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Executions, high mortality: Wagner PMC mercenaries spoke about the realities of the unit
UATV English
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154,832 views Dec 18, 2022 #UATV #UATV_English #UkraineNews
Many casualties among the mercenaries. A Wagner group mercenary from former prisoners who fell into Ukrainian captivity, spoke about the high mortality rate at the front and the killings of refusals. Experts say that the Wagner group as a fighting unit are now of no value. They are recruited for quantity. Why the so-called Putin's militants do not live up to expectations - my colleagues will tell.

Russia on the Brink of Catastrophe: Successive operations deep into Russia panicked Putin.
Ultimate Ukraine
553K subscribers
45,548 views Dec 19, 2022
Russia on the Brink of Catastrophe: Successive operations deep into Russia panicked Putin.

This Is A Historical Success For Ukraine: Russian Soldiers Unwilling to Fight Surrender to Ukraine!
ANKA Daily News
203K subscribers
83,993 views Dec 19, 2022 #ukraine #russia #war
#ukraine #russia #war #news #ukrainerussiawar #russiaukraineconflict #politicalnews

The Ukrainian army is successfully repelling Russia's invasion attempt! The Russian army is in a panic after the brave operations of the Ukrainian army! Russian soldiers are surrendering in companies! The surrender of troops has caused panic in the Kremlin! The Kremlin administration is trying interesting methods to solve this problem!

So why is the Russian army surrendering? How does the surrender of Russian soldiers affect the course of this war? Let's analyze it together!

It is now accepted by everyone that Russia has suffered a very heavy defeat in Ukraine. The Russian army is experiencing a great thaw in the face of this defeat. Russian soldiers do not believe they can win this war. Ukraine has managed to gain complete psychological superiority.


The biggest reason for this was Russia's spoilage! Russia was too confident and underestimated Ukraine too much. Russian soldiers thought that Ukraine would surrender immediately. Russian commanders told their soldiers that there would be no need to engage in a conflict, Ukraine would surrender. But that did not happen!

Ukrainian leader Zelensky decided to resist Russia's invasion attempt. After this decision, he provided great support to the Ukrainian army. Zelensky made statements against Russia's invasion attempt and called for peaceful countries. After the Ukrainian leader's statements, a lot of aid was sent to the country.

NATO countries in particular sent a lot of aid to Ukraine. The HIMARS sent by the US and the drones sent by Turkey have influenced the course of the war. So why did NATO member states send support to Ukraine?

To answer this question, we need to recall the reasons for the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia has been pursuing aggressive policies towards Europe for a very long time. The Russian government did not allow Ukraine to be an independent and free country. And the Ukrainian people did not accept this situation. The Ukrainian artist Zelensky started filming a series criticizing the political problems in his country and proposing solutions. Zelensky's proposals found great support in Ukrainian society. The Ukrainian people believe that in order to become a developed country, they must join the Western bloc and NATO. Because democratic values are not accepted in the Eastern bloc countries where Russia is the leader. In almost all of these countries, the people have serious economic problems, but the leaders have great wealth. Zelensky has become a phenomenon in Ukraine thanks to his series criticizing this situation.

Supported by millions of people, Zelensky decided to enter politics. Zelensky entered the elections in Ukraine with promises to join NATO and establish closer relations with the West. In 2019, Zelensky won the elections with a historic 73% of the vote. Since then, relations between Ukraine and the West have started to improve. But this worried the Kremlin!

Pepe... that's propaganda.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare visit to Minsk on Monday to double down on military cooperation in areas such as ballistic missiles and nuclear-capable warplanes, as fears grow in Kyiv that Belarus could join the ground war against Ukraine.

It was Putin’s first visit to Belarus since 2019, which is significant because the normal arrangement is for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to travel to Moscow to pay homage to his close ally.

At a joint press conference, Lukashenko said Belarus had deployed the Russian-made Iskander mobile ballistic missile system with a range of up to 500 kilometers, while Putin said there was room for further cooperation in Su-24 warplanes that have been modified to carry tactical nuclear weapons.

Putin said it was now possible “to continue the implementation” of Lukashenko’s earlier proposals on these planes, which would mean “the training of the crews of warplanes of the Belarusian army, which have already been modified for the possible use of air-based ammunition with a special warhead.”

Lukashenko, however, sought to play down any suggestion this amounted to nuclear saber-rattling.

“It’s not a threat to anyone,” added Lukashenko during the press conference, which was broadcast online. “We are very concerned about the tensions along the perimeter of the union state [of Russia and Belarus], primarily in the West.”

Russia also supplied S-400 air missile defense systems to Belarus, Lukashenko added.

