Global Research

Up to a million Ukrainians are now killed or wounded in the futile war. The 20 year long attack on Ukraine by the West, overturning elected governments, using the country as a battering ram to bring about “regime change in Moscow” and “break up Russia” has been a catastrophe for the people of Ukraine.

The country’s infrastructure and energy installations are largely destroyed, the valuable minerals and industrial base in the East have been lost, millions have fled the country, the youth is being destroyed on the battlefields, the birth rate is catastrophic and corruption is rife. In the history books this period should be known as “the Ukraine Sacrifice”. A sacrifice on the altar of US neocon imperial ideas, German Europe’s “Push to the East” and a decadent British political class (without public support) surrendering to Russophobia and leading the rhetorical charge.

On September 1st, the 500,000th Ukrainian soldier’s obituary was published in Ukraine. At least that number have in addition been wounded or are missing. The battlefields are notoriously covered with un-retrieved corpses, images of which never of course appear in western media, although recently the American Washington Post reporting on a video from a cemetery in Kharkov, quoted a Polish journalist:

 “It seems that there are twice as many graves of killed soldiers as there were… exactly a year ago.”

In recent days there have been reports of two catastrophic bombings of Ukraine training and deployment centres, one in Poltava where there were 200 dead and 340 wounded and a troop and military equipment concentration near Sumy where 80 died.

(These deaths contrast with 26th August Russian missile and drone attack on the whole of Ukraine – the biggest of the war so far – with BBC reporting only 4 killed! The targets were electricity substations, gas storage facilities and airfields.)

At the Poltava training centre two missiles hit the Poltava Institute of Military Communications—which housed not only a vital drone-technical program, and (according to the commander of the Ukrainian intelligence unit, Denis Yaroslavsky, young pilots) but valuable Swedish instructors for the forthcoming transfer of Swedish AWACS planes. 

The Swedish connection will not be lost on Russians who celebrate the famous battle of Poltava where Peter the Great defeated the Swedish army in 1709, ending Sweden’s imperial power in the region. A comment from Encyclopedia Britannicaseems ironically to echo the position of Ukraine today: “The Swedish invasion of Russia had already failed the previous winter, with the loss of their major supply column to the Russians and their failure to receive expected reinforcements. Despite the severe shortages of troops, artillery, and powder, Charles continued the war and besieged Poltava in May 1709”. The desperate Swedish strategy failed and they were defeated. For Charles then read Zelensky now!

War Going Badly for Ukraine

The Ukraine invasion of Russia in the Kursk region (it has been compared to Nazi Germany’s last desperate  campaign, the Battle of the Bulge in 1944) was a high risk tactic to force the Russians to withdraw forces from the battlegrounds of Donetsk and Luhansk and thus resist the very large advances into Ukraine held territory. It has not worked, not least because ammunition, troops and equipment were withdrawn to reinforce the Kursk invasion forces in which new recruits and foreign troops (including Americans, Polish and British) are taking part.

The Financial Times reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defence in Donbas was left without shells and soldiers after the offensive on the Kursk region, thus accelerating Russia’s breakthrough.

The initial attempt to reach Kursk and perhaps capture the Kursk nuclear power plant (as a future bargaining chip) failed and now Russian forces are pushing back.

The American Institute for the Study of War reports that Ukrainian friendly fire incidents have increased 400% due to poor training and severe fatigue and depletion of the forces. The Ukraine Armed forces chief Syrsky confirmed that new conscripts receive only 2 months training before being sent to the front line and others confirm that they are no match for the hardened professional Russian military.

Desertion and the Cost of Avoiding Conscription

According to a CNN report desertion and insubordination are becoming the main problem for the Ukrainian Armed Forces

“They go to their positions once, and if they survive, they never come back. They either abandon their positions, or refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.” 

In the first four months of 2024 alone, Ukrainian prosecutors opened criminal cases against nearly 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted.

The desperate Ukrianian search for more conscripts as losses reach catastrophic levels is indicated by the rising price of the “White ticket” which has risen from $5,000 to $37,000, according to the MP Yurchenko. This is the cost now of the conscription exemption certificate charged by the corrupt Ukrainian TCC (Conscription Office) which daily captures men off the streets to send to the front. For some mobilization is a profitable business!

