Let’s take a look at the situation in Ukraine. What I will present here, is a series of snippets of information gleaned from mostly pro-Russian sources, but that are corroborated with news from Ukraine itself, and from the West. They paint a picture that the Media in the West will not focus on, which is why I am presenting it to you, for your own consideration.
As I do not speak or read Ukrainian, my ability to confirm or correct these stories myself are severely hampered, and I present them on the premise that I trust the translation given (not unthinkable, but why give a video, with Ukrainian speech, and give a translation that does not match? Such bare bones attempt at deceit would very quickly be found out. With that in mind, the sheer number of similar stories are an indication for me of their veracity). As such, I am open to any correction in that regard.
There are so many video’s of Ukrainian army units that protest deplorable conditions, the lack of proper support and weaponry, the insanity of their orders, etc.
Case in point, the 115th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We see video’s appear from different sub-units of this brigade, complaining and making appeals to their leadership.
For example, this video, where they say, paraphrased:
“There is no way to follow orders. The evil enemy, with the help of irresistible force, drove us out of the positions we occupied from April 19 to May 3.
They were forced to flee to the rear, because the General Staff did not prepare a reserve position. We cannot perform combat missions due to low morale and psychological state.”
Or in this video, from a platoon of the 3rd battalion of the 115th brigade, positioned in Severodonetsk, that recorded an appeal to Zelensky and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny:
“We refuse to carry out combat missions because we do not have reinforcements from behind. No heavy equipment. We have been waiting for reinforcements for two weeks, but there is none. We are being sent to certain death. The command is missing. There is no technology and respect for people. We do not refuse to defend Ukraine, but in such conditions we refuse to carry out combat missions!”
Even the wives of those soldiers started to mix their voices in open appeals. IntelSlava reported a video from a woman who said: "They are simply interfered with the ground. They are with machine guns against tanks and mortars" and explains: “A cry from the heart of the wife of one of the militants of the 115th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who recently recorded an appeal to Zelensky about the complete lack of supplies. Now they are trying to silence the fighters who told the truth about corruption in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Such protests by wives are NOT unique, either, as shown in this rally, protesting that their husbands are thrown to the front line without preparation, ammunition, just like cannon fodder, or another rally by relatives of militants from the 103rd Troop Brigade from the Lvov region.
Other videos show up that show Ukrainian troops trying to work actual WWII era weapons, this video linked to the 115th Brigade as well:
“Defective light machine guns of 7.62 mm caliber, began to be issued to the 115th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
From Russian side, Kadyrov reported about “the capture of the residential area of Severodonetsk and the ongoing cleansing of the city after the flight of units of the 115th Volkssturm Brigade, which abandoned its equipment in the city”. (This was not that long after, on May 28)
And the result was severe. On may 25, it was reported that the General Staff of Ukraine proposes to start mass arrests of soldiers who film and publish videos of appeals, crises and problems in the army. By itself, a necessary measure to maintain morale and discipline, but it shows a complete collapse within their own ranks. IntelSlava reports a video from the Ukrianian side, that shows “Soldiers of the 115th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who were accused of desertion, are in pre-trial detention center No. 6 (as I understand it, this is the Kirovograd pre-trial detention center).”
The 115th is not alone. There are videos from individual soldiers complaining, and talking about mass desertion and the lack of support from their own command "...I had to go to the military enlistment office, because otherwise I was threatened with 10 years in prison. They recruit into the army by persuasions or threats, or through preventive talks with people. Two of my comrades wrote a report that they refuse to continue their service as they were no combatants. The half of drafted soldiers of our rifle platoon abandoned this position. And two soldiers refused to continue the service, they were taken to Kramatorsk. People are already tired of war, they don't want to fight, they want to live in peace..."
Or another one, of the 79th: “The president needs a beautiful picture, he doesn't care about us." “According to him, the command, realizing the known danger of the death of the entire unit, did not listen to the requests of the rank and file to leave their positions and retreat, referring to instructions from above - President Zelensky. The prisoner says that Zelensky is deliberately issuing suicidal orders in order to paint a beautiful picture of the resistance of the Ukrainian army.”
