Will Russia invade the Ukraine?

[demographic]

Would it be unreasonable to expect a government to know whether their sanctions were enforceable or, at least to announce that they weren't if they had to tear them up the first time they were tested? Maybe the government don't like Bellingcat?

Spiteful, complicit or just incompetent. Not qualities much admired in governments are they?

[ZRX61]

Now that Germany is sending Panzers to Ukraine, will they transit via Poland just like the old days?

[irie]

The "West" can not afford to lose this war because after Ukraine would come the Baltic states, Poland, and all the previous USSR states.

Equally for obvious reasons Putin can not afford to lose this war nor can he back down.

The tanks destined for Ukraine will provoke a response from the Kremlin. Probably an increased use of aircraft and throwing ever larger numbers of sacrificial troops at Ukraine*. After that, them what?

Western aircraft supplied to Ukraine, perhaps F-16s? After that, then what?

At best a stalemate followed by a treaty where both sides can proclaim victory.

In short, this war looks certain to continue to escalate.

* Interesting article.

Putin is embracing Stalin’s way of war

By Leon Aron - Washington Post

January 26, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Leon Aron is the author of “Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991.” He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and has just completed a book about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and beyond.

“When we kill five out of 10 of their soldiers at once, they are replenished again over the course of several hours,” a Ukrainian officer said recently of the Russian troops that for weeks have besieged the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. The Russians, he added, stormed the defenders’ positions “five, six, seven times” a day.

In the unprecedented ferocity and relentlessness of the Russian assault, Bakhmut might signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine.

The Russians started this war as a relatively high-tech blitzkrieg. But after the retreat from Kyiv and the Kharkiv region, and the loss of Kherson, their conduct of operations is rapidly reverting to the way Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union fought the Great Patriotic War (as the Russians almost always refer to World War II): a maniacal slog over the corpses of Russian soldiers. The dismissal earlier this month of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of the Russian troops in Ukraine who organized a more or less orderly withdrawal from Kherson, reiterated the message: Saving soldiers’ lives is of no importance; pushing forward at any cost is.

The advent of Stalin’s way of war has been prepared by re-stalinization inside Vladimir Putin’s Russia: the steadily heightened repression; the anti-Western hysteria of Putin’s speeches, the vulgarity of which would put to shame any post-Stalin Soviet leader; and militarized patriotism as the de facto official ideology. In 2020, after years of pro-military propaganda, Russians rated the army as the most trusted national institution. Russian soldiers can now be worshiped in the recently built Cathedral of the Armed Forces.

The West’s allegedly perennial threat to Russia’s sovereignty has become the dominant propaganda theme, and Putin’s defense of the motherland from the West’s depredations is the mainstay of his support and his regime’s legitimacy. The Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War has been declared the most significant event in Russia’s history and the apotheosis of national glory. Victory Day on May 9 has become the most important holiday, complete with infants in WWII uniforms, prams shaped like tanks, and kindergartners lined up in mock military parades.

“The military-patriotic hysteria brings to mind the USSR of the 1930’s, the era of parades of athletes, tank mock-ups and dirigibles, and shaved napes,” wrote opposition essayist Sergei Medvedev. “Today, the people again joyfully dress in Red Army uniforms, take pictures of themselves on tanks and await war.” In the endless victory liturgy, Medvedev continued, Putin has forged a nation of war that has “battened the hatches and views the world through the lookout slit of a tank.”

Stalin’s wartime triumph has absolved him of all his monstrous crimes. A 2021 poll revealed that 60 percent of Russians viewed Stalin positively — the culmination of a years-long trend that showed the Soviet dictator elbowing Peter the Great and Alexander Pushkin from first place among the most outstanding figures in world history. In 2012, on Putin’s 60th birthday, his favorite television talk host, the rabid propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov, concluded his tribute by telling viewers that of all Russian and Soviet leaders of the 20th century, Putin was comparable only to Stalin.

Soon thereafter, Putin appropriated the title that Stalin awarded himself at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War: “Supreme Commander-in-Chief.” Although the Communist Party general secretaries who followed Stalin were ex officio supreme commanders in chief, no Soviet leader since him had been so publicly addressed. Putin’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, led the way in November 2015, when reporting on Russia’s successes in Syria. Since then, the title has been repeated at every military or paramilitary function Putin attended, whether a meeting at the headquarters of the Russian police or a naval parade. In last year’s Victory Day parade, Putin was identified as “President — Supreme Commander-in-Chief” in the official transcript. For the first time in Putin’s 22 years in power “Supreme Commander-in-Chief” was added to “President.” Putin, wrote the political philosopher Alexandr Tsypko, was trying to “to grab onto Stalin’s military overcoat and to slip into his jackboots.”

