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Daily Beast

Team Putin Threatens Maniacal Response to Bitter War Losses

Julia Davis – September 15, 2022

The humiliating defeats of Russia’s Armed Forces in Ukraine are prompting the Kremlin’s mouthpieces to propose increasingly violent tactics. Lobbying for a “scorched earth” policy on state television, Russian pundits and expert guests have been openly comparing the Ukrainian battleground to Chechnya, Syria, and even the infamous Beslan school massacre, where Russian special forces killed many hostages along with their terrorist captors.

Appearing on Wednesday’s broadcast of the state TV show 60 Minutes, military expert Igor Korotchenko said: “This is a new reality, which is why we should be acting quickly, harshly and uncompromisingly. First of all, we need to scale up our strikes against critical infrastructure in such a way that one region after the next, one district after another, Ukraine is plunged into darkness… By December, 20 million residents of Ukraine should flee to the West, to the European Union. This is our goal and the task we should accomplish.”

Korotchenko proposed: “Perhaps we should openly declare: ‘Leave. Zelensky is turning this territory into a real hell. No one knows what will happen here next. Twenty million, go to Europe.’ After that, we sink region after region into darkness. This is our enemy nation, the modern Third Reich, and we should act accordingly.”

Similar proposals permeated Russian airwaves, with experts arguing that the rules of the civilized world prohibiting war crimes are merely recommendations, compliance with which is optional. On Monday, appearing on The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at the Moscow State University, explained why those international conventions are irrelevant: “The rules of war, according to international conventions, are of an advisory nature: not to strike [certain objects], if possible. But it’s no longer possible.”

Appearing on the show The Meeting Place on Monday, Bogdan Bezpalko, member of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, argued: “As far as what needs to be done, as I previously said, we need to strike the infrastructure—which can’t be separated into military and civilian. If all of Ukraine is plunged into cold and darkness, if they have no fuel, reserve armies won’t help them and no one will be able to deliver equipment or ammunition… These strikes should go on for two, three, five or six months in a row, leaving not one gas station intact.”

Kremlin TV Airs Call for Russia to Admit ‘Serious Defeat’

Konstantin Zatulin, deputy chairman of the committee of the State Duma for the CIS, said on 60 Minutes: “This military operation—or this war—is entering another phase… The idea that we could achieve a victory with little blood or one massive strike is now in the past… Last week, there was a widespread message—everywhere, except for our television— that this is no time to celebrate, while we’re experiencing difficulties and failures at the battlefront, while we’re retreating… We are pondering what they will do. We need to overcome that… because victory is our only option.”

Host Olga Skabeeva cautioned: “Don’t scare our people prematurely, as I understand you’re talking about the possibility of mobilization.” Even the most gung-ho propagandists admit that the Russian society would be deeply unsettled at the thought of total military mobilization, and that the country’s economy is not currently equipped for such a step. The only alternative proposed by the state TV’s talking heads is inflicting utter devastation upon Ukraine.

Professor Alexei Fenenko, leading research fellow at the Institute of International Security Studies, attempted to lay the blame for Russia’s increasing brutality upon the United States. With images of the city of Mosul in ruins playing on the screen, Fenenko claimed: “After February 24, they waited for us to do this to key cities in Ukraine. Then they would have said, ‘Yes, those guys are strong.’” Without a hint of self-awareness, Skabeeva noted that the bodies of the dead were left on the streets of Mosul, to decay in plain sight. Fenenko noted that this gesture was meant as a message to other enemies.

Neither Skabeeva nor Fenenko made any mention of the horrific scenes in Ukraine that unfolded in recent months, when the retreating Russian troops left multiple corpses of Ukrainian civilians on the streets of Bucha, and scores of massacred civilians in other towns and cities.

Fenenko argued that in order to be respected by the United States, Russia has to reduce much of Ukraine to rubble. He said that America respects only those who can inflict devastating damage upon their adversaries: “Either you can do this to your enemies, or else you’re a nobody. If you can’t do it, you’re a coward and a loser.”

Associated Press

‘Torment of hell:’ Ukraine medic describes Russian torture

Ellen Knickmeyer – September 15, 2022

• US Ukraine Hero MedicUkrainian medic Yuliia Paievska, known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, speaks during an appearance before U.S. lawmakers on the Helsinki Commission, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A volunteer Ukrainian medic detained in Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol told U.S. lawmakers Thursday of comforting fellow detainees as many died during her three months of captivity, cradling and consoling them as best she could, as male, female and child prisoners succumbed to Russian torture and untreated wounds.

Ukrainian Yuliia Paievska, who was captured by pro-Russian forces in Mariupol in March and held at shifting locations in Russian-allied territory in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, spoke to lawmakers with the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, a government agency created in part to promote international compliance with human rights.

