A roll call of reason why Greene and the Freedom caucus are wrong about Ukraine, aside from not rewarding Putin for unspeakable aggression
Putin loving Greene and the Freedom caucus need to get it that there is a laundry list of reasons not to kowtow to the Kremlin in Ukraine. Here are several of them in no particular order- from the attached articles
A. Russian intelligence agents have detained and in some cases brutally tortured more than 200 workers at Europe's largest nuclear plant in occupied Ukraine, holding some for weeks in a web of underground prisons, escaped employees?told The Wall Street Journal .
Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant soon after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. It has been the site of periodic fighting that has alarmed observers, including the International Atomic Energy Agency. The plant?shut down ?the last of its six reactors in September but requires a steady source of electricity to maintain safeguards.
B. A secret agreement between Iran and Russia
According to new intelligence obtained by the United States and other Western security services, after several weeks of attacks on Ukrainian cities with the help of Iranian-made kamikaze drones, Moscow has secretly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin production of hundreds of drones in Russia, the report said.
According to the newspaper, Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal in early November in Iran.
C. Altogether, the Biden administration received Congressional approval for $40bn in aid for Ukraine for 2022 and has requested an additional $37.7bn for 2022. More than half of this aid has been earmarked for defense.?
These sums pale into insignificance when set against a total US defense budget of $715bn for 2022. The assistance represents 5.6% of total US defense spending. But Russia is a primary adversary of the US, a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger. In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia’s conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives.??
D. LVIV, Ukraine — “One thing is for sure: the Ukrainians do not want any negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov?told reporters ?Thursday in Moscow.
And never has he uttered a truer word.
They don’t.
No one wants to sit down with foes who bomb their homes indiscriminately and target their energy infrastructure, plunging households into darkness and forcing surgeons in hospitals to perform operations by torchlight.
E. In nine months of brutal fighting, the army of the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region has buried or sent to the hospital as many men as it had in its entire pre-war army.
F. Never ending resistance to Russian occupation in occupied Ukraine
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People often did not know who among their neighbors or co-workers were also resistance fighters. In interviews, two members of the resistance claimed that they managed to kill a few drunk Russians walking alone in the streets by stabbing them. Those claims could not be verified. But mostly the partisans were given nonviolent assignments, resistance fighters and military officers said, such as hiding weapons or explosives at a certain location, identifying collaborators, or reporting where Russian soldiers and their materials were based. That information was then used to direct Ukrainian artillery fire.
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In a word, Greene and the Freedom caucus, GIVE IT UP. Seriously
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Russia beat, starved, and electrocuted people from a captured Ukrainian nuclear power plant in a web of underground prisons, escaped workers say
Charles R. Davis ?Nov 18, 2022, 5:06 PM
Russian intelligence agents have detained and in some cases brutally tortured more than 200 workers at Europe's largest nuclear plant in occupied Ukraine, holding some for weeks in a web of underground prisons, escaped employees?told The Wall Street Journal .
Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant soon after the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. It has been the site of periodic fighting that has alarmed observers, including the International Atomic Energy Agency. The plant?shut down ?the last of its six reactors in September but requires a steady source of electricity to maintain safeguards.
The plant's former director, Ihor Murashov, ran the facility for seven months under Russian occupation. Speaking to the Journal, he recounted how he himself?was detained ?in one of the Russian occupier's basement prisons before being released under international pressure in October.
According to Murashov, he was detained by Russia's FSB, the successor to the Soviet Union's KGB, in a facility near the nuclear plant known as "the Hole," one of several purported underground detention centers. He and other workers described being beaten, starved, and electrocuted by their interrogators; some were also shot, with at least one employee being tortured to death.
The attacks on essential staff came after some continued to passively resist Russian occupation, such as by displaying miniature Ukrainian flags at their desks.
"They think that by doing this they can change the minds of these people," Murashov said.
Energoatom, Ukraine's state-run nuclear power company, said at least 200 workers have been detained, the Journal reported.
One worker, Voldymr Zhayvoronok, said he was detained in an underground prison for 53 days. He said he was regularly beaten and showed reporters a missing fingernail that he said was ripped out by his interrogators.
In September, following a visit by a 14-member delegation, the IAEA issued a report saying that the plant's remaining 907 workers — down from more than 1,200 prior to the war — were being forced to operate "under extremely stressful conditions while under the control of Russian armed forces," a situation it described as "untenable."