Bakhmut has shown that it’s not just for the rank that Putin looked to Stalin. Stalin’s infamous 1942 Order No. 227, known as “Not a step back,” created penal battalions, or shtrafbats. Staffed with officers and soldiers “guilty of the breach of discipline,” the shtrafbats were sent on kamikaze “human waves” attacks to “redeem by blood their crimes against the motherland.” Those lucky enough to be wounded but not killed were returned to regular units.

Reinforced with criminals plucked out of jails and promised pardon after six months in Ukraine, Putin’s de facto private mercenary army, the Wagner Group, looks more and more like a shtrafbat: Its soldiers have reportedly been sent on suicide missions or summarily executed for “cowardice.” The Wagner Group has already surpassed Stalin’s secret police in cruelty. Those executioners shot “traitors,” but their successors smash heads with a sledgehammer. It might not be long before we see another iteration of Order No. 227 — “blocking units” — positioned behind the advancing soldiers to shoot anyone retreating or merely hesitant.

“We drowned the enemy in our blood; we buried him under our corpses,” a war veteran and writer, Viktor Astafiev, recalled in 1988 of his experience in the Great Patriotic War.

The current defense minister, Shoigu, has proposed raising the number of combat personnel in the armed forces from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. Putin is readying for such a war. Ukraine and its Western supporters ought to be steeled for it as well.

[Hoonercat]

The "West" can not afford to lose this war because after Ukraine would come the Baltic states, Poland, and all the previous USSR states.

Equally for obvious reasons Putin can not afford to lose this war nor can he back down.

The tanks destined for Ukraine will provoke a response from the Kremlin. Probably an increased use of aircraft and throwing ever larger numbers of sacrificial troops at Ukraine*. After that, them what?

Western aircraft supplied to Ukraine, perhaps F-16s? After that, then what?

At best a stalemate followed by a treaty where both sides can proclaim victory.

In short, this war looks certain to continue to escalate.

* Interesting article.

Putin is embracing Stalin’s way of war

By Leon Aron - Washington Post

“We drowned the enemy in our blood; we buried him under our corpses,” a war veteran and writer, Viktor Astafiev, recalled in 1988 of his experience in the Great Patriotic War.

As I posted a few days ago, but didn't mention that the new regiments are being named after those from the Great Patriotic War. It's an attempt to invoke the spirit of the Great Patriotic War in order to convince Russians that the motherland is under threat, therefore high casualties are acceptable.

The Russian military in Ukraine is being restructured into more infantry-based, mobile units in what appears to be an attempt to mimic Ukraine's success last year.

[Mussels]

Putin is missing critical bit that Stalin had, the population of the USSR. They are losing 500-1000 soldiers a day in recent offensives on a small area, Russian soldiers are starting to revolt as they know they are highly likely to end up as cannon fodder.

[Yambo]

The "West" can not afford to lose this war because after Ukraine would come the Baltic states, Poland, and all the previous USSR states.

LOL! Putin hasn't been able to take Ukraine.

He's hardly going to be able to take on NATO when he couldn't hold on to Kherson.

But in my humble opinion, no-one is going to 'win' this war. It'll be a score draw at best when the final whistle blows.

[irie]

@Yambo Perhaps you would read all my post, not merely the first line. Thanks.

[Yambo]

@Yambo Perhaps you would read all my post, not merely the first line. Thanks.

LOL!

Perhaps I did read all of your post and not just the first line.

Perhaps I didn't have the time to address all of your post, so simply quoted the first line and made my own comment.

Perhaps I read all of your post but didn't feel like commenting on the two opinion pieces except to give my own opinion on one part of the two opinion pieces.

Perhaps you should stop assuming things. Perhaps you should be a little less pompous. Perhaps you should be grateful that somebody commented on your opinion and didn't just ignore it. Perhaps you should think before making that sort of comment.

So many options and there could be a lot more. I can see that there could be difficulties for some people though. My bad.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wasn't Stalin fighting an invading force? Isn't Putin the invader? Did I miss that that subtle, material difference in Mr Aaron's opinion piece?

In the unprecedented ferocity and relentlessness of the Russian assault, Bakhmut might signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine.

Yeah, got to admit and agree that the assaults on Bakhmut are so ferocious and relentless that it will fall within hours! Oh, hold on, how long have the Wagner Group been trying to take Bakhmut? Three months or more? It certainly hasn't shown any fantastic tactical abilities.

If it does signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine, I think all potential adversaries will be patting Putin on the back and telling him "Good show old boy, fine tactics!"

