Attrition and terror win wars. As does a hesitant opponent.
Another trade/office center (and much more; see below) was bombed by Russian rockets today. The Ukrainian army shot down 4 rockets out of 7, but 3 remaining ones reached their “destination”. There are no military objects in Vinnytsa.
14 July 2022 – Today’s Russian terrorist attack on the city of Vinnytsa – in the center of Ukraine, 400 km from the frontline – took the lives of at least 25 civilians which includes 3 children. At least 75 were injured. They are still scouring the buildings, searching for survivors, counting the dead.
No military objects in sight. One building was the new medical diagnostic center:
But the most heart breaking for me was this. The photo is of Irisha Dmitrieva holding her daughter Liza, a photo taken last week:
This is a photo taken by Liza’s father last month just outside Vinnytsa:
Both were in a Vinnytsa park this morning when the rockets hit. Ira was blown into pieces. I got these from a OSINT source who blotted out the child’s body parts:
Her mother survived but lost a leg and is in critical condition. She had shot a selfie video of the two of them one hour before the rockets struck. Her father shared the images on social media. The dialog indicates she had a big day planned for them tomorrow:
Russia’s way of saying “Thank you!” to the European Commission for allowing the transit of sanctioned Russian goods through the territory of Lithuania to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The Russians view this as a sign of weakness and so they push harder. Just like they have always done.
Or I could write about Russia’s systematic “filtration” operations and forced deportations in Russian-controlled and held areas of Ukraine. Estimates from a variety of sources, including the Russian government, indicate that Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, tortured, killed and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes to Russia – often to isolated regions in the Far East. Putin’s “filtration” operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine. Independent reports also indicate Russian authorities are deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents and abducting others from orphanages before putting them up for adoption inside Russia.
The problem is that the Western world does not understand it or does not want to understand it. It is the reason Putin can act with impunity.
The natural reaction of a brain would be searching for a reason for such atrocities. But there isn’t any except one: terror. They just want to scare Ukrainians so they beg for mercy. Ukraine hits ammo dumps, command posts, oil terminals. And Russia hits … Ukrainians. This is not an army. It’s a gang of thugs. Like the Nazi were doing to the the UK in WW2 when they were launching V-2 rockets on London and other cities.
The way Russians handle problems hasn’t changed since the Caucasian wars. Leo Tolstoy wrote about this back in 1896. Lies, cruelty, and terror – things that are intangible from the Russian state in every one of its forms. Ukrainians have been in a Russian orbit of influence against its will for too long. And that is why Ukrainians have no illusions about it. You cannot expect empathy from narcissistic dictators. We cannot expect them to ease and calm down. History shows that once Pandora’s box has been opened the only way to stop the horrible events is to close it. NATO had the chance in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and this war began (and that is exactly when it began) but now remains powerless.
Economic sanctions against Russia? As I detailed very early on sanctions would do nothing to Russia. That was all mindless theatre by the West to show “we are doing something!”
The West does not want to face it. There is very abundant , objective and factual evidence to support the position that the sovereign nation of Russia has been and is continuing to conduct acts that meet all the attributes of terrorism. This has been going on right in front of all of our eyes for several months now and there is no sign this slaughter of unarmed, innocent civilians will come to an end. We know this. The United Nations knows this just as well as we do, and this international body is *accountable* to take action to declare this and implement action steps to stop it. But instead of declaring this and doing anything about it, they have thrown up their hands and claimed they are powerless because of their procedures which permit China and Russia to vetoe any declarations or actions.
This is a lazy, bureaucratic and unacceptable excuse to do nothing. Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is no will, there is an excuse. But also, what about Canada and the U.S. and France and Great Britain. Each of these nations are each individually permitted to declare Russia to be a terrorist state. Have any of these 4 nations done this? No, because it would cause havoc on intertwined business relationships.
It is important to stress 3 things:
1. In this single attack today more civilians died than civilians for the whole 2021 on both sides of the frontline.
2. Economic sanctions will not stop the war. Weapons will. We know from history that Iran and North Korea can continue their dictatorship regimes even under poverty and sanctions. The Russians are people used to poverty and slavery. Russians soldiers – who have ransacked Ukrainian homes – have been recorded at being amazed at how well Ukrainians live. Sanctions will not stop them. Only military force can stop the terrorist state of Russia. When will Western politicians wake up and arm Ukraine with the weapons in the quantities they need to enable them to protect themselves and strike back effectively? This is utterly barbaric behavior by sub-humans.
3. The Second World War and Nazi Germany killed the League of Nations. If the UN does not take actions to strip Russia from the veto right in the Security Council, this war and Nazi Russia will kill the United Nations just like Hitler did it with the League of Nations. The UN has to either act, or it becomes an obsolete impotent artifact of the past.
Putin believes the West will become exhausted. Now he is trying to reshape the situation and he believes that in the longer term he will win through attrition and terror.
The biggest constraint on providing Ukraine with war-winning equipment is still the fear of how Russia will respond. Critics of the current level of western support say this restraint is an example of the US and others self-deterring, out of fear of provoking escalation. But the reality is far simpler.
Russia’s continuing campaign of threats and bluster is having the intended effect: causing Moscow’s adversaries to hesitate. The pervasive notion that provoking Russia would lead to disastrous consequences is a key victory for Moscow. Successfully dissuading the west from providing Ukraine all the support it needs to turn the tide of the war confirms once again for Vladimir Putin that Russia’s military inferiority to the west can be overcome through leveraging western fear.
In fact, the west’s clearly stated fear of escalation proves to Russia that threats work, regardless of how implausible they may be or how often they have been shown to be empty. By now it’s a tediously repetitive cycle of promises of nuclear annihilation for whoever has most recently upset Russia’s propagandists – for example Russian state TV recently discussed attacking the Netherlands. Russia’s nuclear threats will continue for as long as they are effective in preventing Ukraine being provided with war-winning military support.
The G7 may have made the right noises about support for Ukraine continuing “for as long as it takes”, but Ukraine’s biggest challenge remains trying to persuade its international backers to match words with deeds. In addition there is a striking mismatch of aims and priorities between the two sides. While Russia has clearly laid out what it wants from the war – the extinction of Ukraine as an independent nation and the restoration of Russian imperial power over its neighbours – Ukraine’s western backers are confused and divided over how they want the war to end, and what they want to happen to Russia as a result.
So much more to write but I need to leave it there.
As always Gregory, well argued and damning indictment of Western response.