Burying his crimes worked for Stalin
But then Vladimir Putin likely admires Stalin.
The Associated Press reports from Ukraine:
Satellite images released Thursday showed what appeared to be mass graves near Mariupol, and local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians there in an effort to conceal the slaughter taking place in the siege of the port city.
The images emerged hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the battle for the Mariupol, despite the presence of an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters who were still holed up at a giant steel mill. Putin ordered his troops not to storm the stronghold but to seal it off “so that not even a fly comes through.”
Cities in the Donbas came under Russian fire overnight, and the attacks interfered with attempts to evacuate civilians in one area, according to a regional official. The region, home to coal mines, metal plants and heavy-equipment factories, is bracing for what could be a decisive campaign as Russian President Vladimir Putin attempts to salvage an 8-week-old war already widely seen as a blunder and a humanitarian disaster.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan wonders if Putin has learned anything from his failures to date in Ukraine. The open ground in the Donbas region will make it more difficult for Ukraine’s defenders to restrain Russian forces with hit-and-run attacks. There are few places to hide. We could instead witness tank-on-tank battles not seen since World War II:
For weeks now, Russian tank battalions have been lining up all across the 300-mile border with Ukraine, with the goal—once the fighting begins in full force—of breaking through the defenses, then enveloping the Ukrainian soldiers from all sides.
This tactic works both ways: The Ukrainians will try to punch a hole in the offensive line, then envelop the Russian soldiers—and, at the same time, cut off Russian supply lines. (Helpfully, Russia’s supply lines in the East are dependent on rail tracks, which Ukrainians have been adept at blowing up.)
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If Putin finds himself on the verge of losing in Donbas, however, he might set off chemical or tactical nuclear weapons in a brash stab at shocking Zelensky and the Western allies into stopping the war before all hell breaks loose. (Russian military doctrine refers to this ploy as “escalate to de-escalate.”) This is the main reason President Joe Biden and some of the European leaders refrain from pushing Putin still harder or intervening in the war directly.
Nevertheless, the U.S. and NATO countries have relaxed their earlier narrow scope of supply and stepped up delivery of heavier and more long-range weapons to Ukraine. The latest U.S. shipment includes “72 155mm howitzers and the tactical vehicles to tow them, along with 144,000 artillery rounds,” reports the Washington Post.
While that four-weeks of amunition supply may not win the war, the artillery will “help Ukrainians hold the line against the forthcoming Russian assaults,” says military analyst Samir Puri of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Also included are 120 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems. Unlike the short-lived Switchblade drones, these can loiter above the battlefield for up to six hours and provide aerial reconnaissance (even at night) before impacting targets. More details (or photos) are unavailable.
Kaplan continues:
There is one other factor that should make Russian commanders pessimistic: Their troops are exhausted. This is why the offensive in Donbas is not yet fully underway. Many of the Russian battalions—some redeployed from their failed campaigns in northern and western Ukraine, some newly mobilized from distant bases inside Russia—lost too many troops, tanks, and other weapons to fight as coherent combat units, and it will take a few weeks, if not much longer, to fill in the gaps.
Michael Kofman, a military expert at CNA, whose analyses of the war have proved more prescient than most, tweeted on Wednesday, “Overall I think the Russian military has dramatically reduced combat effectiveness given [the] high level of losses. … They’ve scraped together what was left … to get some reinforcements. It can’t make up for losses.”
It appears both Ukraine and its friends in Europe are settling in for what Kaplan describes as “a long, bloody slugfest, to be decided not by which side achieves some grand strategic victory but rather by which side simply stays standing a little bit longer.”
Would that Democrats had the same stomach Ukrainians have for defending every inch of their homeland.
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