Russia-Ukraine War: Unable To Even Fix Its Own Tanks, Russia’s Humiliation Is Now Complete – Opinion
Putin’s bid to take over industry propels the country back to the command economy of its Soviet past
Ben Marlow | The Telegraph
The simplistic take on events in eastern and southern Ukraine is that Russian troops have finally gained the advantage over their battle-weary, vastly outgunned opposite numbers.
The capture of Lysychansk, a key strategic city in the Luhansk region of the breakaway industrial Donbas republic by Russian forces suggests that Moscow has been able to grind down spirited resistance, western officials begrudgingly acknowledge.
On the other hand, Vladimir Putin is still a long way away from taking the whole of the Donbas, with half of the Donetsk area still under the control of tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, and fighting in the east taking a heavy toll on his army.
An unnamed Western official claims that Russia is experiencing “very serious issues” with munitions stocks and morale, while long-range weapons systems are starting to make a “significant operational difference for Ukraine”, the Guardian reports. The intelligence presents a very mixed picture.
Far clearer is the extent to which Russia is slowly losing the economic and financial battle as the conflict turns into a war of attrition and Western sanctions slowly bite. Even the protective blanket of Moscow’s vast energy resources seems to be weakening as military supplies run low.
New laws paving the way for Moscow to essentially mobilise the economy and the national workforce mark a serious turning point in events. There are two bills making their way through the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
The first gives the Government powers to force businesses to contribute to the war effort. Authorities will be able to order factories to accept state defence contracts and redirect production towards military needs – vehicles, equipment, munitions and other vital hardware.
The second is just as extreme. Changes to labour laws hand the state the right to greater control over the workforce. Amid a shortage of specialist employees, officials will be granted powers to impose measures including night shifts, weekend and overtime work to enable businesses to fulfill the state’s needs.
It is truly interventionist stuff. The Kremlin had previously managed to avoid such draconian measures thanks to the continued flow of billions of dollars a day in oil and gas revenues from the West at a time of soaring prices.
But as Europe steps up attempts to unhook itself from Russian reserves, the Kremlin is “preparing for the worst” because “soon all these revenues may run out”, Elin Rikova, economist at the Institute for International Finance, told the Financial Times.
It comes just days after the Kremlin unveiled £24bn of spending cuts over the next three years in anticipation of a severe recession.
There have been many indications that Russia’s war is faltering. Moscow’s plan for a lightning quick victory was a comprehensive failure, forcing it to refocus its efforts on Luhansk and Donetsk.
But even there, despite advances, progress is exacting a heavy toll on the Russian army. Putin urged Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to instruct troops who took part in the campaign to capture Luhansk to rest.
Russia grossly underestimated the determination and professionalism of the Ukrainian forces and the willingness of the West to arm Kyiv, while simultaneously being caught out by the shortcomings of his own troops.
With the Kremlin increasingly isolated from the international system, supplies are so strained that the Russian president has been reduced to issuing orders to the private sector to fix his broken and battered tanks.
This is an admission that Moscow is critically short of the basic equipment and materials needed to fight a war, which in turn shows that it is unable to fight a war in the way that the West could.
Even Moscow has given up trying to pretend publicly that all is well.
“The burden on the Russian defence-industrial complex has increased significantly”, deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov conceded. The new bills talked about the “short-term increased need to repair weapons and military equipment and ensure supplies”.
Perhaps most crucially, it has admitted for the first time that the impact of sanctions is beginning to be felt. The new laws are “especially” essential because of the West’s attempts to cut-off the Russian regime, officials said.
With Moscow clearly attempting to regroup, Kyiv will hope that it allows enough time for vital Western weaponry to arrive, chiefly another scheduled shipment of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems from America that have struck at the heart of Russia’s invasion.
Experts believe the highly accurate Himars launchers, which are able to pinpoint targets up to 300kms away using GPS-guided missiles, could help Ukraine turn the tide – but only if deliveries are massively stepped up. Washington has so far provided four of the weapons, with another four on course to arrive before the end of the month.
Putin has suffered many humiliations in recent months but an attempted takeover of industry must top the lot, including its laughable attempts to revive the Muskovich car, a vehicle so terrible that it made the humble Lada look like a Maserati.
It is an act of desperation that propels Russia back decades to the command economy of its Soviet past.
Most significantly of all, it is further confirmation of Russia’s self-inflicted relegation from global superpower to failed third-rate state and international pariah.
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FACT CHECK: Putin’s Lies About The Bombing Of Ukraine
Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed in Russian rocket attacks since February 24. Still, Vladimir Putin claims his soldiers don’t attack civilian targets. The facts show quite the opposite.
Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed since neighboring Russia invaded on February 24. Every day brings new images of destruction and the desperation of the Ukrainian people.
Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government continue to insist that they don’t attack civilian targets: “The Russian army does not strike at civilian facilities. There is no need for that”, President Putin claimed during a press conference in Turkmenistan. But journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and political organizations have consistently proven otherwise.