But whole units, despite the harsher rules and punishment for doing so, join in as well!
One example, the 71st Jaeger Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: they complained that “they were forced to go with machine guns against the artillery of the Russian Armed Forces. No one provides cover, they have no armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers and tanks, and for the whole brigade there are only mortars, which are not always serviceable. Soldiers on camera ask how they can fight if no one even remembers about them. The military also noted that they receive only verbal orders without any documents.”
Or units of the Cherkasy Territorial Defense forces who refuse to fight and recorded a video message to the commander in chief.
Or the 2nd company of the 46th separate rifle battalion, complaining about the lack of weapons - supplies, inadequate bosses, etc.
Or soldiers of the 101st Territorial Defense Brigade (TrO) from the Transcarpathian region who complain that they were sent to the front line in the LPR. “According to them, their formation was created to protect checkpoints in the rear and is not intended for combat operations. The militants have no military training. Many of them complain about health problems. The militants believe that they will become a target for Russian artillery.”
And in the Nikolaev region, Ukrainian soldiers again complain that they are not getting help.
And what is the response of the Ukrainian High Command?
As was reported on pro-Russian sites, the Ukrainian Rada is proposing to allow Ukrainian officers to kill deserters.
A deputy from Zelensky's Servant of the People party, Bezuglaya, introduced a bill that proposes changes to the statute of internal service.
The current version of the document states that "in a combat situation, the commander (chief) may use a weapon or give an order to his subordinates to use it, if it is impossible to stop a criminal offense in another way, while not causing death to a soldier."
Bezugloy's project proposes to delete the last part of the phrase - "while not causing death to a serviceman."
I have been unable to independently confirm this, as I do not read nor understand Ukrainian, so I present this with that important disclaimer. Still, other reports seem to confirm this:
“4 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine today chose life instead of death and surrendered to the special unit "Akhmat" near Severodonetsk.
The other 16 fighters were less fortunate, the Ukrainian punishers did not allow them to surrender, opening fire on their own military.”
And we see from Ukrainian sources the following:
They simply try to find more bodies to throw into the fight, and suppress news about the deplorable conditions those untrained troops find themselves in.
And even Western news media start to pick up on this, albeit very reluctantly. But they start to report small details that corroborate the above storyline. For example, the WaPo wrote this:
“In interviews with The Washington Post, foreign fighters from the United States and elsewhere described glaring disparities between what they expected the war to be like and what they experienced. They recalled going into battle underequipped and outgunned […] Others saw friends die and decided enough is enough.
They were issued antitank weapons and Javelin missiles but no batteries for the launch unit, he said. Without a power source, the equipment was inoperable.”
An army that faces such discontent among their own ranks, who risk defying the orders to NOT make such open videos, whose own wives and relatives stage rallies in support of their military husbands and sons, decrying the lack of training, support, leadership, and equipment, adequate to the task, is at very severe risk of imploding.
If not for the constant influx of heavy weaponry and ammunition by the US and NATO, the Ukrainian army would have been forced to face the inevitable much sooner. Russia is patiently waging a war of attrition on the Ukrainian positions, pounding them with artillery and rocket strikes, guided by drone reconnaissance among other sources, and they are keeping their own losses at a minimum, while inflicting great damage on Ukrainian positions.
The current debate in the media and among Western states about the delivery of longer range rocket systems to Russia is part of that. And the Russians are warning that the delivery of weapon systems that could target places in Russian territory would be seen as an act of war, and subject to appropriate retaliation or preventive strikes, is not to be dismissed. NATO and the US are playing with fire, and risk getting dragged into open war, as well. Which would be the only ‘chance’ for Ukraine to turn things around, as the current morale of their own troops on the ground make it very clear: they have already lost the war, and the will to fight. Any meaningful counter attacks are prevented by lack of proper equipment and troops (which is the main thing they cannot properly replace: trained and experienced soldiers), and leadership decisions that are aimed at dragging out the fighting (with the hope of finally getting the support from NATO and US in sufficient quantities to turn things around?) prevent any retreat but at the cost of the units defending hopeless positions.
