Russia's Ukraine War of Attrition

"There are craniocerebral injuries, limb fractures, many patients with explosive and shrapnel injuries, burns."

"People were in a difficult condition, both physically and psychologically."

"Now our efforts are focused on the children who suffered. We work with four children. Three children out of four are in serious condition. In addition to severe stress, they have blast and shrapnel injuries, burns and fractures."

"The children are in serious condition."

Tetyana Kvitnytska, deputy head, Dnipropetrovsk regional health department

People stand next to a residential house destroyed by a Russian military strike on Wednesday in Chaplyne, in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region. (Dmytro Smolienko/Reuters)

 

 On the anniversary of Ukraine's independence from Russia, there was a general alert to all Ukrainian citizens to be aware and to take shelter at any air raid signals. Independence anniversary celebrations were officially cancelled for fear that the Russian military would target large crowds of civilians. Despite being under threat, Ukrainians decided they would celebrate anyway, and they did on their national Independence Day holiday.

 

There was a surprise attack on a train station in Chaplyne, a small town in the central Dnipropetrovsk region on Wednesday, exactly six months since the Russian 'special military operation' was launched into Ukraine. The Kremlin stated that its military had targeted a troop-carrying train, killing 200 Ukrainian troops. 

 

In actual fact, 25 people were killed as a result of that deadly strike, and 31 injured. According to witnesses, some of the victims which included at least one child, burned to death either trapped in burning train cars or in passing cars. "Everything sank into dust", 65-year-old Chaplyne resident Olena Budnyk, stated. "There was a dust storm. We couldn't see anything. We didn't know where to run". 

And once again a nuclear meltdown fear is pervading the area surrounding the Ukrainian nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia, which Russian occupation is endangering, with Russia using the plant as a base from which to shell surrounding towns and Ukrainian military bases. On Wednesday the last remaining electrical transmission wire powering the plant was damaged. Fortunately a backup power line re-connected the plant, with the use of electricity from a different, but non-nuclear plant.

 

Russia has been trying to modernize its army in recent years, including by increasing numbers of contract soldiers   Reuters

 

During the six-month conflict Russia has lost tens of thousands of military personnel, as has Ukraine. Russia's losses include military commanders, a  highly unusual number for such a short period of time. A testament to Ukrainian defiance of a larger, better-equipped, but inferior-motivated army that has been demoralized by the heavy losses it has sustained. To compensate for those losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a major increase of his military forces in the light of a projected long grind ahead in his determination to conquer Ukraine's spirit.

The aim is to increase troop numbers by an additional 137,000 servicemen, roughly13 percent, to 1.15 million by year's end. The question of where those 'volunteers' would be coming from, to augment the dwindling troop numbers, whether by increasing draft numbers, or recruiting additional volunteers is yet unknown. Some Russian military analysts expect more reliance on volunteers to prevent the Russian public from creating a backlash should the draft be expanded.

Acco9rding to the U.S. Pentagon, up to 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, thus impairing Moscow's plans to plan large offensives. Military analysts feel the planned troop levels may not in fact meet the needs of sustainable operational numbers. While the Kremlin speaks of reliance on volunteers to augment the ranks, it is questioned where those volunteers will come from. Even promising imprisoned criminals sentence forgiveness in exchange for volunteering for military service, has resulted in few volunteers.

Another expert has pointed out that training is time-consuming; complex modern weapons training normally take three years to ensure competence, while draftees serve one year only. "A draft won't help that, so there will be no increase in the number of draftees", state RIA Novosti news agency quoted military expert Alexei Leonkov, as warning of the difficulties that lie ahead. 

 

A Russian soldier guards an area at the Alley of Glory in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, which was captured in March. Photograph: AP

 

The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remains chaotic and volatile, not only because of Ukraine and Russia blaming one another for shelling at the plant but because of other issues. The Russian-installed regional government now accuses Ukrainian troops of having caused not only the fire that damaged the transmission lines, while Ukraine's nuclear energy agency Energoatom pointed to "actions of the invaders", but nature too has taken a hand in increasing the element of danger to the plant and the areas surrounding it most immediately.