In the opening weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Minsk allowed Russian forces to use its territory as a springboard for an attack on northern Ukraine and Kyiv, as well as providing medical assistance to injured Russian forces.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from northern Ukraine and the territories around Kyiv, Belarusian authorities have provided their territory to Russia to launch missile strikes against Ukraine and for the training of Russian troops.

During the press conference, Putin and Lukashenko did not comment on Moscow’s almost 10-month war on Ukraine and the possible involvement of Minsk in Russia’s ground operation after a series of setbacks for Russian troops.

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the idea that Putin’s visit to Minsk was aimed at pressuring Lukashenko to step into the brutal war. Peskov branded such allegations of Kyiv as “groundless and stupid speculations.”

Kyiv puts little store in what the Kremlin says, however.

On Sunday, the commander of Ukrainian joint forces Serhiy Nayev said in a video statement that Putin last week held an official meeting with the leadership of the Russian army, during which, “he considered the proposals of the military command for the near and medium term.”

“Immediately after that, he announced a meeting with the leadership of Belarus … In our opinion, during this meeting, the issues of further aggression against Ukraine and wider involvement of the Armed Forces of Belarus in the operation against Ukraine, in particular, on land, will be worked out,” Nayev said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting of the staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on Sunday, during which its members “considered the situation in Belarus.”

We'll have to assume he posted it ironically. There can be no other explanation.

Pepe... that's propaganda.
Blowing some minor good news into a "Historical Success" is one of the most classic kinds of propaganda that don't involve actual lies.

The truth is, the fight is roughly balanced. At the moment, Ukrainians have the initiative but if they don't use it well, it can change soon.

‘Danger to the regime’? Russia faces anti-mobilisation protests among ethnic minorities

Issued on: 30/09/2022 - 10:05

Russia is seeing a wave of demonstrations in areas with high ethnic minority populations against President Vladimir Putin’s call for “partial mobilisation”. Analysts say the protests could undermine the Kremlin’s legitimacy among these groups and are likely to give Russia poorly motivated soldiers for its war against Ukraine.

In Russia’s Dagestan region near the Georgian border, protesters managed to block traffic on September 25. More than 7,000 kilometres away, in the Buryatia region just north of the Mongolian border, a group called the Free Buryatia Foundation has been set up to help reservists avoid the “partial mobilisation” Putin announced after Ukraine’s lightning gains in the east.

The far-flung Arctic region of Yakutia in northeastern Siberia also saw fierce resistance to Putin’s plans to send 300,000 extra troops to Ukraine. Protesters gathered in the regional capital Yakutsk to perform traditional dances – while shouting, “No to war!” and “No to genocide!”
Minorities paying ‘disproportionate price’

The latter rallying cry reflects a growing concern that Moscow is disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities and people from Russia’s poorest regions to send more troops to Ukraine.

“There’s nothing partial about the mobilisation in Buryatia,” Alexandra Garmzhapova, president of the Free Buryatia Foundation, told Reuters. Buryatia is one of the most impoverished regions in Russia.

In Crimea – a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 – Moscow has pressed members of the Tatar minority into the army first. “80 percent of summonses for mobilisation in Crimea were issued to Crimean Tatars,” Russian journalist and activist Osman Pashaev pointed out via Facebook.

“It’s clear that ethnic minorities in the poorest regions are paying a disproportionate price – not only in the mobilisation effort, but in the war in Ukraine in general,” said Jeff Hawn, a specialist in Russian military issues and consultant at the New Lines Institute, a US geopolitical research centre.

>> 'We weren't really expecting that': Ukrainian troops amazed by rapid advance

Moscow does not publish complete data on its losses at the front. However, “even with the incomplete official information, you can see that regions with large ethnic minorities – such as Buryatia or the [nearby] Tuva region – have lost a lot more men relative to their total population than Russia’s core regions,” added Stephen Hall, a Russia specialist at Bath University.

Socioeconomic factors partly account for this disparity. “In those regions, the relatively attractive pay the Russian military offers is often the only way out of poverty,” noted Caress Schenk, a political scientist at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. This factor means the populations of these peripheral regions were over-represented in the Russian army “even before the war in Ukraine”, Hall noted.

Putin’s “partial mobilisation” has only amplified this phenomenon. “Seeing as they tend to be poor, these minorities often cannot pay the bribes necessary to avoid conscription,” Schenk said.

“In large urban centres like Moscow and St Petersburg, conscripts can bribe recruiting officers, claiming they are students [a group exempt from mobilisation], or can use their connections to leave the country,” Hawn said. In Buryatia, by contrast, it seems the best chance for men of military age to avoid conscription comes from going and hiding in the woods.

