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Ukraine update: Putin's war may be destroying Ukrainian cities, but it's killing the Russian nation [1]
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Date: 2022-12-17
The Times article may start off by seeming to paint Russian soldiers as sympathetic figures who are only doing as they are told…
They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training.
But where this article goes is toward a perspective rarely expressed in national media — how Putin’s war is not just an invasion of Ukraine, but an unbelievably destructive act of hubris; a nightmare being sold as a dream. One that is taking his whole nation down with him.
And it doesn’t take it long to get there.
“This isn’t war,” Mikhail said, struggling to speak through heavy, liquid breaths. “It’s the destruction of the Russian people by their own commanders.”
From this in media res opening, the article opens up both the timeline and the camera lens, moving back to tell us again what we’ve long understood—Russia, and Putin in particular, thought this would be a cakewalk. They would roll into Kyiv in days, “sprint” across Ukraine, and Putin would soon be on hand to watch Russian forces goosestep through the Park of the Eternal Glory as he commissioned a new batch of Soviet-style monuments to his greatness.
What follows is the meat of the article: A detailed, in-depth, and sober look at the mistakes Russia made, both in their assumptions about Ukraine before beginning the invasion and in the execution of the war. That analysis finds exactly the sort of things we’ve been talking about for months: A blind assumption that the West was weak, and would turn it’s back on Ukraine; intelligence information that was more concerned about currying favor than accuracy; a Russian military that has been gutted by corruption to the point where whole units are ineffective; and a simple failure to execute shot through with inept leadership. Also, that demon logistics.
It’s a story of failure at absolutely every level: Russia’s intelligence was little more than decorating pages with what Putin wanted to hear. The vaunted “cyber” units that were effective at creating chaos in presidential elections were actually useless at doing real hacking. Communications were awful—in many instances, fatally so. And at the highest level Russia seemed to have no mechanism for learning from mistakes or adapting to new situations on the ground. They just made the mistakes again. And again.
“Nobody is going to stay alive,” one Russian soldier said he realized after being ordered into a fifth march directly in the sights of Ukrainian artillery. Finally, he and his demoralized comrades refused to go.
This is an article that recognizes that, even if Russia still holds tens of thousands of square kilometers in Ukraine, even if it is still making daily attacks at Bakhmut and other points along the eastern (and now, only) front, the cost to Russia is f**king enormous.
It also makes it clear that this is Putin’s fault. It’s his fault, not just in the sense that he was the one who made the decision to begin this invasion, and not just because he daily makes the decision to keep it going, but because he has intentionally deprived anyone else of the power to make decisions that might rectify some of those mistakes at the strategic level. Because Putin doesn’t want anyone else to be a hero. He’s so terrified of giving anyone power that might be used against him, that no one has the power to correct Russia’s ongoing mistakes.
If that article fails to emphasize that the cooperation of these same sympathetic “factory workers and truck drivers” is what keeps Putin in power. Or look too deeply at the men who set up torture chambers in basements, shot bike-riding children in the streets, or fired tank shells into the cars of fleeing families … there is still tremendous value here. The effort in research, and the skill in weaving it together, is right there on the page. It’s good. All those involved deserve a round of applause, and I urge you to go read this piece.
And now lets have an article about how those ordinary Russian people can do something to address this, by doing something about the man destroying their nation.
U.K. author and journalist John Sweeney left Ukraine today after many months reporting on the ground. He’s promising to return in 2023. Let’s go back one week to watch one of his reports from Bakhmut.
x War Diary Day 288
Bakhmut stands. #VPDFO! pic.twitter.com/5f97EK9Tpu — John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) December 9, 2022
While I’m pointing out good journalism, here’s an article from the other side of the U.S. that touches on an aspect of this war that few have talked about. From The Los Angeles Times…
Since the day Russia launched its invasion Feb. 24, Amazon has been working closely with the Ukrainian government to download essential data and ferry it out of the country in suitcase-sized solid-state computer storage units called Snowball Edge, then funneling the data into Amazon’s cloud computing system.