"The situation is extremely dangerous. I'm receiving reports that there are fires in the forest near the power plant. We still have to examine this issue more", warned Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Wildfires in nearby forests either attributable to natural causes or to dry conditions being ignited by stray shells or missiles hitting the forests. Either way, it's an increase in the danger level of the potential for disaster at the plant.

 

The Kremlin's Rules of War

"[President Vladimir] Putin's goal is to unsettle, drive up prices divide society and to weaken support for Ukraine."

"We don't bow to it but counteract this with concentrated and consistent action."

"We take precautions so that we can get through the winter [storing up energy in the face of Moscow's weaponization of oil and gas in response to Western sanctions]."

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck

"Our assessment is, the Russians will find it increasingly difficult to supply men and materiel in the next few weeks."

"They will have to pause in some way and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back -- their morale is still high and they are starting to receive increasing amounts of good weaponry."

"To be honest, it will be an important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign."

UK's MI5 head, Richard Moore

"We saw people drenched in blood. We saw people on fire."

"We helped with bringing the wounded to the subway. The smoke was very thick."

"There were many wounded on the street."

Khaibar Karimi, local entrepreneur, Kharkiv

Black smoke rises into the sky from Russian shelling of Kharkiv's Barabashovo market. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The Russian military does not deliberately strike civilian targets. It would never hit enclaves of civil infrastructure, towns, villages, city suburbs. Its goal is to engage with, to destroy, military emplacements, weapons depots, energy resources to counter Ukraine's aggression against Russian troops. We know this because the Kremlin tells this to the world critical of its decision to leave behind nothing but burning cinders where people once lived in Ukraine. 

Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv, shelled for the past five months, remains an elusive goal for the Kremlin. Ukrainian nationalists are just so unaccommodating. Yet again it was struck, this time shells hit a crowded market. Leaving residents to stand about confused and disoriented as their world continues to fall apart, the marketplace suddenly bloodstained, people lying dead among the stalls.

 

Damage at a school destroyed by a Russian air bomb in Kharkiv. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The chief of the Kharkiv national police, Volodymyr Tymoshko, stated the obvious: no military targets are nearby. How the Russian military could have confused the issue is unknown. They are fatigued beyond endurance, resentful of Ukrainian determination to fight back, so there is no reluctance to follow orders to instill a little humility in the arrogant Ukrainians who believe they can counter the Russian military. Hit them hard, where they live and work, to drain them of the impression they can hold out forever.

Russian troops are exhausted from the combat their conflict with Ukraine brought them to, in finally taking Luhansk province. They've been ordered to focus all their energies now on Donetsk province. What energy? The front lines are frozen in fatigue. But they're moving forward to shell Donetsk in preparation for a new advance. After all, Vladimir Putin months ago proclaimed the Donbas to be Russian territory, to be left in the capable hands of its separatist proxies.

Britain's top spy states with confidence that intelligence indicates the Russian military is "running out of steam". A successful counter-strike by Ukrainian forces could yet set Russia on its back feet. It's what happened with the Kremlin's original intention to occupy Kyiv and neutralize the government. Until it ran into too many responding roadblocks and regrouped and withdrew claiming its real intention was the Donbas.

The United States, it would appear, is now prepared to send advanced fighter jets to Ukraine, another advantage on top of the long-range howitzers the Ukrainian military is making good use of, enraging Vladimir Putin by the West's meddlesome interference in what he planned to be an easy campaign of enter, occupy, expand.

A man in a wheelchair moves past rescue workers clearing the rubble of a building of the Kharkiv Regional Institute of Public Administration destroyed by Russian bombardment. (Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)

Appeasing Russia versus Holding Russia to Account

"Russia's combat force in the Donbas is highly likely to be operating in increasingly ad hoc and severely undermanned groupings."

"For both sides fighting in the contested towns, frontline combat is likely increasingly devolving to small groups of troops typically operating on foot."