Nevertheless, in addition to these factors, there is also a political motivation for targeting ethnic minorities. “In Putin’s eyes, it’s all about ensuring his regime survives,” said Adrian Florea, a senior lecturer in Central and Eastern European Studies at Glasgow University. “The Kremlin is banking on the idea that minorities are much less likely to organise large-scale demonstrations than people in major urban centres.”

Putin is also leaning on the local governors of these regions – politicians appointed by him, who owe their careers to him – to apply the mobilisation order and snuff out any protest movements that emerge.

And there is another factor: “Politicians in Moscow don’t care a great deal about the fates of these ethnic minorities thousands of miles away,” Hall put it. So by exerting pressure on the country’s outlying regions, Moscow is demonstrating a certain form of “Russian imperialism, which is not without an aspect of racism towards these groups”, Hall continued.
A dangerous game for Putin?

This two-speed “partial mobilisation” – with outlying regions bearing the brunt – is one of the reasons why “there are more and more people who say the country will never be like it was before the invasion of Ukraine”, Schenk said.

From an economic point of view, “a significant part of the working-age population will be out of action indefinitely as they fight, and that will cause further economic damage to regions that are already Russia’s poorest”, Florea said.

By pursuing this strategy, “the Kremlin is undermining its own legitimacy among groups who perceive they are being treated unfairly”, Florea added.

>> 'Partial mobilisation' of Russian reservists – a sign of Putin's desperation?

This could prove a dangerous game for Putin. In Dagestan, for example, “you’ve got 30 or so different ethnic minorities who agree on pretty much nothing, but they’ve found a common enemy to protest against”, Hall observed.

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However, “while there are certainly people in Russia who would like to see these anti-mobilisation protest groups develop into a bigger, more general protest movement against Putin’s rule, it’s too early to say whether this can happen”, Schenk said.

“It depends on how long the war goes on,” Hall said. “If it’s over quickly, everything will be fine for Putin. But if it drags on and the protests spread to less poor regions, with larger, more influential minorities, like Tatarstan, it could be a bigger danger to the regime.”

With regard to the situation on the battlefield, prioritising reservists from ethnic minorities will have a “negative effect on Russia’s prospects against Ukraine”, Hawn said – arguing that Putin is repeating the same mistake Russia made a century ago, when the army relied heavily on regiments composed entirely of ethnic minorities. As soon as the White Russians started losing in the 1917-22 Russian Civil War, these regiments were among the first to turn against their tsarist former masters. “That’s why the Soviets were always careful to mix ethnic backgrounds in their battalions,” Hawn said.

Thus, the reservists Russia is sending to the front are not only poorly trained and equipped – they also are relatively unmotivated to die for the Russian motherland.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

Reason would suggest that many in the Russian Federation are not happy with their minority population being used as "cannon fodder".
There are actually many demonstrations against pootin and it is growing.
A previous assessment indicated that pootin is throwing non "Russians" into the meat grinder while protecting citizens in Russia.
If you like, I might spend a "spoon" or two finding articles supporting this.

Also, remember at the beginning of the war when you said the stupidity of some Russian soldiers asking for petrol from
Ukrainians and surrendering was actually "smart"?
Many in the army weren't happy to be thrown into the war and many weren't even told why they were there in the first place.

Close to 100,000 "Russians" have died in the war in Ukraine.
The morale is low, and drunkenness is a major problem
Food is short or non-existent at times.
Some have rusted rifles that are a hazard to the soldiers using them.
Conscripts are thrown into the front lines without proper training.
It is no secret that the corruption in the military is extreme, and a lot of the ordinance has been thieved for personal gain.

It is the "Heroic Russian Tradition" <sarcasm> not to care how many of their soldiers die in human wave assaults, after all.

Dezertion and surrender rates are likely a lot higher in Russian army than in Ukrainian, exactly for the reasons you mentioned - but with their sheer numbers, there are still enough fighting Russian soldiers to pose a very serious threat.

An old Russian/Soviet strategy of "nas mnogo" is inefficient but not completely ineffective.

The Belarussian threat up north could be a game-changer.
But time will tell.

It's complicated with Belarus.

A large number of Belarussians don't support Lukashenka and even Lukashenka does not support the war, he's been twisting like an eel not to take part in it. Officially entering the war may result in protests of a scale that couldn't be supressed the way 2020 protests were. Even a mutiny in the army would be possible, certainly chaos and very low battle worth of Belarussian army.

Lukashenka knows it and he's doing what he can to avoid officially entering the war - but after 2020, he's directly dependent on Kremlin, so he does let Russians use his territorry and resources. That's been his policy and while it may change over time, it won't happen without significant resistance and delay.

I suspect he may be using a narrative of Poland preparing to attack Belarus (something completely made up, a laughing stock here) as an exceuse to keep his army in Belarus. In such case, there's an aspect of this fairy tale that suits us.