Have a news tip? Email this reporter:?[email protected]
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Russia and Iran signed a secret deal on war drones production – WP
Iran ,?News ,?Russia ,?Russia war ?/ By?Mike Oaks? /?November 20, 2022?/?4 minutes of reading
Russia has signed a secret agreement with Iran for the production of Iranian drones on Russian territory for use in the war in Ukraine. The American media?The Washington Post reported ?this information, referring to the data of American and other intelligence agencies.
A secret agreement between Iran and Russia
According to new intelligence obtained by the United States and other Western security services, after several weeks of attacks on Ukrainian cities with the help of Iranian-made kamikaze drones, Moscow has secretly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin production of hundreds of drones in Russia, the report said.
According to the newspaper, Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal in early November in Iran.
According to three officials, Tehran and Moscow are trying to transfer projects and key components to each other. In particular, they are doing everything to start producing kamikaze drones in Russia within a few months.
Iran’s relations with the Kremlin may deepen
Moreover, officials say that in case of full implementation of this agreement, the Russian-Iranian alliance will deepen.
“By buying its own assembled line, Russia could dramatically increase its stockpile of relatively inexpensive but highly destructive weapons systems that have changed the nature of warfare in recent weeks,” the report said.
In addition, officials believe that these agreements provide economic and political benefits for Iran. Although Tehran tried to appear neutral, its authorities believe that they can avoid new sanctions. In particular, given the fact that the drones will be manufactured on Russian territory.
Iranian drones in Russia’s terror tactics
According to intelligence sources, since August, Russia has utilized more than 400 Iranian-made attack drones against Ukraine, with many of the aircraft being used in attacks against targets in civilian infrastructure like power plants.
Moscow has switched to a strategy of ruthless air attacks on Ukrainian cities after being forced to surrender Ukrainian territory by its troops captured early in the war. It uses a combination of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones packed with explosives to knock out electricity and running water for millions of people.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has sharply criticized Iran’s plan to provide Russia with armaments and called for new sanctions against the Islamic nation. In a speech broadcast on November 6, he declared, “Its complicity in Russian terror must be punished.”
Iranian drones supply to Russia
On November 8, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev visited Iran. Officially, it was said then that the parties were to discuss alleged economic sanctions and other “Western interference”. However, the US Institute for the Study of War said that Patrushev probably went to Tehran to discuss the potential sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia.
On November 8, the media?reported ?that in late August, Putin sent 140 million euros in cash to Tehran, as well as captured British-made NLAW, Javelin, and Stinger anti-tank missiles, captured in Ukraine, in exchange for 160 additional kamikaze drones.
Also on November 5, Iran admitted that it had transferred drones to Russia. However, allegedly only until February 24, 2022, which turned out to be untrue. After all, our intelligence?revealed ?that the parts of the drones shot down in Ukraine were manufactured after February 24. They showed the parts of the downed Iranian drone to?the Ukrainian media Suspilne , as solid proof.
EU adopted sanctions against Iran for drones supply to Russia
The European Union adopted new sanctions against Iran for combat drone delivery to Russia, which is at war against Ukraine.?
Why Iranian version is implausible?
Despite the Iranian declaration, the chronology of the events on the battlefield does not seem to support this version. Russia only started using Iranian attack drones in the war in September. Why then didn’t Moscow employ drones before while losing battles in the war if it had it? The Iranian declaration seems to be a very awkward attempt to find a justification for this wrongdoing knowing that it cannot deny anymore that Russia obtained its drones.
Iranian advisors spotted in the war in Ukraine
Furthermore, Iran sent its military advisors to instruct Russian troops on how to use its combat drones, according to Ukrainian intelligence. Kyiv stated that the Iranian government also intends to send a new group of advisors to Russia to train Russian troops in the use of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles and a brand-new class of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), called the “Arash-2.” Their deliveries are expected to start soon.
Read also:?10 Iranian instructors killed in Ukraine war
A group of advisers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also left Iran for Dzhankoy, in the occupied Crimea, where they will instruct the Russian invading troops on how to utilize “Shahed-136” and “Mohajer-6” drones to strike Ukrainian cities.
Using Iranian-made drones Russia?destroyed ?important parts of the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.