British Ministry of Defence

"[France, Germany, Italy and Romania] are doing everything so that Ukraine alone can decide its fate."

"We are side-by-side today with Chancellor Scholz. One hundred years ago, we were at war and allies helped France win. France committed a historic mistake. It lost the peace because it wanted to humiliate Germany. The question of humiliation I always placed in a context to come, not the current context."

"Today, this war must be won. France clearly supports Ukraine so it prevails."

"Germany, like France, will never be in situations where they negotiate on Ukraine's behalf with Russia."

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"My colleagues and I have come here to Kyiv today with a clear message: Ukraine belongs to the European family."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

President Klaus Iohannis of Romania, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany holding a news conference after meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday.  Credit...Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Moscow, it seems, has rejected the opportunity opened to it with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to join the 'European family'. For a while it looked as though a succession of presidents from Yeltsin to Gorbachev with his perestroika and glasnov initiatives, were edging closer to bringing Russia into the European mainstream, willing and able to change the communist character of Russia to more closely resemble the democratic character of Europe. That changed when Yeltsin's successor was a former KGB officer.

And despite George W.Bush ruminating that he was able to see Vladimir Putin's soul through the sincerity of his eyes, what he really saw was his own naivete reflecting back at him through the mirror of Putin's inscrutable eyes. Behind those eyes was a yearning for the days of the Soviet Union and its position as a world power with its power-commandeered satellite-nations at its command.

 

Ukrainian forces firing toward Russian positions with a Caesar self-propelled howitzer in eastern Ukraine. France promised to provide more of the weapons, prized for accuracy.  Credit...Reuters

The Russian Federation has moved itself forward to a new plane resembling the old one and its president's frustration with the slow pace of advancing toward the past, committed Russia to a rash act of attempted violent destruction of a neighbour. In the process, Russia has found its own military put to the rack and its victim, while suffering great losses, has at the same time effected great gains in destroying the illusion that it would fold under Putin's demand.

It is fully understandable and certainly deserved that Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has in mind the humiliation of an invading nation that has caused countless deaths, created millions of refugees and displaced, and destroyed huge swaths of Ukrainian civic enclaves, reducing towns and villages to smoking ruins. The simple fact is that Russia deserves to be humiliated. And Zelenskyy's challenge to Europe to shun and humiliate Russia is fully justified.

France and Germany in particular see any such act of recrimination and punishment as self-defeating; burning the bridges of their future relationships with Russia, given its vast energy stores so anxiously waited on by both countries, along with the rest of the continent. It is a searing kind of justice that Zelenskyy insists upon, a penalty imposed for mass murder, looting and cultural defacement. Macon and Scholz can speak as feelingly as they wish; they are not the targets, theirs was not the sacrifice and their solution is nothing short of sanctimonious.

Mr. Scholz in the devastated city of Irpin on Thursday.  Credit...Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters

Global Breath Intake

"Russia has consciously undertaken an armed attack on the nuclear power site, an action that violated all international agreements within the IAEA."

"[Plant staff] are monitoring the condition of power units and ensuring their operation [is] in accordance with the requirements of technical regulations for safe operation."

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

 

"The city is in a very, very difficult state of siege."

"Relentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, airplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas."

Mayor Vadym Boychenko, Mariupol 

"The Russian side is not holding to the ceasefire and has continued firing on Mariupol itself and on its surrounding area."

"Talks with the Russian Federation are ongoing regarding setting up a ceasefire and ensuring a safe humanitarian corridor."

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head, office of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky 

A view shows a damaged administrative building of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Enerhodar, the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine in this handout picture released March 4, 2022 (National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom/Reuters)

Moscow is outdoing itself in risk-taking in its decision to blow right past all warning inhibitions by responsible governmental and international agencies of the extreme danger inherent in a conflict situation taking place in a geographic area housing nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants have been around for half a century but never before has a conflict situation seen deliberate targeting of a nuclear installation for the purpose of making it a trophy possession and risking an accident of monumental proportions.

