Putin allies express concern over mobilzsation ‘excesses’
September 25, 2022
(Reuters) – Russia’s two most senior lawmakers on Sunday addressed a string of complaints about Russia’s mobilisation drive, ordering regional officials to get a handle on the situation and swiftly solve the “excesses” that have stoked public anger.
President Vladimir Putin’s move to order Russia’s first military mobilisation since World War Two triggered protests across the country and seen flocks of military-age men flee, causing tailbacks at borders and flights to sell out.
Multiple reports have also documented how people with no military service have been issued draft papers – contrary to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s guarantee that only those with special military skills or combat experience would be called up – prompting even ultra-loyal pro-Kremlin figures to publicly express concern.
Russia’s top two parliamentarians, both close Putin allies, explicitly addressed public anger at the way the mobilisation drive was unfolding.
Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, said she was aware of reports of men who should be ineligible for the draft being called up.
Related video: Muscovites protest against mobilization
Muscovites protest against mobilization
Police moved quickly to detain demonstrators who gathered in central Moscow on Saturday to protest the partial mobilization of reservists Russian President Vladimir Putin declared earlier this week. (Sept. 24)
“Such excesses are absolutely unacceptable. And, I consider it absolutely right that they are triggering a sharp reaction in society,” she said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
In a direct message to Russia’s regional governors – who she said had “full responsibility” for implementing the call-up – she wrote: “Ensure the implementation of partial mobilisation is carried out in full and absolute compliance with the outlined criteria. Without a single mistake.”
Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower chamber, also expressed concern in a separate post.
“Complaints are being received,” he said.
“If a mistake is made, it is necessary to correct it … Authorities at every level should understand their responsibilities.”
Officials say 300,000 more Russians will called up to serve in the mobilisation campaign. The Kremlin has twice denied it actually plans to draft more than one million, following two separate reports in independent Russian media outlets.
Rights groups saying more than 2,000 have been detained at rallies against mobilization in dozens of cities so far this week, with more protests already having been recorded on Sunday in Russia’s Far East and Siberia.
An ex-US Army general who witnessed Russia’s basic training of recruits says it was awful, and the ‘newbies’ being drafted face disaster on the front line
Alia Shoaib – September 24, 2022
Servicemen stand in front of a tank during the ‘Vostok-2022’ military exercises at the Sergeevskyi training ground outside the city of Ussuriysk on the Russian Far East on September 6, 2022.Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
Russia has called up 300,000 reservists to be drafted to Ukraine.
A former US Army general said this was a sign of weakness, suggesting they will lack proper training.
Mark Hertling said he had witnessed how the Russian army is “poorly led and poorly trained.”
A former US Army general said that Russia’s announced mobilization of 300,000 reservists was a “jaw-dropping” sign of weakness.
Mark Hertling, who commanded the US Army Europe, explained in a Twitter thread that he has personally witnessed how the Russian army is “poorly led and poorly trained.”
The poor training, coupled with the decision to draft in recruits with little experience, is likely to spell disaster for Russia, he said.
“And placing “newbies” on a front line that has been mauled, has low morale & who don’t want to be portends more [Russian] disaster.”
Putin announced on Wednesday the partial mobilization of the country’s military reservists, with Russian officials stating that 300,000 reservists will be drafted immediately.
Only those with combat experience will be called up, and students and current conscripts will not be included, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Insider reported that recruits being drafted this week were totally unsuitable and included a 63-year-old man with diabetes.
Horrible leadership by “drill sergeants”
Hertling, who for a time also commanded all basic and advanced soldier training for the US Army, said that during two visits to Russia he found the army’s training to be “awful.”
He compared Russia’s army training with the US’, which typically involves new soldiers getting 10 weeks of basic training across several sites from “very professional drill sergeants,” and many going on to get more specialized training.
The former general cited a Moscow Times article from July, six months into the invasion of Ukraine, which said that soldiers were being sent to the front line with minimal basic training.
Sergei Krivenko, the director of the human rights group Citizen. Army. Law. told the outlet: “I’ve been regularly approached by parents whose children signed a [military] contract and ended up in Ukraine just a week later.”
The article also quoted one Russian soldier who said he received just five days of training before being sent to combat in Ukraine.
Hertling said when he visited Russia, he noted that Russian army training faced many issues, including “horrible leadership by drill sergeants,” and cited an article about hazing.
He said that officers told him theirs was a “one year” force, with some, often the poorest, volunteering or being elected for leadership roles.
By comparison, Hertling said that Ukraine’s army more closely follows the US model after having received training from US personnel in both individual and unit training techniques since 2014.
The issue of Russian army training, according to Hertling, starts “in basic training, and doesn’t get better during the [Russian] soldier’s time in uniform.”
Trump responds to Putin’s warning that nuclear threat ‘not a bluff’
Jared Gans – September 21, 2022
Former President Trump responded Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hinting at being willing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, saying that the conflict should never have happened and that it could lead to a world war.
Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social that the conflict would not have come to pass if he were still in the Oval Office.
“But as I have made very clear for quite some time, this could now end up being World War III,” he said.