Putin of course, likened himself to Alexander the Great iirc, now he's Stalin's clone. Personally I think he's simply deluded, has no military idea and the first one having failed dismally, has no plan. He can't see any way out so is going to blame anyone and everyone for the needless loss of young Russian lives. The only thing going for him is his control over what Russian people are told. I hope that won't last much longer.

[irie]

@Yambo Perhaps you would read all my post, not merely the first line. Thanks.

LOL!

Perhaps I did read all of your post and not just the first line.

Perhaps I didn't have the time to address all of your post, so simply quoted the first line and made my own comment.

Perhaps I read all of your post but didn't feel like commenting on the two opinion pieces except to give my own opinion on one part of the two opinion pieces.

Perhaps you should stop assuming things. Perhaps you should be a little less pompous. Perhaps you should be grateful that somebody commented on your opinion and didn't just ignore it. Perhaps you should think before making that sort of comment.

So many options and there could be a lot more. I can see that there could be difficulties for some people though. My bad.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wasn't Stalin fighting an invading force? Isn't Putin the invader? Did I miss that that subtle, material difference in Mr Aaron's opinion piece?

In the unprecedented ferocity and relentlessness of the Russian assault, Bakhmut might signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine.

Yeah, got to admit and agree that the assaults on Bakhmut are so ferocious and relentless that it will fall within hours! Oh, hold on, how long have the Wagner Group been trying to take Bakhmut? Three months or more? It certainly hasn't shown any fantastic tactical abilities.

If it does signal the emergence of a new Kremlin warfighting doctrine, I think all potential adversaries will be patting Putin on the back and telling him "Good show old boy, fine tactics!"

Putin of course, likened himself to Alexander the Great iirc, now he's Stalin's clone. Personally I think he's simply deluded, has no military idea and the first one having failed dismally, has no plan. He can't see any way out so is going to blame anyone and everyone for the needless loss of young Russian lives. The only thing going for him is his control over what Russian people are told. I hope that won't last much longer.

That thing going for him is absolutely the key issue. As for hoping that it won't last much longer, in the absence of information other than that pre-processed by the Kremlin propaganda machine what do you believe might prompt the majority of Russian people to change their minds about tacitly supporting Putin?

[Hoonercat]

Former NATO committee chairman and soon-to-be Czech president Petr Pavel, giving his views a few months ago on why regime change in Russia is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

“There will be no democratic revolution in Russia for the foreseeable future,” he says. “Not just because of the regime’s strong position, but also because of the mentality of many Russians. There’s no room for a true opposition movement to grow. Even Alexei Navalny isn’t really a proper opposition leader. He’s definitely not a liberal democrat, he’s another kind of Russian nationalist, although he would, of course, be a better negotiating counterpart than the current leadership.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia- ... r-ukraine/

[Horse]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/worl ... ussia.html

Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlin’s decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.

He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society.

Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.”

Thousands of convicts have been killed, many within days or even hours of arriving at the front, Russian rights advocates and Ukrainian officials say. Those who live and return home largely remain silent, wary of retribution if they speak out.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat.

Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Most of the enlisted men were serving time for petty crimes like robbery and theft, but records from one penal colony seen by The New York Times show that the recruits also included men convicted of aggravated rape and multiple murders.

“There are no more crimes, and no more punishments,” said Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars. “Anything is permissible now, and this brings very far-reaching consequences for any country.”

War
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An Expanding Cemetery
A Desperate Escape From Russia
Russia Freed Prisoners to Fight Its War. Here’s How Some Fared.
Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlin’s decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.

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A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alina Lobzina and Ekaterina Bodyagina
Jan. 30, 2023
Sign up for the Russia-Ukraine War Briefing. Every evening, we'll send you a summary of the day's biggest news. Get it sent to your inbox.
He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society.

Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.”

Thousands of convicts have been killed, many within days or even hours of arriving at the front, Russian rights advocates and Ukrainian officials say. Those who live and return home largely remain silent, wary of retribution if they speak out.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat.

Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Most of the enlisted men were serving time for petty crimes like robbery and theft, but records from one penal colony seen by The New York Times show that the recruits also included men convicted of aggravated rape and multiple murders.

“There are no more crimes, and no more punishments,” said Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars. “Anything is permissible now, and this brings very far-reaching consequences for any country.”

Image
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
More than six months ago, Russia’s largest private military company, Wagner, and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began systematically recruiting convicts on a scale not seen since World War II to bolster a bloody assault on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Yet the operation remains largely cloaked in secrecy and propaganda.

Wagner has been able to avoid oversight by exploiting the most marginalized Russian citizens, the 350,000 male inmates of its harsh penal colonies, said human rights activists and lawyers.

