For more than a month, we Marines fought without ammunition resupplies, without food, without water, practically drinking from puddles and dying in heaps. […] The infantry is all dead, and now all the fighting is being done by the artillery gunners, the anti-aircraft gunners, the signalmen, the drivers, and the cooks. Even the band members. They’re dying, but they’re fighting. […] Nobody wants to communicate with us anymore because they’ve written us off. Today will likely be our final battle, since we’ve run out [of ammunition]. Next comes hand-to-hand. Then it’s death for some and captivity for others.
You say call an end to the war as if it’s a thing we can do. Even if that were so it’s a bad idea. You’re just giving Russia time to rearm for round 2 in 5 or 10 years. Even if Ukraine would agree to it.
There are only 2 states of eastern Europe that will be stable. Total Russian control of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, Poland east of the Vistula – or a Russia too weak to even think about invading any one of them.
Settling for anything less than the decimation of Russia’s capacity to wage war for a generation is a mistake here imo. This is Hitler in Czechoslovakia. Pay enough blood and treasure to stop him now or pay way more to stop him later.
We can continue to arm Ukraine to the teeth like we do with South Korea on the condition they don’t start an offensive in Crimea.
The West won’t stop giving weapons to Ukraine even after this war is over.
Sanctions on Russian economy and soon to be European disengagement from Russian oil and gas won’t give Putin the ability to rebuild a modern army in his life time.
I’m skeptical that this is realistic in the medium term. For most of Europe (esp. Germany) there aren’t enough energy sources. They decided to trade nuclear for cheap Russian gas, there isn’t enough sunlight or wind in most places, isn’t enough coal, LNG from abroad is comparatively super expensive, and it’ll take years to build new nuclear plants. They’re already going to have a massive recession because of this, but when that lasts 2 years, 3 years, IDK how long Germany holds the line.
After almost eight years of existence, the “republics” are understood to have evolved into totalitarian, North Korea-like statelets.
It is near impossible for foreigners to enter the areas. Ukrainians can only visit if they have relatives in Donetsk and Luhansk, and would have to cross into Russia first, which takes about 30 hours and costs $100 – a journey that also involves bribing officials at times. Residents need a Soviet-era residency registration.
Interesting article from before the war with some glimpses into what life is like in the separatist-controlled areas.
In the statelets, secret police and “loyal” residents monitor every word, phone call and text message.
Dissidents or businessmen who refuse to “donate” their assets to the “needs of the People’s Republic” have been thrown in “cellars”, or dozens of makeshift concentration camps, without trial.
“It looks like the 1930s in the Soviet Union, a classic gulag,” Stanislav Aseyev, a publicist who was kidnapped in 2017 in Donetsk and was sentenced by a separatist “court” to 15 years in jail for “espionage”, told Al Jazeera.
For almost two years, he was incarcerated and tortured in these “cellars” until separatists swapped him and dozens of other prisoners in 2017.
Thousands of others were tortured and abused in the “cellars”, according to rights groups and witnesses. The grave human rights abuses make Donetsk and Luhansk far worse than today’s Russia, an international human rights advocate said.
“The cellars where prisoners are held in Donetsk, and the widespread use of torture, are among the most obvious human rights issues,” said Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog group.
But there are much wider problems such as civil and political rights, he said.
“You could say that the political repression in Russia is doubly felt in Donetsk and Luhansk and other areas effectively under control of the Putin regime,” Dale told Al Jazeera.
The day after Anton Ischenko celebrated his 23rd birthday, he was taken by the Russians, led away at gunpoint from his home in the village of Andriivka, west of Kyiv.
His family found his body a month later, once the Russian troops were driven out. He was so badly mutilated that they had to identify him by his clothes.
Aha - but what the story doesn’t say is he was a civilian combatant (probably). Gotcha!
This communication is weird. Either trying to send a desperate, public message to their own leadership, or trying to trick the Russians into thinking they’re almost out of ammunition. I hope it’s the latter, but probably the former.
Destroying Azov regiment and holding mariupol without any of its former residents is going to be putin’s “victory”. grozny-aleppo-mariupol. all finished by the same general too.
ukraine will never forgive russians for this, and they will be correct to do so. russia must be denazified. tribunal for putin and everyone above colonel, lustrations for every official of any power, ideally taking away its nukes, severely restricting police ranks and power. then mass population visits to see the destruction they caused first hand. just like germany had to be made to face.