Putin announced earlier on Wednesday in an address to the Russian people that he was calling up about 300,000 reservists to provide reinforcements in Ukraine, where his military has recently been struggling. He accused Western countries of “nuclear blackmail” and threatened to use Russia’s nuclear weapons.
“This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them,” Putin said.
The Russian president has repeatedly made threats about using nuclear weapons since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in response to Putin’s comments that the United States was taking Putin’s threat seriously.
Ukraine has retaken control of thousands of square kilometers of its territory as part of a counteroffensive this month.
Flights out of Russia sell out after Putin orders partial call-up
Caleb Davis – September 21, 2022
A man looks at a flight information board at the departure zone of Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow
GDANSK (Reuters) -One-way flights out of Russia were rocketing in price and selling out fast on Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin ordered the immediate call-up of 300,000 reservists.
Putin’s announcement, made in an early-morning television address, raised fears that some men of fighting age would not be allowed to leave the country.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the call-up would be limited to those with experience as professional soldiers, and that students and conscripts would not be called up.
The Kremlin declined to comment on whether the borders would be closed to those subject to the mobilisation order, and asked people to be patient as the law is clarified.
Meanwhile, Google Trends data showed a spike in searches for Aviasales, Russia’s most popular flight-booking site.
Direct flights from Moscow to Istanbul in Turkey and Yerevan in Armenia, both destinations that allow Russians to enter without a visa, were sold out on Wednesday, according to Aviasales data.
Flights from Moscow to Istanbul via Turkish Airlines were either all booked or unavailable until Sunday, as of 1415 Moscow time (1115 GMT).
Some routes with stopovers, including those from Moscow to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, were also unavailable, while the cheapest flights to Dubai cost more than 300,000 roubles ($5,000) – about five times the average monthly wage.
Typical one-way fares to Turkey shot up to almost 70,000 roubles ($1,150), compared with a little over 22,000 roubles a week ago, Google Flights data shows.
The head of Russia’s tourism agency said no restrictions have been imposed on travelling abroad so far.
A tourism industry source also told Reuters that demand for plane tickets from Russia for the visa-free countries has jumped.
“It was possible to buy a one-way ticket in the morning for 200,000 roubles to 300,000 roubles, but not anymore,” the source said.
“That’s a panic demand from people, who are afraid that they won’t be able to leave the country afterwards.”
Aeroflot, the country’s flag-carrying airline, said it was not limiting ticket sales.
($1 = 60.9500 roubles)
(Reporting by Caleb Davis; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Frank Jack Daniel, Elaine Hardcastle and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Russia calls up 300,000 reservists, says 6,000 soldiers killed in Ukraine
September 21, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Russian service members march during a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 76th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2021
LONDON (Reuters) – Russia will draft 300,000 reservists to support its military campaign in Ukraine, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday in televised remarks.
In Moscow’s first update on casualty numbers in almost six months, Shoigu said 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed since the start of the conflict.
President Vladimir Putin had ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War Two in an early-morning television address, saying the additional manpower was needed to win a war against not only Ukraine but also its Western backers.
Shoigu dismissed assertions by Kyiv and the West that Russia has suffered heavy losses in its seven-month campaign, and said 90% of wounded Russian soldiers had returned to the frontline.
It was the first time Russia had given an official death toll since March 25, when it said 1,351 servicemen had died.
The U.S. Pentagon said in August that it believed between 70,000 and 80,000 Russian personnel had been killed or wounded, and in July estimated Russia’s death toll at around 15,000.
Shoigu said Russia had 25 million potential fighters at its disposal.
The decree published on the Kremlin’s website said the call-up would apply only to reservists with previous military experience.
Shoigu said this meant around 300,000 men. He said they would be given additional training before being deployed to Ukraine, and that they would not include students or those who were currently serving as conscripts.
“These are really those who have served, have a military speciality, that is, a speciality that is needed today in the Armed Forces, who have combat experience …
“… Those who are serving under conscription – it doesn’t apply to them either,” he said. “They are not subject to any mobilisation and direction for the ‘special military operation’. Our conscripts also continue to serve, as they did, on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Shoigu said the mobilisation would help Russia “consolidate” territories it holds behind a 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline in Ukraine.
Moscow says it is waging a “special operation” to demilitarise its neighbour and rid it of dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is mounting an imperialist campaign to reconquer a pro-Western neighbour that broke free of Moscow’s rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. (This corrects death toll in paragraph 2 to 5,937 (from 5,397). Makes clear in paragraph 9 that Shoigu excluded those currently serving as conscripts, not those who had previously only served as conscripts; adds supporting quotes in paragraphs 10-11)
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Alison Williams)
‘The Time Has Come’: Top Putin Official Admits Ugly Truth About War
Shannon Vavra – September 21, 2022
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
Vladimir Putin’s defense minister sent a clear message to the people of Russia on Wednesday: Their country is at war not just with Ukraine, but with the entirety of the West.
“I cannot but emphasize the fact that today, we are at war not so much with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army as with the collective West,” Sergei Shoigu said in a televised speech, according to TASS.