In general the war is going very badly for Ukraine as the Kursk advance is halted, Russia begins recapturing territory and large losses continue in the east. As the pro Ukrainian German journalist Julian Roepke of Bild Zeitung reports “The Ukrainian military is already mentally preparing to defend the Dnieper,” – in other words abandoning the Eastern provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhia.

While the Ukrainian army was able to take control of only one small Russian town of Sudzha with an official population of 6,000 people, the Russian army captured five Ukrainian settlements with a total population of more than 53,000 residents in August alone – including Novogrodovka, Krasnogorovka, Druzhba, Severnoye and New York. Krasnogorovka has fallen and Ukrainsk and Toretsk are about to fall and the strategic town of Pokrovsk (a critical rail and road communications node) is under grave threat. The populations of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk are being evacuated. Roepke writes

“The Ukrainian soldiers I speak to can barely comprehend the catastrophe that is unfolding. Territory is sometimes being lost so quickly it is as if a retreat order had been given. They also consider the rotations that have already been carried out and planned to be dangerous for holding the front.”

Boris Johnson’s Catastrophic Legacy

In a recent interview the politician who sabotaged the Russian Ukrainian peace agreement at Istanbul in March 2022, Boris Johnson, (confirmed by the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s own party David Arakhamia at the time) has just called for Ukraine conscription down to the age of 18 and long range weapon attacks on Russia. His deranged language included his assertion that “If I were a general I could lead the foreign troops against Russia”

The Johnson argument for more Ukrainian cannon fodder has been taken up by Zelensky who has urged Western leaders to help bring refugee men of fighting age back to Ukraine according to Bloomberg. There are some 650,000 Ukrainian men of conscription age in other countries. But there is a strange twist to this problem:

“Politicians from Poland to Hungary have said they will not send refugees back as long as the war continues,” and “much of Central and Eastern Europe is experiencing a labour shortage, and countries like Poland and the Czech Republic do not want to lose people.”

Russian Troop Build Up

The number of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine will reach 800,000 people by the end of the year, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Gavrylyuk has said.

At the beginning of the year, this figure amounted to 440,000 military personnel, while now the Ukrainian Defense Ministry estimates the Russian Armed Forces grouping at 600,000 people.

Ukraine War Crimes in Kursk Attack

Ukrainian Armed Forces shot dead  a Monk at the Gornalsky Monastery during their invasion of the Kursk region. Archpriest Oleg Chebanov witnessed the shooting:

“The first thing they bombed and what was in their sights was the temple of the Gornalsky Monastery. It was not some administrative building and at that time, a service was going on there, and when the monks were hiding, and when they left, one of the novices was simply shot in the back.”

The Kiev government has for several years been running a campaign of harassment against the Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church whose members it has attacked and accused of treason. Two weeks ago the UOC was banned.

The Patrick Lancaster Channel has reported how Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region murdered a pregnant woman.

I investigate reports of civilians being targeted and killed by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of Russia. I found a man who says his pregnant wife was killed by a Ukrainian soldier while she was trying to protect her 1 year old son. The son was also injured. He asks the USA to make Ukraine give a Humanitarian corridor so he can retrieve his wife and unborn Child’s bodies and so other civilians can get to safety. He says Ukraine is making a genocide of Russians in the Kursk region. I show you what eyewitnesses say.

Kursk Residents Abducted: 83 of the hundreds of abducted residents of the Kursk region, who were taken by Ukrainian soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, received $25,000 for renouncing Russian citizenship. 

Will we see the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Kiev politicians for these abductions?

Britain Main Driver of Kursk Invasion

Although, according to some reports, the USA was surprised by the Kursk invasion, The New York Times reported that the USA and Britain provided Ukraine with satellite images and other information about the Kursk region after the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ invasion in order to track the transfer of Russian reinforcements and 

to enable the command staff to better monitor the movement of Russian reinforcements that could attack Ukrainian troops or cut off their possible escape route to Ukraine.

The UK has just restricted arms sales to Israel in case the government could be accused by the International Criminal Court of aiding war crimes. Might there not be scruples about supplying Kiev for its invasion of Russia? 

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This article was originally published on Freenations.