Her accounts Thursday were her most detailed publicly of her treatment in captivity, in what Ukrainians and international rights groups say are widespread detentions of both Ukrainian noncombatants and fighters by Russia’s forces.

Known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, Paievska and her care of Mariupol’s wounded during the nearly seven-month Russian invasion of Ukraine received global attention after her bodycam footage was provided to The Associated Press.

“Do you know why we do this to you?” a Russian asked Paievska as he tortured her, she recounted to the commission. She told the panel her answer to him: “Because you can.”

Searing descriptions of the suffering of detainees poured out. A 7-year-old boy died in her lap because she had none of the medical gear she needed to treat him, she said.

Torture sessions usually launched with their captors forcing the Ukrainian prisoners to remove their clothes, before the Russians set to bloodying and tormenting the detainees, she said.

The result was some “prisoners in cells screaming for weeks, and then dying from the torture without any medical help,” she said. “Then in this torment of hell, the only things they feel before death is abuse and additional beating.”

She continued, recounting the toll among the imprisoned Ukrainians. “My friend whose eyes I closed before his body cooled down. Another friend. And another. Another.”

Paievska said she was taken into custody after being stopped in a routine document check. She had been one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been taken prisoner by Russian forces. Mariupol’s mayor said that 10,000 people from his city alone disappeared during what was the monthslong Russian siege of that city. It fell to Russians in April, with the city all but destroyed by Russian bombardment, and with countless dead.

The Geneva Conventions single out medics, both military and civilian, for protection “in all circumstance.” Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat and co-chair of the Helsinki Commission underscored that the conditions she described for civilian and military detainees violated international law.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal.

“It is critical that the world hear the stories of those who endured the worst under captivity,” Wilson said. “Evidence is essential to prosecution of war crimes.”

Before she was captured, Paievska had recorded more than 256 gigabytes of harrowing bodycam footage showing her team’s efforts to save the wounded in the cut-off city. She got the footage to Associated Press journalists, the last international team in Mariupol, on a tiny data card.

The journalists fled the city on March 15 with the card embedded inside a tampon, carrying it through 15 Russian checkpoints. The next day, Paievska was taken by pro-Russia forces. Lawmakers played the AP’s video of her footage Thursday.

She emerged on June 17, thin and haggard, her athlete’s body more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) lighter from lack of nourishment and activity. She said the AP report that showed her caring for Russian and Ukrainian soldiers alike, along with civilians of Mariupol, was critical to her release, in a prisoner exchange.

Paievska previously had declined to speak in detail to journalists about conditions in detention, only describing it broadly as hell. She swallowed heavily at times Thursday while testifying.

Ukraine’s government says it has documented nearly 34,000 Russian war crimes since the war began in February. The International Criminal Court and 14 European Union member nations also have launched investigations.

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says it has documented that prisoners of war in Russian custody have suffered torture and ill-treatment, as well as insufficient food, water healthcare and sanitation.

Russia has not responded to the allegations. Both the United Nations and the international Red Cross say they have been denied access to prisoners.

Paievska, who said she suffered headaches during her detention as the result of a concussion from an earlier explosion, told lawmakers she asked her captors to let her call her husband, to let him know what had happened to her.

“They said, ‘You have seen too many American movies. There will be no phone call,’” she recounted.

Her tormentors during her detention would sometimes urge her to kill herself, she said.

“I said, ‘No. I will see what happens tomorrow,”’ she said.

Lori Hinnant contributed to this report from Paris.

Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Insider

The army Putin spent 2 decades building has been largely destroyed in Ukraine, and Russia’s ‘strategic defeat’ could threaten his regime

John Haltiwanger – September 14, 2022

• Russia’s military will have to be rebuilt as a result of the war in Ukraine, experts say.
• The war has “dramatically” altered perceptions of Russia’s military strength, one expert told Insider.
• Putin’s regime could also now be in jeopardy, as it faces rare examples of dissent.

Over the roughly two decades that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power, he’s dedicated a lot of time and money to building up and modernizing Russia’s military. In the process, Putin garnered a reputation as a force to be reckoned with and was widely viewed as one of the most powerful leaders in the world.

But the war in Ukraine has decimated the Russian military that Putin spent years building, while raising questions about his grip on power, Russia experts and military analysts told Insider.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a strategic defeat. So far the Kremlin has not been able to achieve its strategic level objectives and it has incurred significant costs. Russia’s military is going to have to be rebuilt,” George Barros, a military analyst with the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told Insider.

“The conventional ground army ground force that the Kremlin has spent the last two decades on creating — seeking to create a modern military — that force has been just largely degraded and in a large part destroyed in the past six months of war in Ukraine,” Barros added. “It’s very true to say that the conventional Russian ground force has taken a significant beating in Ukraine. It will have to be rebuilt.”