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It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia
DEFENSE INNOVATION EUROPE'S EDGE REGIONAL SECURITY RUSSIA November 18, 2022
The cost-benefit analysis of US support for Ukraine is incontrovertible. It’s producing wins at almost every level.
Photo: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov at the sixth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 12, 2022. This is the the sixth such meeting of defense leaders from around the world since Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. Credit: DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley
Former President Trump, and others in the US including some Democrats as well as Republicans, have criticized continued US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. They have called for military and financial support to Ukraine to be cut, even ended. They downplay the risk from Russia and argue that the money should be spent at home.?
Yet from numerous perspectives, when viewed from a bang-per-buck perspective, US and Western support for Ukraine is an incredibly cost-effective investment.?
Altogether, the Biden administration received Congressional approval for $40bn in aid for Ukraine for 2022 and has requested an additional $37.7bn for 2022. More than half of this aid has been earmarked for defense.?
These sums pale into insignificance when set against a total US defense budget of $715bn for 2022. The assistance represents 5.6% of total US defense spending. But Russia is a primary adversary of the US, a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger. In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia’s conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives.??
The Ukrainian armed forces have already killed or wounded upwards of?100,000 Russian troops , half its original fighting force; there have been?almost 8,000 ?confirmed losses of armored vehicles including thousands of tanks, thousands of APCs, artillery pieces, hundreds of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, and numerous naval vessels. US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment. If we divide out the US defense budget to the threats it faces, Russia would perhaps be of the order of $100bn-150bn in spend-to-threat. So spending just $40bn a year, erodes a threat value of $100-150bn, a two-to-three time return.?
The US military might reasonably wish Russia to continue deploying military forces for Ukraine to destroy.?
Meanwhile, replacing destroyed kit, and keeping up with the new arms race that it has now triggered with the West will surely end up bankrupting the Russian economy; especially an economy subject to aggressive Western sanctions. How can Russia possibly hope to win an arms race when the combined GDP of the West is $40 trillion, and its defense spending amounting to 2% of GDP totals well in excess of $1 trillion when the disproportionate US defense contribution is considered? Russia’s total GDP is only $1.8 trillion. Vladimir Putin will have to divert spending from?consumption to defense , risking social and political unrest over the medium term, and a real and soon-to-be present danger to his regime. Just imagine how much more of a bargain Western military aid will be if it ultimately brings positive regime change in Russia.?
Second, the war has served to destroy the myth that Russian military technology is somehow comparable to that of the US and West. Remember that Ukraine is using only upgraded second generation US technology but is consistently beating whatever Russia’s military can deploy. Wars are shop windows for defense manufacturers; any buyer in their right mind will want the technology made by the winner. Putin’s misjudgment has merely provided a fantastic marketing opportunity for its Western competitors.?
Note also that the war is also pushing NATO partners to quickly increase spending to the 2% of GDP?and above ?target. Given the US’ technological advantage in defense equipment, a sizeable share of this additional military outlay will be spent on US equipment.?
The Ukrainians are also showing remarkable innovation in their own defense, improving the performance of equipment in battlefield conditions, which again brings technological advantages to the US defense sector.?
Third, the revelation that Russia’s defense industry is something of a Potemkin village also generates other strategic and diplomatic wins for the US. Countries eager to secure defense capability to meet their own threats – think of Turkey, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — might have opted for cheaper, “value” Russian defense offerings. However, with the quality/capability of this equipment now being questioned because of poor battlefield performance, they will likely be vying to acquire a better US kit. But this will require improved diplomatic relations. This is currently evident in the improved US–Pakistan relationship, with Pakistan securing upgrade kits for its F-16s.?
Fourth, helping Ukraine beat Russia surely also sends a powerful signal to China that the US and its allies are strong and determined when challenged on issues of core importance. This may raise questions in the minds of Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army generals about their ability to win a conflict against countries armed with US/Western military technology, for example in Taiwan. Surely Russia’s difficulty in winning the war in Ukraine will cause second thoughts in China about the wisdom and perhaps the viability of efforts to conquer Taiwan.?
Fifth, the war in Ukraine is encouraging and accelerating the energy transition in Europe, but also Europe’s diversification away from Russian energy. Europe is desperately trying to source alternative energy supplies, and US liquefied natural gas (LNG) is proving to be the obvious beneficiary.?