 

Russia is attacking Ukraine on many fronts with its forces besieging and bombarding towns and cities non-stop. Kyiv is in direct danger of an overwhelming invasion itself with a huge Russian armoured column sitting for the time being outside the capital as though awaiting further orders to proceed. The convoy, stretching for miles, may very well be bogged down in spring melt, a phenomenon known to have occurred during other military incursions when the massive weight of military equipment stalled as snow and ice recede. 

Mariupol, the city that Vladimir Putin slavers to annex as a direct land link for Russia to access Crimea, is under heavy shelling, its mayor announcing there was no water, no heat, nor electricity. Moreover the port city in the southeast, after almost a week of encirclement and attack, is running out of food. "We are simply being destroyed", said Mayor Vadym Boychenko.

 

People cross a destroyed bridge as they evacuate the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, during heavy shelling and bombing on Saturday. More than one million people have fled Ukraine's borders since the invasion by Russia began on Feb. 24. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Refugees from eastern Ukraine have been steadily moving toward the country's west in the direction of borders with its neighbours, anxious to escape the fate of thousands of their compatriots who have died since the start of the invasion. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant attack was a perilous moment of high tension. With shells hitting the area of the plant, a blaze began in a training building leading to global alarm of the dread consequences until firemen were able to extinguish the flames.

While the plant's Ukrainian operators are still in charge of the plant and its safety, the nuclear complex of six reactors is now in Russian hands. According to IAEA chief Raphael Grossi, there was no real damage sustained by the plant, but one only of its six reactors was working with about 60 percent capacity. There was relief when it was announced that there was no radiation leaks and the plant was working normally.

Surveillance camera footage shows the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine on Friday. (Zaporizhzhya NPP via Reuters)

 

The Russian defence ministry, with the plant now controlled by Russian troops, blamed the fire on a Ukrainian saboteur attack. Germany's foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, stated that Russia was steadily increasing strikes on civilian areas "with the most brutal rigour". Leading Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz to phone Putin demanding the war be stopped. 

Russia's response, as expected, was that it does not target civilians; its aim is solely to disarm Ukraine. Its focus in Ukraine is a campaign to counter NATO aggression and support of the Ukraine government under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The intention is to capture the neo-Nazis representing the government. A perversion of reality in fact, since it is Russia's Vladimir Putin whose fascism has been revealed in his unprovoked attack on a neighbour.

Neighbours and relatives help remove the rubble of a house destroyed amid shelling in Markhalivka on Saturday. (Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images)

 

At the southern port city of Mykolayiv, Russian troops had entered, but the advance was halted by Ukrainian defences. Had it been captured the city with a population of a half-million would represent the largest Ukrainian city yet to fall to the Russian invasion. "We can feel cautious optimism about the future prospects of the enemy offensive -- I think that it will be stopped in other areas also", said government adviser Oleksi Arestovych.

Kherson, in the south, the first sizable Ukrainian city, was captured by Russian forces this week. Thousands of its undaunted people mounted a protest waving Ukrainian flags, shouting "Kherson is Ukraine!" In the northeast cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv, bombimg has become more intense. Neither the Kremlin nor the Russian president are particularly seized over the deaths of civilians and mounting casualties of their bombardments.

 

Getty Images

 

Russia has reverted to the tyrannical rule of a despot, where opponents of the government are mostly incarcerated in prison with trumped-up charges of undermining the state; others forced into exile. Further dissent has led to crackdowns where authorities now have banned any reports whose language is offensive to Russian aims in Ukraine. Verbiage in reference to "special military operation", substituting the word "war" is off limits.

Thousands of arrests of anti-war demonstrators have taken place. Access to foreign news source websites has been cut for spreading "false information:" about Russia's peacekeeping mission in Ukraine and its intent to save the country from the machinations of nationalist war-mongers. A prison term of up to 15 years was passed into law on Friday, for spreading intentionally "fake news" about the Russian military's presence in Ukraine.

Refugees from Ukraine are seen on the other side of their journey, at a distribution centre in Korczowa, Poland, on Saturday. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)