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FT Reports A Ukrainian Warcrime
The willful killing of unarmed soldiers, especially when there is a good chance of taking them prisoners, is certainly a war crime.
It is astonishing that Christopher Miller of the Financial Times reports of it without further comment.
How Ukraine pulled off its biggest gamble: invading Russia (archived) – Financial Times, Aug 12, 2024
As Volodymyr prepared to enter Russian territory, adrenaline ran through his veins. It was not lost on him that 81 years ago, another battle in Russia’s Kursk region marked a turning point for Europe.
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“We entered Russian territory for the first time at 1pm on Tuesday [August 6],” Volodymyr said. “We were among the first to enter there.”
To his astonishment, his unit faced no resistance as their eight-wheeled, 20 tonne US Stryker fighting vehicle stormed across the border in broad daylight.
They soon encountered a Russian unit “sitting in the forest, drinking coffee at a table”, Volodymyr recalled. “Then our Stryker drives right into their table.
“We killed many of them on the first day,” he said. “Because they were unarmed and didn’t expect us.”
Not wanting to end up like their comrades, he added, “dozens” of stunned Russian soldiers simply laid down their weapons and surrendered.
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"81 years ago, another battle in Russia’s Kursk region marked a turning point for Europe," writes Miller. He and others should consider what that really means. If I remember correctly, the German fascists and their Ukrainian allies also committed war crimes – and lost the fight.
Posted by: Richard Rublestein | Aug 15 2024 19:58 utc | 251
Even as a self-confessed doomer (at this point), I honestly think it was reasonable to expect at the outset that Russia would decisively win this war. I still think they will “win”, but now in the same way they “won” WWII: (1) At a cost that’s too devastating to fathom, and that it’s outright treasonous of the Russian leadership to have led Russia to, and (2) with only one enemy defeated: In WWII Nazi Germany, in this war Ukraine, while in WWII the US was quickly revealed as the real mortal threat and as a superpower, untouched by the devastation of the war.
Same thing in this conflict, with the only good news that the West is a lot weaker (and quickly headed downward, though more thanks to rapid internal degeneration and the rise of China, than anything Russia has done) than it was at the end of WWII. Most of its rivals, in particular China, are immeasurably stronger, too.
When the invasion began I must admit I was euphoric. I thought that Russia had finally turned a corner and gained a new sense of confidence, that they had (even if hadn’t always looked successful to outside observes like myself) been preparing their economy and military machine since 2014 and finally felt they were ready for a decisive campaign to annihilate Ukraine and humiliate NATO, and most importantly, that they were following a coherent plan.
I also remember (it’s easy to forget now, given all that has happened between) how even the Western ledership was panicking, with Milley openly saying that Ukraine was going to last about a week. The “barfly” cultists in their little echo chamber here forget that while the West was quick (within 1-2 weeks) to economically sanction Russia and at least attempt to isolate it politically, they were resigned to military defeat and to the notion that sending weapons, much less openly and in large quantities, was a (1) red line that couldn’t be crossed without risking a war engulfing all of Europe, and possibly going nuclear, (2) pointless, because Ukraine was going to be toast even before enough NATO weapons, supplies and mercenaries had arrived. Even the mere discussion of sending NATO weapons was taboo in most Western circles for months.
What people also forget is that the Ukrainian leadership was despondent and screaming for month after month about how the West had tricked them, was apparently fine with seeing Ukraine and “freedom” annihilated, and bitterly telling Europe that they were next.
But then of course the Russians, with the disastrous decision (classic Putin chess move, only for the other side) to halt the campaign (I’m not just talking about the pincer movement on Kiev, but even more so of the offensives toward Kharkov and Kherson), and to show preference for ceasefire talks in Istanbul, directly encouraged the West to think that the Russian invasion was nothing a Putin bluff (which is unfortunately precisely what it was).
The West (through Boris Jonson) then convinced a still panicked Ukraine to say no to a ceasefire, much less a surrender. And then again, people in here constantly bleat that “Russia is fighting all of NATO” when that wasn’t at all the case until long into 2022.
It was Russia which, over the course of countless months, convinced NATO that joining the fighting would not at all lead to severe Russian reprisal, that Russia did not have the will for a ruthless, sustained military campaign against Ukraine (preferring to speak of Ukrainians who boiled Russian soldiers’ heads and cut out their hearts and ate them as “brothers”) and that Ukraine could effectively fight back at such a weak opponent given enough NATO support.
I had some doubts about Russia long before the war (since 2014 at least, given the mixed results at building a resistance economy and strengthening the military) but I could never imagine the levels of weakness, dysfunction and incompetence it has evidently reached. I never thought I would say this (the neocon lie that China and Russia secretly hate each other and are allies only of “necessity” has always been a garbage cope/psyop – they have their own such ones too) but at this point I strongly hope that China, Iran, North Korea etc. have a plan B. A 1991 style coup in Russia replacing the weak and treasonous leadership seems out of the question because the rot in the military seems to be even worse than in the Kremlin.
Posted by: Unnamed | Aug 15 2024 20:47 utc | 266
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