In conclusion, on so many levels, continued US support for Ukraine is a no-brainer from a bang for buck perspective. Ukraine is no Vietnam or Afghanistan for the US, but it is exactly that for Russia. A Russia continually mired in a war it cannot win is a huge strategic win for the US.??
Why would anyone object to that??
Timothy Ash is a Senior Emerging Markets Sovereign Strategist at RBC BlueBay Asset Management. He is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House on their Russia and Eurasian program.?
The opinions in this article are those of the author.?
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Whereas
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Time for Ukraine to talk to Russia? ‘Nuts!’
‘Ukrainians do not want any negotiations,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says. This time, he’s right.
NOVEMBER 18, 2022?2:21 PM CET
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.???
LVIV, Ukraine — “One thing is for sure: the Ukrainians do not want any negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov?told reporters ?Thursday in Moscow.
And never has he uttered a truer word.
They don’t.
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No one wants to sit down with foes who bomb their homes indiscriminately and target their energy infrastructure, plunging households into darkness and forcing surgeons in hospitals to perform operations by torchlight.
And as the?remains of civilians ?tortured by Russian soldiers occupying the southern city of Kherson are unearthed, the cold fury Ukrainians felt at the documented abuses —?from rape to casually gunning down ?non-combatants in Bucha and Irpin — only intensifies.
Behind the scenes , officials from the United States and Europe have been urging Ukraine to keep the door open to negotiations, though they won’t try to force Kyiv into anything. However, on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answered those hints and hardly subtle nudges, telling G20 leaders not to offer his country any peace deal that would compromise its independence from Russia.
He then presented a 10-point peace plan demanding Russia accept responsibility and accountability for war crimes committed on Ukrainian soil. He also called for the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine’s territory — i.e., all of the Donbas and the peninsula of Crimea — as well as the payment of war reparations and compensation for the destruction and deaths caused.
It was Zelenskyy’s equivalent of U.S. General Anthony McAuliffe’s single-word reply in response to a German surrender demand during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge — “Nuts!”
The differences here, of course, are that Zelenskyy and his people aren’t surrounded, and they’ve pulled off two stunning battlefield victories near Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine and, more recently, in the Kherson region.
As the battlefield stands, the victory in Kherson this month has blocked any chance of Russian forces seizing Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, including Odesa, and it brings occupied Crimea within range of Ukrainian artillery and rockets.
Nuts!” also fairly sums up the reaction of “ordinary” Ukrainians I spoke with this week, as to whether they would endorse peace negotiations — and whether they’d be willing to trade any land in the Donbas, or the whole of Crimea, for peace.?
Yuliya Grigor, whose soldier husband is currently undergoing treatment for severe shell shock, said Ukraine can win this fight, if the West stays true and constant. The 35-year-old charity worker, who is from Mauripol but now lives in Lviv, said, “Russians don’t understand that however many missiles they throw at us, we won’t give in, surrender or negotiate. And they can’t divide us.”
?“We don’t have anything to talk about. Putin doesn’t understand Ukraine is a separate, sovereign country and is united. Anyway, he doesn’t even know the meaning of the word peace. So, there is no sense in talking with them,” she added.
I then asked about a land deal — Donbas and/or Crimea for peace. Her reply? “These regions are Ukrainian. How can we trade land?”
Yuliya isn’t alone in her vehemence. I interviewed a dozen others in the underground parking lot of a Lviv shopping mall that now serves as a bomb shelter, and they all offered similarly uncompromising answers.
A group of men in their fifties simply harrumphed and shook their heads when I mentioned?the recent remarks ?by top U.S. military commander General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said that Ukraine may not be able to achieve victory militarily, and that winter may provide an opportunity to begin negotiations with Russia.
Pointing out that the collective Western military assessment at the start of the war — namely that Ukraine would have to surrender or would be overrun within days — proved inaccurate, 58-year-old Oleh said, “I disagree, and there can be no talks, no agreements because Russia will always break any deals; you can’t trust them. All countries recognized Ukraine’s borders in 1991, and this is our country. We can win if the U.S. and Europe continue to help us.” His four friends nodded in agreement.
Whether young or old, or eastern or western Ukrainian, everyone I spoke to in the parking lot offered similar responses, with most saying Russia would only see negotiations as a sign of weakness, would rearm, and later try to grab more of Ukraine. Only one young woman hinted that she might be ready to see Crimea traded for an end to the war.?