Russia-Ukraine
War
LIVEUpdates
28m ago
28m ago
Photos
Maps
An Expanding Cemetery
A Desperate Escape From Russia
Russia Freed Prisoners to Fight Its War. Here’s How Some Fared.
Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlin’s decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.

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A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alina Lobzina and Ekaterina Bodyagina
Jan. 30, 2023
Sign up for the Russia-Ukraine War Briefing. Every evening, we'll send you a summary of the day's biggest news. Get it sent to your inbox.
He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society.

Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.”

Thousands of convicts have been killed, many within days or even hours of arriving at the front, Russian rights advocates and Ukrainian officials say. Those who live and return home largely remain silent, wary of retribution if they speak out.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat.

Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Most of the enlisted men were serving time for petty crimes like robbery and theft, but records from one penal colony seen by The New York Times show that the recruits also included men convicted of aggravated rape and multiple murders.

“There are no more crimes, and no more punishments,” said Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars. “Anything is permissible now, and this brings very far-reaching consequences for any country.”

Image
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
More than six months ago, Russia’s largest private military company, Wagner, and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began systematically recruiting convicts on a scale not seen since World War II to bolster a bloody assault on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Yet the operation remains largely cloaked in secrecy and propaganda.

Wagner has been able to avoid oversight by exploiting the most marginalized Russian citizens, the 350,000 male inmates of its harsh penal colonies, said human rights activists and lawyers.

The State of the War
In the East: Russian forces are ratcheting up pressure on the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, pouring in waves of fighters to break Ukraine’s resistance in a bloody campaign aimed at securing Moscow’s first significant battlefield victory in months.
Mercenary Troops: Tens of thousands of Russian convicts have joined the Wagner Group to fight alongside the Kremlin’s decimated forces. Here is how they have fared.
Sidestepping Sanctions: Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine, as the country’s neighbors and allies step in to fill the gaps left by Western restrictions.
Military Aid: After weeks of tense negotiations, Germany and the United States announced they would send battle tanks to Ukraine. But the tanks alone won’t help turn the tide, and Kyiv has started to press Western officials on advanced weapons like long-range missiles and fighter jets.
Dozens of survivors from the first inmate assault units began filtering back to Russia this month with medals, sizable payouts and documents that Wagner claims grant them freedom. The releases are likely to accelerate as Wagner’s six-month service contracts expire, potentially confronting Russian society with the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects.

“These are psychologically broken people who are returning with a sense of righteousness, a belief that they have killed to defend the Motherland,” said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer who works with enlisted inmates. “These can be very dangerous people.”

Neither Mr. Prigozhin, through his press office, nor Russia’s penal service provided comment.

To document the recruitment drive, The Times interviewed rights activists, lawyers, legal workers, relatives of recruited inmates, deserters and prisoners who decided to remain behind bars but maintain contact with companions on the front lines.

They described a sophisticated system of incentives and brutality built by Wagner, with the Kremlin’s support, to refill Russia’s decimated military ranks using questionable, and possibly illegal, methods.

Andrei Medvedev said he joined Wagner within days of finishing his prison term for theft in southern Russia. A former convict with military experience, he says he was put in charge of a detachment of prisoners who were dispatched on nearly suicidal missions around Bakhmut.

“We were told: ‘Keep going until you’re killed,’” Mr. Medvedev said in a phone interview from Russia after deserting in November. He has since escaped to Norway and applied for political asylum.

The campaign to recruit convicts began in early July, when Mr. Prigozhin started appearing in prisons around his native St. Petersburg with a radical proposal for the inmates: paying their debt to society by joining his private army in Ukraine.

In videos published on social media, Mr. Prigozhin promised the prisoners they would receive 100,000 rubles a month — the equivalent of $1,700 at the time, and nearly double Russia’s average monthly wage. He also offered bravery bonuses, $80,000 death payouts and, should they survive the six-month contract, freedom in the form of a presidential pardon.

Those who ran away, used drugs or alcohol or had sexual relations, he warned, would be killed.

“There are no chances of returning to the colony,” Mr. Prigozhin said in a speech to inmates published in September. “Those who get there and say ‘I think I’m in the wrong place’ will be marked as deserters and shot.”

A former inmate himself, Mr. Prigozhin understood prison culture, skillfully combining a threat of punishment with a promise of a new, dignified life, according to rights activists and families.

“He didn’t go for the money, he was too proud for that,” said Anastasia, about a relative who enlisted with Wagner as a prisoner. “He went because he was ashamed in front of his mother, he wanted to clear his name.”

