While some estimates of Ukrainian dead vary between 300,000 and 400,000 Ukrainian sources admit to 310,000 deaths and the Wall Street Journal estimates between 20,000 and 50,000 have lost one or more limbs. Other estimates are that several hundred thousand are severely wounded.
This horrendous death total is not far short of the total British deaths during the whole of the Second World War and it is the result of the West’s genocidal exploitation of Ukraine as a battering ram for American neocon attempts to destroy Russia and the irresponsible hubris of hurling poorly trained troops (increasingly draftees with no military experience), with insufficient artillery, little missile defence and no air support, across dense minefields against well entrenched Russian positions.
An Australian TV channel showed a story about foreign mercenaries fleeing Ukraine: they are simply afraid. To the question “What is it like on the front lines now? At the zero line?
A mercenary replied: “At “zero” – horror. Just awful. It’s just genocide. It’s creepy there. Dead people everywhere. Corpses of Ukrainian soldiers. They were just left there. Just left there and I don’t know why.” It was into this cauldron that a British Foreign Secretary urged (illegally http://freenations.net/british-ukraine-solders-will-not-be-executed-liz-trusss-illegal-call-to-fight-the-foreign-enlistment-act/) British and other troops to go and fight!
The Ukrainian channel Rezident published a video, saying:
We thought for a long time whether to publish the video, but then we decided to show the reality of what the massacre of Azov (troops) looks like, to which the West sent the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Office of the President supported this plan.
8 units of equipment burned down in a matter of minutes. All fields are monitored (by the Russians) 24/7 from copters that coordinate artillery fire. All fields are mined and do not allow the use of Zaluzhny’s tactics of quick cuts in the front and strikes on the flanks. In each attack (even a successful one), we lose dozens of pieces of equipment and a hundred soldiers.
In audio negotiations, you can hear how the fire is being coordinated, at the moment when our equipment is not supported by artillery and one (Russian) enemy tank stops the movement of the column.
So massive have troop losses been that, according to The Guardian journalist Nick Hauer, one of the problems of the Ukrainian counter-offensive is the lack of time to train fighters to make up for losses. As an example, he cites a conversation with the battalion commander of the 68th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
These guys are not so young, are they?
Yes, they are completely different. Actually, I don’t like it. It reminds me of Germany in 1945: here is a group of fighters who have never served and two weeks of training is not enough, but we simply do not have time.
Also, his interlocutor noted high losses during the winter battles on the Ugledar front: out of 420 people, 100 were killed and wounded. According to the Ukrainian commander, “we are losing the best.”
Ukraine is also losing its youth. This young man was not even 17. The post was followed by over 700 angry comments filled with pain and denial.
“The West knew that Kiev would not have enough weapons for the offensive, but they believed in the “resourcefulness” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Those who threw these troops into a battle they knew they could not win but were trying to make some meagre gains “in order to better negotiate” are guilty of genocide of Ukrainians. One of the soldiers of the 23rd brigade told reporters from the New York Times that his battalion was literally destroyed by artillery fire. Of the attack, in which ten American MaxxPro armored vehicles took part, only one returned. The losses were horrific. In one month of fighting, as a Ukrainian military man told the NYT, only ten people remained in the ranks of the entire battalion (about 400-500 men).
63% of Ukrainians now say they know at least one close relative or friend who have died in the war, with the average number being three. This is a huge increase from the last survey in February, which found only 17% of Ukrainians reported a loss, while the figure in September of 2022 was just 9%. Link to the original survey data by KIIS
PRESS GANGS ROAM THE STREETS AND “SNITCH ON A DRAFT EVADER”
Daily there are videos on the internet of Ukrainian men of all ages being seized on the street for recruitment into the armed forces. Often they – or their womenfolk fight back – and win! Ukrainian gas receipts contain the following:
‘You can receive a discount on payment for services if you report a collaborator or an (draft) evader using the єVorog bot.’
The extent to which the western press, especially in the USA, are at last awakening to the pointless slaughter is this report of the New York Times about the full cemeteries in Lviv:
“The old, unmarked graves of those who died in past wars will be dug up to make way for a seemingly endless stream of the dead.”
One woman who lost her 30-year-old son says: “The best of the best died. He graduated from the university. He had an honours degree. Why did he die?” Another: “It’s so hard to think – last summer there were so few of them [the dead), and now there are so many of them.”
WESTERN SUPPORT EBBING AWAY
The tensions within the western alliance are growing, with Germany unable to supply more tanks, the USA refusing to supply the latest Abrams tanks and Germany terminating an agreement with the Polish authorities on the repair of Leopard 2 tanks transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of Poland (Handelsblatt) because Poland was asking 10 times the reasonable price for repairs!
SWITZERLAND has refused arms to Ukraine and ISRAEL denied Ukraine the supply of the Iron Dome air defense system and other heavy weapons, citing the fact that these weapons, if they get to Ukraine, could fall into the hands of Iran. (There is also an understanding with Russia that Israel does not supply heavy weapons to Ukraine, and Russia does not supply certain weapons and technologies to Iran.
The Kiev Post has quoted a source from the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine as stating that Ukraine will pursue the exclusion of Israel from the Ramstein format. The newspaper reports that the Israeli authorities have not offered substantial assistance to Ukraine. Instead, the information acquired during meetings is allegedly being utilized by Israel to advance its own interests.
Another individual interviewed by the newspaper, who chose to remain anonymous, indicated that Ukraine’s motives stem from “Israel’s unfriendly actions and its pro-Russian stance in the international arena.”
Ukraine’s Zelensky was blocked from attending the summit of the EU and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States despite an invitation by the Spanish PM
Poland (which has historic claims on western Ukraine) demands more thanks for its support of Ukraine and an apology for the Volyn massacre in WW2. In 2022, Poland took in almost 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees which has resulted in a 50% rise in the population of Rzeszów, the largest city in south-eastern Poland. Warsaw’s population has increased by 15%, Kraków’s by 23%, and Gdansk’s by 34%). Poland has sent over 20,000 fighters to Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States has been trying to get Egypt to start supplying weapons to Ukraine, but Cairo is refusing.
Support for the war is falling in all European countries and only 31% of Americans are prepared to see US troops fighting in Ukraine (although of course many already are!)
TIME TO END THIS MAD WAR
I have already described the madness of this war (https://freenations.net/a-mad-war-only-russia-wants-a-sovereign-ukraine-ukraine-nazism-revealed-again%EF%BB%BF/) which could so easily have been settled by agreeing to devolution for Russians and Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine and the guaranteed neutrality of Ukraine. But that did not fit the long held plans of the American neocons who were determined to use Ukraine as a battering ram to “break up Russia” and have “regime change in Moscow”.
These imperialist US notions were mad enough but to use them to sacrifice not Americans but hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives is unforgivable. PEACE NOW!
