 0 purpose and pockets where there aren’t any air defenses because they are taken out.
So – the UAF build up forces in the West to attempt a counter offensive later in the year, while throwing conscripts at the front. Anyone trying to surrender gets shot.
The West is more than happy to sacrifice a mountain of Ukrainian corpses, as they are sociopaths, and they understand that the Russians are not willing to do the same.
Then force the Russians into a humiliating Minsk 3 type treaty. Watch as an enraged public rallies around some populist oligarch to push Putin out and over time sell out to the West.
It’s all idle work without a concrete objective. Are they planning to reinforce the line and try for a stalemate with disproportionate casualties on their side? Maybe push the allied forces out of Ukraine entirely? Or are these Ukrainian forces planning to march into Moscow? Is their objective political change in Russia? It’s optimistic to think that achieving even these wholly unrealistic goals would serve the interests of Kiev and their foreign sponsors. Just thinking about it rationally, all of these scenarios run the risk of making the situation for Ukraine worse, not better.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jun 15 2022 13:31 utc | 432
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