The purpose of this is to keep both pre-war records, and everything that can be learned as the war progresses, intact and out of reach of Russian propagandists who could use these records to both seek out individuals, and to alter or erase the past. The information is also essential to keeping the Ukrainian government running in case original records in Kyiv and other areas around the nation are lost.
This message from Bakhmut was actually recorded earlier this week, at a point when both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian sources seemed to be in agreement that the fall of Bakhmut was imminent.
x A message from Bakhmut pic.twitter.com/XVZCk5OJde — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 13, 2022
The Bakhmut suburb of Optyne, where this was reportedly filmed, is a location that Russia claimed to have completely occupied earlier this week. Nope.
With what appears to be another costly failure to capture Bakhmut now in the record books, here’s a thread that looks at Just why the Wagner Group exists, what gives it such power in Russia, and how Yevgeny Prigozhin’s creation is inherently flawed.
“An over-reliance on violence suggests an organization that is inherently fragmented, is present-focused, and beholden to the ‘glue’ of power-by-personality. It also suggests a reliance on national myths to both remain relevant, and tie it to external state strategies.”
Within this organization, recruitment from prisons is nothing new. Right now, we may see those troops being dragged to Bakhmut, handed a rifle (if they’re lucky) and being directed toward the kill zone past whatever factory or trash heap Russia is fighting over today, but this is not at all the first time Wagner has used this strategy. In fact, it’s part of how Wagner creates its own cultish persona.
Recruitment from prisons is key element of manipulation, pulling from the 'bottom' of society—those who are already 'othered' through the legal process—to draw in members who will never attain any real power, and are expendable based on their societal status.
Pull these guys out of cold cells in Russian prisons. Give them a uniform and hot meals. Treat them like equals … then send them to die. Prigozhin certainly didn’t invent such techniques, but they remain effective in putting people on battlefields with a maniacal loyalty to their units.
And honestly, this is only the surface of how Wagner takes people who have already been exiled within their own society and turns them into instruments of destruction. Read the thread, but be prepared for some highly unpleasant information. The more you know about these guys, the more hideous they are.
Russian losses, as tallied by the Ukrainian ministry of defense, remain on target to exceed 100,000 before the end of the year. It will likely happen this side of Christmas.
x "All cruelty springs from weakness."
Seneca
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Dec 17: pic.twitter.com/PV9ljKEwR3 — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 17, 2022
Ukraine continues to work its way around Russian defenses near Svatove. On Friday, there were reports that Ukraine is moving toward the towns of Sofiivka and Oborotnivka to the northeast of Svatove. That movement reportedly came from the west.
Svatove Area. Open image in another tab for a larger view.
This follows recent actions in which Ukraine liberated Yahidne and Kyslivka along a road moving northeast from the P07 highway. However, roads moving this way to the east are questionable or nonexistent. Someone (that would be me) even suggested that it was next to impossible for Ukraine to extend their wins in this area into further movement to the east, because the combination of vegetation and topology is just … not good. Unless the ground in the area is frozen, it seems more likely that Ukraine is actually moving on these locations along the road from Nova Tarasivka.
It’s unclear how prepared Russia is to hold positions in these towns, as they’re far enough from the highway that they may not have been considered as places needing protection. But since this movement is being reported in Russian sources, Russia is surely aware.
If Ukraine can take Oborotnivka, they could be positioned to get around the Russian forces that have been blocking movement to the east at Kuzemivka. Which could then finally give them that northern approach to Svatove. Or Russian forces may be forced to move to block this new approach, which would force them to step back from Kuzemivka. To coin a phrase, stay tuned.
Further south, Ukraine is reportedly engaged in fighting for the town of Holykove north of Kreminna. This location is off the P66 highway, but it’s fortified by multiple rows of trenches and earthworks, and Russia is using it to maintain fire control over Ukrainian positions along the P66. Today could be decisive for that location.
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