Russia-Ukraine
War
LIVEUpdates
29m ago
29m ago
Photos
Maps
An Expanding Cemetery
A Desperate Escape From Russia
Russia Freed Prisoners to Fight Its War. Here’s How Some Fared.
Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlin’s decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.

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A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alina Lobzina and Ekaterina Bodyagina
Jan. 30, 2023
Sign up for the Russia-Ukraine War Briefing. Every evening, we'll send you a summary of the day's biggest news. Get it sent to your inbox.
He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society.

Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.”

Thousands of convicts have been killed, many within days or even hours of arriving at the front, Russian rights advocates and Ukrainian officials say. Those who live and return home largely remain silent, wary of retribution if they speak out.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat.

Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Most of the enlisted men were serving time for petty crimes like robbery and theft, but records from one penal colony seen by The New York Times show that the recruits also included men convicted of aggravated rape and multiple murders.

“There are no more crimes, and no more punishments,” said Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars. “Anything is permissible now, and this brings very far-reaching consequences for any country.”

Image
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
More than six months ago, Russia’s largest private military company, Wagner, and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began systematically recruiting convicts on a scale not seen since World War II to bolster a bloody assault on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Yet the operation remains largely cloaked in secrecy and propaganda.

Wagner has been able to avoid oversight by exploiting the most marginalized Russian citizens, the 350,000 male inmates of its harsh penal colonies, said human rights activists and lawyers.

The State of the War
In the East: Russian forces are ratcheting up pressure on the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, pouring in waves of fighters to break Ukraine’s resistance in a bloody campaign aimed at securing Moscow’s first significant battlefield victory in months.
Mercenary Troops: Tens of thousands of Russian convicts have joined the Wagner Group to fight alongside the Kremlin’s decimated forces. Here is how they have fared.
Sidestepping Sanctions: Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine, as the country’s neighbors and allies step in to fill the gaps left by Western restrictions.
Military Aid: After weeks of tense negotiations, Germany and the United States announced they would send battle tanks to Ukraine. But the tanks alone won’t help turn the tide, and Kyiv has started to press Western officials on advanced weapons like long-range missiles and fighter jets.
Dozens of survivors from the first inmate assault units began filtering back to Russia this month with medals, sizable payouts and documents that Wagner claims grant them freedom. The releases are likely to accelerate as Wagner’s six-month service contracts expire, potentially confronting Russian society with the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects.

“These are psychologically broken people who are returning with a sense of righteousness, a belief that they have killed to defend the Motherland,” said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer who works with enlisted inmates. “These can be very dangerous people.”

Neither Mr. Prigozhin, through his press office, nor Russia’s penal service provided comment.

To document the recruitment drive, The Times interviewed rights activists, lawyers, legal workers, relatives of recruited inmates, deserters and prisoners who decided to remain behind bars but maintain contact with companions on the front lines.

They described a sophisticated system of incentives and brutality built by Wagner, with the Kremlin’s support, to refill Russia’s decimated military ranks using questionable, and possibly illegal, methods.

Andrei Medvedev said he joined Wagner within days of finishing his prison term for theft in southern Russia. A former convict with military experience, he says he was put in charge of a detachment of prisoners who were dispatched on nearly suicidal missions around Bakhmut.

“We were told: ‘Keep going until you’re killed,’” Mr. Medvedev said in a phone interview from Russia after deserting in November. He has since escaped to Norway and applied for political asylum.

Image
Andrei Medvedev showing his Wagner dog tag in November.
Andrei Medvedev showing his Wagner dog tag in November.
The campaign to recruit convicts began in early July, when Mr. Prigozhin started appearing in prisons around his native St. Petersburg with a radical proposal for the inmates: paying their debt to society by joining his private army in Ukraine.

Updates: Russia-Ukraine War
Updated
Feb. 1, 2023, 1:31 a.m. ETFeb. 1, 2023
Feb. 1, 2023
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In videos published on social media, Mr. Prigozhin promised the prisoners they would receive 100,000 rubles a month — the equivalent of $1,700 at the time, and nearly double Russia’s average monthly wage. He also offered bravery bonuses, $80,000 death payouts and, should they survive the six-month contract, freedom in the form of a presidential pardon.

Those who ran away, used drugs or alcohol or had sexual relations, he warned, would be killed.

“There are no chances of returning to the colony,” Mr. Prigozhin said in a speech to inmates published in September. “Those who get there and say ‘I think I’m in the wrong place’ will be marked as deserters and shot.”

A former inmate himself, Mr. Prigozhin understood prison culture, skillfully combining a threat of punishment with a promise of a new, dignified life, according to rights activists and families.