“We see a clear pattern of violations against international humanitarian laws [IHL] designed to protect civilians,” Wolfgang Benedek, told DW. Benedek led investigations into possible IHL violations in Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He called Moscow’s claims that its troops do not attack civilian targets a “blatant lie.”
HARD EVIDENCE OF RUSSIAN ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS
The United Nations (UN) has documented 4,889 Ukrainian civilian dead and 6,263 injured between February 27 and July 4, though the organization says real fatality numbers are likely to be much higher.
The international research collective Bellingcat has also been documenting Russian attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine since the start of the war. “We have seen large numbers in terms of destruction of civilian infrastructure, and of injured and dead civilians,” Nick Waters, head of justice and accountability investigations at Bellingcat, told DW.
In short, organizations and journalists have delivered clear evidence that Russian forces have directly attacked civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. DW has put together a list of several thoroughly investigated and well-documented incidents.
KREMENCHUK SHOPPING MALL AIR STRIKE (June 27)
According to Ukrainian officials, more than 1,000 people were inside a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk when it was hit by Russian rockets on June 27. At least 11 people were killed in the incident and more than 500 injured.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the attack but offered a deflecting explanation on its website, saying Russian soldiers had bombed, “a hangar loaded with arms and ammunition received from the US and Europe.” The ministry claimed the mall caught fire after the neighboring munitions depot exploded. Russia has offered no evidence to support the claim.
Vehicles damaged in a train station rocket attack, paint charred from their bodies and hoods, trunks and windows blown open or out
A surveillance video made public by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to show the attack as it happened. In it, one can see a rocket directly, or very nearly directly, hit the mall — contradicting Russian claims that fire from a burning storage facility spread to engulf the site.
Writing on Twitter, British intelligence services said it was indeed possible that the Russians had wanted to hit something nearby in their attack but had missed their target. Bellingcat research has shown that the Russians hit other targets nearby but that they had definitely hit the mall, too.
KRAMATORSK TRAIN STATION AIR STRIKE (April 8)
On the morning of April 8, the Kramatorsk train station in eastern Ukraine came under rocket attack. Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said roughly 4,000 people were at the site when the attack occurred.
Reporters from the Washington Post newspaper were on the scene within 15 minutes; reporting at least 20 dead, some children. According to Donetsk Regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, at least 50 people were killed and a further 100 injured.
Investigators found a Russian-made Tochka-U missile in front of the station. Russia says it is not using the Tochka at the moment, but Bellingcat research has proven that Russian troops are indeed using the mobile missile system in Ukraine.
The UK’s Defense Ministry says it is possible that Russian forces missed an intended military target as a result of the missile’s poor maneuverability.
BUCHA MASSACRE (end March / early April)
In early April, gruesome images from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha began circulating around the world. They showed hundreds of bodies left dead in the city’s streets when Russian soldiers withdrew in late March. Ukraine claims that civilians were killed, even tortured, by Russian soldiers in the city.
Russia immediately countered. The Foreign Ministry again took to Twitter saying the whole thing was a lie: “All of the photos and videos published by the Kyiv regime ( … ) are just another provocation.” Yet, as a March DW FACT CHECK showed, that is simply not true.
Research by The New York Times analyzed satellite imagery recorded by the US-based space technology company Maxar. Journalists at the paper were able to identify bodies along Bucha’s Yablunska Street as early as March 11, and then consistently more from March 19. The images clearly contradict the Russian narrative that bodies only began to appear after Russian troops left Bucha on March 30.
Research by the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel also provided evidence that Russian soldiers in fact murdered civilians in Bucha. The magazine reported that German BND intelligence services had intercepted and recorded radio communications between suspected perpetrators in Bucha in which they discussed the killing of civilians.
Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk described the ruthless behavior of Russian soldiers toward the city’s citizens when he spoke with DW. About 90% of the bodies found had evidence of gunshot wounds, he said. Russia continues to deny any responsibility for atrocities committed in Bucha.
MARIUPOL THEATER AIR STRIKE (March 16)
The city theater of Mariupol was destroyed on the morning of March 16, when it was directly hit by one or more missiles. An investigation by Associated Press (AP) news agency estimated that at least 600 people were killed in the attack. The NGO Amnesty International cited a lower number in its report on the incident but nevertheless described it as a “Russian war crime.”
A great number of Mariupol citizens had taken shelter in the theater as pitched battles were being fought for control of the key port city.
The Vienna-based OSCE’s council of experts concluded that a Russian air strike was responsible for the deliberate “destruction ( … ) of the theater, which was clearly marked as housing children by signs on both sides, and in which many civilians had taken refuge.”
Experts stated, “Russia does not claim that it was a legitimate target but that it was blown up by the Ukrainian Azov battalion. The Mission did not receive any indication that this could be the case. Up to 1,300 persons were allegedly seeking shelter in the theater, both underground and on the floors.”
This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-putins-lies-about-the-bombing-of-ukraine/a-62419749