While no one wants a prolonged war, both growing confidence and anger with what months of war have done to Ukraine, and the pain it has caused — the loss of life, the widespread damage and broken up families — have left many in no mood to concede anything to Russia to end the fighting. Their fear is that any peace deal that isn’t on their terms will lock them in a permanent conflict, leaving Ukraine as a forever “in-between” country, not fully European and just a plaything for the Kremlin to prod and torture.
The late American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who played a key role in negotiating the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War, used to say that warring parties could only strike a peace deal when both are exhausted.
And Ukraine is certainly not exhausted — despite persistent missile strikes on the country’s power grid, despite the cold and anxiety about the looming long winter, with temperatures of -20-degrees Celsius.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy adviser Andriy Yermak?called ?the continuing strikes on energy targets the “na?ve tactics of cowardly losers,” adding that “Ukraine has already withstood extremely difficult strikes by the enemy, which did not lead to results the Russian cowards hoped for.”
Opinion in both the country’s political circles and on the street has only stiffened since March, when?the foreign ministers ?of Ukraine and Russia held tentative talks in Turkey, marking the first high-level discussions between the two countries since the all-out invasion. Then, after a 90-minute dialogue, both sides said there had been no breakthrough. “I want to repeat that Ukraine has not surrendered, does not surrender, and will not surrender,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
That same month, Zelenskyy told German broadcasters he was willing to consider some compromise, although he’d already ruled out any ceding of territory or accepting Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Zelenskyy’s now expressing Ukraine’s collective dismissal of any compromised deal. And judging by his G20 peace plan, he expects Russia to throw in the towel — or that, simply put, negotiations now would be “Nuts!”
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/11/18/the-donetsk-separatist-army-went-to-war-in-ukraine-with-20000-men-statistically-almost-every-single-one-was-killed-or-wounded/?sh=3c6c708111c0
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The Donetsk Separatist Army Went To War In Ukraine With 20,000 Men. Statistically, Almost Every Single One Was Killed Or Wounded.
David Axe Forbes Staff
I write about ships, planes, tanks, drones, missiles and satellites.
In nine months of brutal fighting, the army of the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region has buried or sent to the hospital as many men as it had in its entire pre-war army.
The separatist DPR began Russia’s wider war on Ukraine in February with around 20,000 men in six light infantry brigades. By November, the army had lost 3,746 killed in action and 15,794 wounded in action,?according to ?the DPR’s ombudsman.
That’s 19,540 KIAs or WIAs. While many of the wounded undoubtedly returned to front-line service, many?didn’t. And yes, the DPR army has expanded over the course of the nine-month wider war through the forced mobilization of thousands of men from the separatist state’s 2.3 million population.
But even if the DPR army doubled in size, losing half its ultimate manpower is still catastrophic. The U.S. Army assumes a unit becomes incapable of major combat after losing just 31 percent of its strength,?according to ?the service’s Field Manual 101-5-1.
That the DPR army has suffered extreme casualties should come as no surprise. The separatist state is a puppet of Russia—and an impoverished one, at that. The Kremlin has equipped DPR fighters with outdated weapons and gear—Mosin rifles and T-62 tanks, for example—and sent them on dangerous missions without adequate support.
Russian leaders seem to view DPR men as cannon fodder. “They don't count us, they leave us,” one drunk Donetsk fighter?complained ?in a video that went viral in August. “But I want to live."
It’s possible that the DPR has a higher casualty rate than the Russian army has. But not by much. “They have suffered a tremendous amount of casualties,” U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,?told reporters ?on Wednesday, referring to the Russians.
In February, the Russian armed forces invaded Ukraine with a front-line force of around 180,000 men. By May, they’d lost around 50,000 killed and wounded, according to foreign assessments. Six months later, Russian casualties, dead and wounded, approached 100,000.
That’s an overall casualty rate of probably slightly less than half, considering the tens of thousands of fresh troops the Kremlin has sent into Ukraine—and also the 300,000 unfit, middle-aged men the Russian army drafted in September. The first of those draftees began arriving at the front after just a week or two of training.
Expect Russian casualties to spike as untrained, under-equipped and poorly led draftees account for an ever greater proportion of the Russian army in Ukraine. The 362nd Motorized Rifle Regiment, fighting to hold onto the Russian-occupied town of Svatove in Donbas 30 miles northwest of Severodonetsk, is mostly draftees. As is its sister formation, the 346th Motorized Rifle Regiment.