“He didn’t go for the money, he was too proud for that,” said Anastasia, about a relative who enlisted with Wagner as a prisoner. “He went because he was ashamed in front of his mother, he wanted to clear his name.”

Image
Graves of Wagner group fighters, most of them prison conscripts, in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya, Russia, this month.
Graves of Wagner group fighters, most of them prison conscripts, in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya, Russia, this month.Credit...Reuters
Mr. Prigozhin’s prison visits immediately raised legal questions. Mercenary recruitment is illegal in Russia, and until last year Mr. Prigozhin had denied that Wagner even existed.

On paper, the prisoners never went to war, but were merely transferred to Russian jails near the Ukrainian border, according to information requests filed by their relatives.

When Anastasia, who asked that her last name not be used, tried to find the whereabouts of her enlisted relative at his prison, she said the guards merely told her that he was unavailable.

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A Desperate Escape From Russia
Russia Freed Prisoners to Fight Its War. Here’s How Some Fared.
Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlin’s decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.

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A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A poster showing a member of the Russian military near the headquarters of the Wagner private military company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Credit...Olga Maltseva/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Alina Lobzina and Ekaterina Bodyagina
Jan. 30, 2023
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He was released from a Russian prison and thrown into battle in Ukraine with a promise of freedom, redemption and money. Now, Andrei Yastrebov, who was among tens of thousands of convict soldiers, is part of a return from the battlefield with potentially serious implications for Russian society.

Mr. Yastrebov, 22, who had been serving time for theft, returned home a changed man. “We all feel like he is in some sort of hypnosis, like he is a different person,” said a relative of his, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He is without any emotions.”

Thousands of convicts have been killed, many within days or even hours of arriving at the front, Russian rights advocates and Ukrainian officials say. Those who live and return home largely remain silent, wary of retribution if they speak out.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to allow a mercenary group to recruit Russian convicts in support of his flagging war effort marks a watershed in his 23-year rule, say human rights activists and legal experts. The policy circumvents Russian legal precedent and, by returning some brutalized criminals to their homes with pardons, risks triggering greater violence throughout society, underlining the cost Mr. Putin is prepared to pay to avoid defeat.

Since July, around 40,000 inmates have joined the Russian forces, according to Western intelligence agencies, the Ukrainian government and a prisoners’ rights association, Russia Behind Bars, which combines reports from informers across Russian jails. Ukraine claims that nearly 30,000 have deserted or been killed or wounded, although that number could not be independently verified.

Most of the enlisted men were serving time for petty crimes like robbery and theft, but records from one penal colony seen by The New York Times show that the recruits also included men convicted of aggravated rape and multiple murders.

“There are no more crimes, and no more punishments,” said Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars. “Anything is permissible now, and this brings very far-reaching consequences for any country.”

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The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.
The IK-2 penal colony in Pokrov, Russia. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has promised inmates a pardon for six months fighting in Ukraine.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
More than six months ago, Russia’s largest private military company, Wagner, and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began systematically recruiting convicts on a scale not seen since World War II to bolster a bloody assault on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Yet the operation remains largely cloaked in secrecy and propaganda.

Wagner has been able to avoid oversight by exploiting the most marginalized Russian citizens, the 350,000 male inmates of its harsh penal colonies, said human rights activists and lawyers.

The State of the War
In the East: Russian forces are ratcheting up pressure on the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, pouring in waves of fighters to break Ukraine’s resistance in a bloody campaign aimed at securing Moscow’s first significant battlefield victory in months.
Mercenary Troops: Tens of thousands of Russian convicts have joined the Wagner Group to fight alongside the Kremlin’s decimated forces. Here is how they have fared.
Sidestepping Sanctions: Russian trade appears to have largely bounced back to where it was before the invasion of Ukraine, as the country’s neighbors and allies step in to fill the gaps left by Western restrictions.
Military Aid: After weeks of tense negotiations, Germany and the United States announced they would send battle tanks to Ukraine. But the tanks alone won’t help turn the tide, and Kyiv has started to press Western officials on advanced weapons like long-range missiles and fighter jets.
Dozens of survivors from the first inmate assault units began filtering back to Russia this month with medals, sizable payouts and documents that Wagner claims grant them freedom. The releases are likely to accelerate as Wagner’s six-month service contracts expire, potentially confronting Russian society with the challenge of reintegrating thousands of traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects.

“These are psychologically broken people who are returning with a sense of righteousness, a belief that they have killed to defend the Motherland,” said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer who works with enlisted inmates. “These can be very dangerous people.”

Neither Mr. Prigozhin, through his press office, nor Russia’s penal service provided comment.