Though it’s difficult to confirm death tolls with the fighting ongoing, US military estimates last month put Russian casualties as high as 80,000. Among the dead have been senior officers, including generals.

Barros said that it will likely take “a generation to recreate” the Russian officer corps, which is “definitely going to have a long-term strategic impact on the net assessment for Russia’s conventional military.”

And though Putin has so far avoided declaring a general mobilization to make up for significant troop losses in Ukraine, the Russian leader in August ordered the military to increase its ranks by 137,000 starting in 2023, an ambitious goal seen by some as unachievable and one of many signs that the Russian military is being hollowed out by the war in Ukraine.

A recent intelligence update from the British defense ministry said that the elite 1st Guards Tank Army and other Western Military District units have suffered heavy casualties, indicating that “Russia’s conventional force designed to counter NATO is severely weakened.” The ministry added that “it will likely take years for Russia to rebuild this capability.”

The Russian military has also seen the damage, destruction, and abandonment of astonishing amounts of equipment in Ukraine. It is estimated to have lost thousands of armored vehicles since the war began in late February. These losses have forced the Russian military to resort to pulling obsolete, Soviet-era equipment, such as T-62 tanks, out of storage.

‘Not nearly as powerful as we thought’

Russia’s military has generally been ranked as the second most powerful in the world — surpassed only by the US.

But Russia’s disastrous performance in the Ukraine war is “going to change the assessment of Russia’s military strength dramatically,” Robert Orttung, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University whose research focuses on Russia and Ukraine, told Insider.

The Russian military is “not nearly as powerful as we thought it was,” he said.

A few years ago, Russia appeared to be winning the war in Syria and “Russian strategy seemed to be outsmarting Western strategy in the Middle East,” Orttung said, and it provided a major boost to Moscow’s propaganda about its military strength.

“A lot of their ability to make their propaganda effective was based on their actual battlefield prowess, which seemed to be quite strong in place like Syria,” Orttung said. “Now, basically unable to achieve their goals, unable to show that there’s integration between the guys fighting on the ground, the air force, and the other units — it’s definitely going to knock them down. The fact that they haven’t been winning in the field is going to make their propaganda much less effective.”

Before the invasion began, Russia was expected to conquer Kyiv in a matter of days. But Ukrainian forces, with the help of Western-supplied military equipment, put up a far stiffer resistance than Moscow anticipated. Russia’s forces failed to take the Ukrainian capital and instead turned their attention to the eastern Donbas region. Though a war had raged in that region between Kremlin-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces since 2014 — the same year that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea — Russia only made gradual progress in its campaign to take over the Donbas.

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in recent days, pushing the Russian forces into retreat and retaking an astonishing amount of territory in the country’s south and east. The Ukrainian government said its forces have recaptured around 3,000 square miles in September so far.

‘Wouldn’t write off Putin now’

Between devastating troop losses and Russia’s forces now being on the run, Putin is in an increasingly precarious position.

“Strength is the only source of Putin’s legitimacy,” Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Putin, told the New York Times. “And in a situation in which it turns out that he has no strength, his legitimacy will start dropping toward zero.” Gallyamov told the Times that if Ukrainian forces “continue to destroy the Russian army as actively as they are now,” then it could “accelerate” calls from elites for Putin’s successor to be chosen.

Some Russia watchers now believe Putin’s regime is in jeopardy. Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, on Wednesday tweeted, “Putin overreached in Ukraine. It’s the beginning of the end for Putinism in Russia.”

Local Russian lawmakers are calling for Putin to be removed from power over Ukraine, taking the potentially fatal risk of openly criticizing a leader with a reputation for ruthlessly squashing dissent. Even the Kremlin’s propagandists on Russian state media are struggling to continue offering positive assessments of how the war is going.

“You’re starting to see rumblings — both on TV and at the local grassroots level — of discontent with his leadership and a realization that the war is not going in Russia’s favor,” Orttung said. Taken together, Orttung said these developments “raise question marks about [Putin’s] image among the people and his ability to exert that image of competence.”

Despite such challenges, and the damage done to perceptions of Russia’s strength, Orttung is not convinced that this is the end for Putin.

“I wouldn’t write off Putin now,” he said. “A lot of people, including me, have been predicting he’s going to leave power or his demise is imminent. But he does have a lot of strengths — the main strength being that he’s eliminated any possible, reputable alternative to him.”

“It’s not clear who would replace him and all the people around him — they depend on him being in power for their own power. They have a stake in him staying there. And he survived more than 22 years fighting in a quite difficult environment, which is the Russian political scene,” Orttung added, underscoring that “most of the elites think that they’re probably better off with Putin there.”