Each regiment on paper has around 5,000 soldiers. But the 362nd?lost 2,500 men killed ?in just the past two weeks while trying to slow the advance of the Ukrainian 92nd Mechanized Brigade, according to an intercepted phone call from one conscript. As of a few days ago, the 362nd had just 100 unhappy draftees in the front-line trenches, the conscript said. “We are just fucking meat, just fucking meat,” he moaned.
The 346th’s draftees meanwhile have been surrendering at the first opportunity. A video that circulated online on Sunday depicts at least 21 of the regiment’s soldiers after they turned themselves in to the Ukrainians on the previous Monday. “The command is giving up,”?one draftee says , his hands bound. Their officers “threw them out to the slaughter.”
Slaughter?is the operative word. After marching the DPR’s under-equipped fighters to their deaths and burying thousands, the Kremlin now is feeding tens of thousands of equally unready draftees into the hungry maw of a war it’s losing.
Soon, the DPR’s 50%—or higher—casualty rate might not be all that unusual across the faltering Russian war effort. It’s possible that, soon,?every?combatant fighting for the Russians will have a coin-flip chance of getting killed or wounded in Ukraine.
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Stealthy Kherson resistance fighters undermined Russian occupying forces
By?Isabelle Khurshudyan ?and?
Kamila Hrabchuk?
November 18, 2022 at 3:42 p.m. EST
KHERSON, Ukraine — Ihor didn’t even know the first name of the person who contacted him. The man said he was a member of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and wanted to know if Ihor was interested in helping fight the Russians occupying his city of Kherson.
“Sign me up,” Ihor responded.
For months, the two kept up a coded communication over the Telegram messaging app. Sometimes Ihor would be asked to help pinpoint locations from which the Russians were firing artillery. Other times, he sent the man, who asked to be called Smoke, the positions of Russian troops, armored vehicles and ammunition stocks.
Then in August, Ihor had a more dangerous task from Smoke. There was a cache of weapons hidden somewhere in Kherson, and Ihor needed to bury them in a different location and wait for the signal. Eventually, Smoke told him, Ihor might be called on to take up one of the arms and help Ukrainian soldiers if the battle for Kherson turned to street fighting and small sabotage groups would be necessary.
“Around the city, there were a lot of people with weapons who were waiting for the right time to use them,” Ihor said. He declined to provide his surname out of concern for his safety, and Smoke asked to be identified only by his call sign because of his work in special forces.
During more than eight months of Russian occupation, an underground resistance movement formed in Kherson, the lone regional capital Vladimir Putin’s military was able to capture since the start of its invasion last February.
Stories of brave Ukrainian citizens standing up to the invading soldiers have been widespread throughout the war. But Kherson, occupied since early March, was a unique hub for resistance activity where many civilians worked in close coordination with handlers from Ukrainian security services.
Help from inside occupied territories — at times beyond the reach of Ukraine’s missiles and artillery — has proven key for Kyiv in pulling off some of its most brazen attacks, including at an airfield in Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
In Kherson and in the occupied city of Melitopol, about 140 miles to the east, there have been mysterious explosions during the war that have killed or injured Russian-installed authorities. Those blasts are believed to be the work of resistance fighters, also known as partisans, or Ukrainian special forces working behind enemy lines. Sometimes, bombs exploded in occupying officials’ cars or at their homes.
People often did not know who among their neighbors or co-workers were also resistance fighters. In interviews, two members of the resistance claimed that they managed to kill a few drunk Russians walking alone in the streets by stabbing them. Those claims could not be verified. But mostly the partisans were given nonviolent assignments, resistance fighters and military officers said, such as hiding weapons or explosives at a certain location, identifying collaborators, or reporting where Russian soldiers and their materials were based. That information was then used to direct Ukrainian artillery fire.
In Kherson, it all added up to a subtle insurgency that Ukraine’s military leaned on as the southern front line drew closer and closer to the city, ultimately forcing the Russians to retreat last week. With Kherson city now free of Russian soldiers, the resistance movement is rising to the surface.
In the central square this week, Smoke, wearing a balaclava, ran up to Ihor and hugged him tightly.