To document the recruitment drive, The Times interviewed rights activists, lawyers, legal workers, relatives of recruited inmates, deserters and prisoners who decided to remain behind bars but maintain contact with companions on the front lines.

They described a sophisticated system of incentives and brutality built by Wagner, with the Kremlin’s support, to refill Russia’s decimated military ranks using questionable, and possibly illegal, methods.

Andrei Medvedev said he joined Wagner within days of finishing his prison term for theft in southern Russia. A former convict with military experience, he says he was put in charge of a detachment of prisoners who were dispatched on nearly suicidal missions around Bakhmut.

“We were told: ‘Keep going until you’re killed,’” Mr. Medvedev said in a phone interview from Russia after deserting in November. He has since escaped to Norway and applied for political asylum.

Image
Andrei Medvedev showing his Wagner dog tag in November.
Andrei Medvedev showing his Wagner dog tag in November.
The campaign to recruit convicts began in early July, when Mr. Prigozhin started appearing in prisons around his native St. Petersburg with a radical proposal for the inmates: paying their debt to society by joining his private army in Ukraine.

Updates: Russia-Ukraine War
Updated
Feb. 1, 2023, 1:31 a.m. ETFeb. 1, 2023
Feb. 1, 2023
Ukraine keeps up the pressure to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Olympics.
Ukraine used banned land mines in the formerly occupied city of Izium, a new report claims.
The U.S. says Russia isn’t complying with the two countries’ last remaining nuclear arms control treaty.
In videos published on social media, Mr. Prigozhin promised the prisoners they would receive 100,000 rubles a month — the equivalent of $1,700 at the time, and nearly double Russia’s average monthly wage. He also offered bravery bonuses, $80,000 death payouts and, should they survive the six-month contract, freedom in the form of a presidential pardon.

Those who ran away, used drugs or alcohol or had sexual relations, he warned, would be killed.

“There are no chances of returning to the colony,” Mr. Prigozhin said in a speech to inmates published in September. “Those who get there and say ‘I think I’m in the wrong place’ will be marked as deserters and shot.”

A former inmate himself, Mr. Prigozhin understood prison culture, skillfully combining a threat of punishment with a promise of a new, dignified life, according to rights activists and families.

“He didn’t go for the money, he was too proud for that,” said Anastasia, about a relative who enlisted with Wagner as a prisoner. “He went because he was ashamed in front of his mother, he wanted to clear his name.”

Image
Graves of Wagner group fighters, most of them prison conscripts, in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya, Russia, this month.
Graves of Wagner group fighters, most of them prison conscripts, in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya, Russia, this month.Credit...Reuters
Mr. Prigozhin’s prison visits immediately raised legal questions. Mercenary recruitment is illegal in Russia, and until last year Mr. Prigozhin had denied that Wagner even existed.

On paper, the prisoners never went to war, but were merely transferred to Russian jails near the Ukrainian border, according to information requests filed by their relatives.

When Anastasia, who asked that her last name not be used, tried to find the whereabouts of her enlisted relative at his prison, she said the guards merely told her that he was unavailable.

Image
Mr. Prigozhin at a funeral for a Wagner fighter outside St. Petersburg in December. He began recruiting prisoners for Wagner around the city, his hometown, last summer.
Mr. Prigozhin at a funeral for a Wagner fighter outside St. Petersburg in December. He began recruiting prisoners for Wagner around the city, his hometown, last summer.
Credit...Associated Press
Igor Matyukhin was a convicted thief who decided to join.

A 26-year-old Siberian orphan, Mr. Matyukhin said he was serving his third sentence in the remote Krasnoyarsk region when Mr. Prigozhin arrived by helicopter in November, offering eventual freedom in return for enlistment.

Driven by the chance of a new life, Mr. Matyukhin immediately signed up. Days later, he was at a training camp near the occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk. What he found there, he said, was very different from the patriotic band of brothers he had been led to expect.

Mr. Matyukhin described a climate of fear instilled by Wagner to keep convicts fighting. He said they were threatened with summary executions, and at least one man in his unit was taken away after disobeying orders and never returned.

When his training camp came under a surprise Ukrainian attack, Mr. Matyukhin seized the opportunity to escape in the confusion. He said he has since been trying to return to his prison from a hiding place in Russia.

A relative of Mr. Matyukhin confirmed that he had enlisted in Wagner, but other aspects of his war account could not be independently verified.

To lift declining recruitment numbers, Wagner has lately been playing up the rewards for survivors, releasing videos of returned prisoners being granted freedom.