“At this point, we are really at war with the collective West, with NATO,” Shoigu added.
Shoigu’s warning comes as Putin announces that Russia will be running a “partial mobilization” to better tackle the war in Ukraine, days after a series of resounding defeats on the battlefield in Ukraine as Ukrainian forces have run successful counteroffensives in the south and northeast. In a speech announcing the move Wednesday morning, Putin suggested that the West had been considering using nuclear weapons against Russia and threatened nuclear weapons use in return—without providing any evidence of the West’s supposed threats.
“To those who allow themselves such statements regarding Russia, I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction,” Putin said. “It’s not a bluff.”
“When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin added.
Shoigu’s rhetoric melds well with the Kremlin line about the war in Ukraine; Russia has consistently sought to blame the West for provoking Russia.
President Joe Biden lambasted Putin in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday in an attempt to remind global leaders that although Moscow’s narrative is that the United States and NATO pushed Russia into invading Ukraine, Putin chose to invade Ukraine unprovoked.
“Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened,” Biden said. “But no one threatened Russia. No one other than Russia sought conflict.”
Shoigu on Wednesday boasted about just how well the war is going for Russia. He sought to couch the idea that 300,000 Russian reservists are participating in the “partial mobilization” due to that success—regardless of the fact that since the early days of the war Russian troops have failed to achieve key objectives, including failing to capture Kyiv and needing to downsize their goals several times.
“We’re killing, killing, and killing, and that time has come: We’re at war with the collective West,” Shoigu said.
The move may not be all Putin and Shoigu are cracking it up to be. The flurry of action in Russia—from Russia’s Duma announcing increased penalties for desertion or evading conscription alongside the announcement of a partial mobilization and nuclear threats—is a dead giveaway that Putin’s plans in Ukraine are not going well, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.
In a curious effort to convince Russians that the war is going well, Shoigu suggested that only approximately 6,000 Russian troops have perished in the war, but insisted that more troops would be necessary to come out victorious.
The reality is far worse. The Pentagon has estimated, as recently as August, that somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 Russian troops have been wounded or killed.
Vindman: Trump’s “corrupt scheme” had direct tie-in to Russian invasion of Ukraine
Elizabeth Regan, The Day, New London, Conn. – September 16, 2022
Sep. 16—NEW LONDON — Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on Thursday evening told a receptive audience at Connecticut College that the “corrupt scheme” precipitating the first impeachment of then- President Donald Trump had a “direct tie-in” to the invasion of Ukraine.
Touted by the college as a preeminent expert on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact on the global economy, Vindman took the stage to a standing ovation from the roughly 500 people in attendance.
The decorated officer’s appearance was part of a series bringing national figures to Connecticut College each fall. It was sponsored by the Sound Lab Foundation and Friends of the Connecticut College Library.
Vindman, who gained prominence for bringing attention to Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden and his family, said the plan showed Russian President Vladimir Putin the vulnerabilities in the relationship between the US and Ukraine.
“The president was offering a clear signal that personal interests were to be placed above national security interests,’ he said. “And there was an opportunity to take care of something that Putin has been wanting to solve for a very very long time, which is deal with a Ukraine that was instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
He said Ukraine’s vote for independence in 1991 “put the nail in the coffin of the Soviet Union.”
Vindman, who was born in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and came to the U.S. as a 3-year-old, is an Iraq War combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient. He served in the U.S. embassies in Kyiv and Moscow before accepting an assignment in 2018 with the National Security Council.
Vindman walked into international spotlight the following year amid the allegations Trump was trying to influence Zelenskyy. He testified at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry that he was concerned by Trump’s July 25, 2019 phone call with Zelenskyy and reported his concerns to the NSC’s legal counsel, saying he “did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen.”
Trump ousted Vindman in February 2020, and Vindman retired from the Army that July with 21 years of military service.
The retired lieutenant colonel in February filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and two former White House staff members for allegedly intimidating and retaliating against him for testifying in the first impeachment of Trump.
Vindman said Biden’s administration has also made mistakes in its messaging to Russia. He said Biden’s public announcement that there would not be any American boots on the ground in Ukraine further emboldened a president who’d been enabled for more than two decades by global inaction.
“To Putin, it was a green light,” he said.
Vindman suggested Biden should have employed “strategic ambiguity” instead. Just because a principal is right doesn’t mean it needs to be stated, he said; it’s better to leave the opponent wondering what the plan is.
Asked during a question-and-answer session if he has any plans to run for elected office, Vindman was strategically ambiguous.
He is now a senior advisor for VoteVets, a Ph.D. student and fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a board member of the nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative.
Team Putin Threatens Maniacal Response to Bitter War Losses
Julia Davis – September 15, 2022
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
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.”
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.”
‘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.
“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
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
Russian President Vladimir Putin enters the hall during the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum, on September 7, 2022 in Vladivostok, Russia.Getty Images
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.
A destroyed Russian main battle tank rusts next to the main highway into the city on May 20, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine.Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 14, 2022.GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
‘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.”
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)