“The main thing for me is that people remained alive,” Smoke said. “This worried me the most. But they survived and, thank God, that’s the most important thing.”
There was a time when Ihor wasn’t sure he would.
There was one other person he and Smoke were working with who was also tasked with burying weapons, Ihor said. That man was caught by the Russians and, after being beaten, eventually gave up the location where he was supposed to meet Ihor. Ihor was then captured, too, he said, and spent 11 days in August at a detention facility where the Russian guards?tortured their prisoners .
As Ihor returned to the prison for the first time, accompanied by Washington Post journalists, he struggled to hold back tears. Tatyana, a 74-year-old woman who lived next door to the detention center, said she could hear men screaming every day. “I never wanted to see this place again, but coming back like this is sort of funny,” Ihor said. Some people standing outside asked Ihor if he had been held there.
“I was in there, too,” one man said.
“Who wasn’t?” Ihor responded.
Because Ihor was still in communication with Smoke, who was based outside in nearby Ukrainian-controlled Mykolaiv, the Russians released him and said they would be monitoring any text exchanges between the two. They asked for Ihor to send screenshots of their conversation any time there was an update — and threatened his life if he did not cooperate.
But Smoke and Ihor had agreed on a subtle code that could act as a warning — for example, responding to a message with “ok” instead of “all right.”
Ihor still took risks after that. In September, he noticed the Russians had based several transport trucks at a car park near downtown Kherson. Ihor walked past the building with a phone to his ear, pretending to be on a call while his camera recorded what was inside. Two days later, the place was hit with artillery.
Several resistance fighters told The Post that they had reported the location, which helped the Ukrainian armed forces confirm it was a worthy target.
One member of Ukraine’s special services, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said he acted as a handler for several informants during the occupation, which required assessing what each could do. A person with a car could drive around and mark locations of troops and weapons. Another with a view of a main road could report on the Russians’ movements.
“If, for example, a bridge or an important communication hub, such as power lines, is blown up, then that might have been with our help,” the handler said.
“We are talking about valuable equipment, not just armored personnel carriers, but about command and staff vehicles, communication vehicles, air defense or electronic warfare,” the handler added. “The destruction of what is expensive and available in small quantities can incapacitate the Russians and give a certain tactical advantage to our armed forces in some parts of the front.”
Some members of this internal resistance were trained and prepared before Russia ever invaded — just in case, the handler said.
Others were unlikely partisans, like Iryna, a 58-year-old woman who worked for the local government. Iryna, who declined to provide her surname out of concern for her safety, had contacts in the SBU, Ukraine’s main internal security service, and regularly passed them information about how occupation authorities were organized and who was working with the Russians. They also had their own code. Once, she even sent a message to her daughter in Bulgaria to forward on to her handlers.
One day, some men Iryna described as “fellow partisans” came to her home and asked to bury some things in her yard. She agreed, covering the spot with tomatoes. When Russian soldiers searched her home, she claimed to be just a woman who was helping cook meals for the neighborhood.
Her SBU acquaintances visited her earlier this week and dug up what had been buried in the yard. “They told me it was everything to make explosives,” she said.
Some of the resistance was more public, but for psychological effect. An organization called Yellow Ribbon regularly spray-painted locations around town — marking Russian establishments with a yellow ribbon symbol or the Ukrainian letter “i.” They targeted Russian banks, places where the Russians were handing out passports, and where referendum ballots on Russian annexation were being prepared. The Russians would cover up the paint, but Yellow Ribbon would just mark it again.
The organizers tagged the home of Kirill Stremousov, one infamous Moscow-installed official in Kherson who recently died in a car accident. They defaced Russian billboards proclaiming that “Russia is here forever” or that “Ukrainians and Russians are one.” And they posted photos of “collaborators” eating at a restaurant around town or walking down the street.
“Then they all started to walk around with bodyguards after that,” said Yellow Ribbon’s organizer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.
One goal, he said, was to make the Russians paranoid about the resistance that existed around them. Sometimes people would take a photo of two Russian soldiers walking from behind, and then Yellow Ribbon would post it on their Telegram channel, with a warning: “We’re watching you.”
One of the posters Yellow Ribbon hung in the city made a reference to HIMARS, a weapon system that the United States provided to Ukraine. “If HIMARS can’t reach you,” the poster said, “a partisan will.”
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Andrew Beckwith, PhD