“I needed your criminal talents to kill the enemy in the war,” Mr. Prigozhin said in one video. “Those who want to return, we are waiting for you to come back. Those who want to get married, get baptized, study — go ahead with a blessing.”

In some videos, the inmates are given papers described as pardons or annulments of convictions. However, none of these documents have been made public, raising questions about their legitimacy. Rights advocates say pardons are rare, time-consuming and complex legal procedures that have never been issued in Russia on anywhere near the scale advertised by Wagner.

Only Mr. Putin can issue a pardon under the Russian Constitution, and the Kremlin has not published such decrees since 2020. In 2021, Mr. Putin pardoned just six people, according to the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov, on Friday told reporters that Wagner’s enlisted convicts are being pardoned “in strict adherence to Russian law.” He declined further comment, implying the procedure was a state secret.

“There are open decrees and decrees with various degrees of secrecy,” he said.

Under Russian law, all pardon petitions are evaluated by specialized regional committees before arriving at the Kremlin. However, two members of such commissions said they had not received any petitions from enlisted convicts. One of those officials represents the city of St. Petersburg, the residence of Mr. Yastrebov.

Rights activists say the returning inmates’ ambiguous legal status undermines Russia’s justice system and ties their fate to Wagner.

After spending just three weeks at home, Mr. Yastrebov said he was already getting ready to return to the front, despite the extraordinary casualty rates suffered by his prison’s unit, according to Russia Behind Bars.

“I want to defend the Motherland,” he said in a brief interview on Friday. “I liked everything over there. The civilian life is boring.”

[irie]

Ukraine has gone ominously quiet about how it will respond to the expected February 24th Russian offensive. Wonder what they're planning?

Edit: February of course.

[Horse]

the expected January 24th Russian offensive.

24/01? Well, that gives the Ukrainians 11 months to prepare.

Anyway, BBC are reporting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64528580

Ukraine's outgoing defence minister has said the country is anticipating a new Russian offensive later this month.

... the one-year anniversary of Moscow's full-scale invasion on 24 February.

[Mussels]

They are seeing a Russian forces build up in Mariupol now, I don't think anything will be much of a surprise for Ukraine.

[irie]

Putin is missing critical bit that Stalin had, the population of the USSR. They are losing 500-1000 soldiers a day in recent offensives on a small area, Russian soldiers are starting to revolt as they know they are highly likely to end up as cannon fodder.

500-1000 losses a day I think is about 25-30% deaths.

But 1,030 Russian troops killed in one day!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... mut-putin/

Ukraine war latest: Russia suffers 'deadliest 24 hours'

Ukraine claims the last 24 hours were the deadliest of the war for Russian troops, as Moscow hurls tens of thousands of freshly mobilised soldiers and mercenaries into relentless winter assaults in the east.

The Ukrainian military said 1,030 Russians were killed yesterday, describing it as the highest daily toll of the war so far and bringing the total to 133,190.

The figure could not be independently verified and battlefield losses are notoriously difficult to estimate. But the unprecedented scale of reported casualties fits accounts from both sides that describe recent battles in snow-covered trenches as the deadliest combat of the war to date, despite little progress by either side at the front.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Ukraine claims says it all

[irie]

Ukraine claims says it all

You conveniently missed this bit.

But the unprecedented scale of reported casualties fits accounts from both sides that describe recent battles in snow-covered trenches as the deadliest combat of the war to date, despite little progress by either side at the front.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Ukraine claims says it all

You conveniently missed this bit.

But the unprecedented scale of reported casualties fits accounts from both sides that describe recent battles in snow-covered trenches as the deadliest combat of the war to date, despite little progress by either side at the front.

I didn't miss it, it's just irrelevant opinion, not fact.

[irie]

Ukraine claims says it all

You conveniently missed this bit.

But the unprecedented scale of reported casualties fits accounts from both sides that describe recent battles in snow-covered trenches as the deadliest combat of the war to date, despite little progress by either side at the front.

I didn't miss it, it's just irrelevant opinion, not fact.

Unless and until all the bodies are physically counted and verified by reliable independent bodies as being Russian soldiers killed by Ukrainians it's not fact.

[Hoonercat]

BERLIN — Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands plan to deliver at least 100 Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine, as Berlin has approved the export of up to 178 tanks.
According to a joint statement from the defense ministers of the three countries, they will provide at least 100 refurbished Leopard 1 tanks of the older A5 type from industrial stocks, with the first ones being delivered within a few months.

Hardly state of the art, but better than nothing I suppose, despite the cost and time in getting these obsolete tanks battle ready. Belgium are considering buying back up to 50 Leopard 1's that it sold off to an arms collector for €37,000 each in 2014, repairing them and sending them to Ukraine.