The media in the West doesn’t mention those snippets, but this storyline that I have painted here is too pervasive, and even seeping through in Western news outlets, that I cannot ignore it. This is that story, and my attempt at placing it in context. Ukraine is in a very precarious position, and the Russians know it. Hence their very harsh language against interference by the West (regarding supplies of better and longer range weaponry), trying to scare the West into neutrality or at least inaction. And that seems to work at least somewhat, as the same Con Coughlin who was so certain about Russian defeat at the beginning of the war, remarked in a very recent article “A divided West is giving Putin a second chance to win.”
Some would object to my analysis here, and claim that neither Russia is capable of forcing a victory here, and is equally mired in a grueling stalemate.
But that supposes that we know fully what the aims are of Russia. Many still think they want to conquer ALL of Ukraine, but this is absolutely unlikely. The first drive towards Kiev was more than likely both a feint, to keep troops away from the Eastern regions (Donbass etc.), and a very quick advance to capture several of the sites that were used for bioweapon research. Don’t forget that Putin consistently spoke of ‘a special operation’, and not a war, and that he declared that special operation over, in a victory, several weeks ago. We saw the pivot, suddenly leaving the Kiev region, and an increased attack to capture the Russian speaking regions in the East, as well as the coastal regions, in an effort to safeguard the Russian population in those areas, and to capture a defensible portion to confront the world with a ‘fait accompli’. They are taking their time, and shifted their tactics, to a slower approach that allows them to save their own troops, and the civilians in the Russian speaking regions they claim to be ‘liberating’.
And as a disclaimer: I never made any claim about the moral values of either side. History is full of such campaigns of conquest, under any possible pretext. Is it enough to point at the plight of the Russian speaking population in the East of Ukraine? And the attacks on them at least since 2014? How Ukraine was a divided country, politically? Are the concerns Russia had about the NATO encroachment that close to their borders valid? (Cuba and the current standoff regarding China and Australia in the Solomon Islands would suggest that such ARE valid concerns.) What about the biowapon research? Neither did I claim that it is impossible to come to a proper position on the morality of this war, of either of the fighting sides.
But that is a whole different analysis, for a different article.
Suffice for now this very specific look into the Ukrainian army, and the severe morale problems among their own ranks. An element we cannot ignore, if we want to understand what is going on, and where this might lead us.
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Quick addendum:
Take a look at this substack article, that was published yesterday (worth a full read as well!):
”Ukrainian high command and NATO are pushing Ukrainian forces to their very limits. When this limit is reached, the resulting depletion of strength and morale may lead to sudden consequences on the ground. Desertion and surrender are already becoming a reality. Imagine when the whole frontline encounters the same fate.
The Western corporate media may tell you about turning tides in favor of the regimes they patronize, yet ugly realities on the ground belie their declarations. Ukrainian officials themselves report massive Ukrainian losses of strength, allowing us to see them point towards a reality very similar to the one Russia has been portraying. They are even having discussions about the reality of their own soldiers leaving them on then battlefield as a result of the demoralizing reality there.”
However you slice or dice it, one cannot hide this reality. I did not even mention the numbers of casualties directly, but it is very high on Ukrainian side, and has a very demoralizeing effect, especially considering the very meager to non-existent gains the surviving soldiers in those decimated units perceive. All those death comrades, and for what?
Interesting in this article, is the overruling POLITICAL decision, by Zelensky, to stand their ground in hopeless positions, over the tactical and strategic suggestions to retreat to a more defensible line. Dirty games are being played, with the lives of soldiers, professional and conscripts alike. What is Zelenksy’s endgame there, what is he hoping to achieve by postponing the inevitable?
I have been following this war since its inception and have to say that your analysis is spot on from everything I have seen. There are still some units of the Ukraine military fighting hard but they are in the minority and ever growing smaller. Russia just is too well led and too well equipped compared to the Ukrainian military.
Thanks for more insight into the "war" in Ukraine!