by Simplicius The Thinker
Another raft of MSM headlines have served to inure the gormless Western lumpen to the realities on the ground:
NYTimes brings us this stark highlight:
With Ukraine’s military facing mounting deaths and a stalemate on the battlefield, army recruiters have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force.
In fact, this has been happening since the beginning, but it’s only now that MSM finally feels at liberty to reveal it. What next, they’ll start reporting on all the pole-tying saran-wrap incidents?
Times goes on to report that disabled people and even those meant to be exempt are all part of the recent corralling efforts, which sees AFU commissars steal their passports to keep them from running. The article highlights various intimidation methods and outright dead-of-night body-snatching:
These kinds of experiences have increased “massively in the last six months,” said Ms. Fefchak, the lawyer. At the beginning of the war, she said, there was no shortage of volunteer fighters. But in recent months, she has sometimes received 30 to 40 calls a day about men being forced into service. Other lawyers told of a notable increase in complaints.
This report is particularly salient given that Ukraine’s GUR head Kiril Budanov just released his own damning admission about the current state of recruitment in the country, during a panel called “2024: Challenges and Prospects”
“We don’t have so many people willing to do anything. I’m not even talking about fighting, but this is current. There will be losses and this number must be maintained constantly,” added the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate. Now the effectiveness of forcibly mobilized Ukrainians is almost zero. This was stated by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate Budanov.
“Everyone who wanted to came in the first six months. Who is being called up now? Unfortunately, there will not be a good answer here. If you don’t find motivation for these people, then how many people are not forced or according to the law, then their efficiency will be almost zero. What in principle, this is what has been happening lately,” Budanov said.
He believes that financial benefits for those mobilized are no longer in first place. “Most of our people, although everyone shouts “I am Ukrainian, Ukraine is above all,” have not felt themselves to be citizens of Ukraine. They do not have the feeling that the enemy has captured the territory and this is my sacred duty to defend this country. Everyone is rooting for Ukraine , but everyone is running,” added the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate.
He candidly admits that not only have mobilization pools dried up, with everyone who actually wanted to be there already having signed up in the first 6 months of war; but further, and more damningly, that the effectiveness of soldiers who were forcibly mobilized is ‘near zero’.
Recall what I wrote previously about how Ukraine’s number one issue is not necessarily rounding up the bodies themselves, it’s getting trained and motivated bodies who are capable of carrying out assaults. AFU commanders on every line are complaining that their soldiers are literally incapable of assaulting. Defending is much easier because it doesn’t require the same level of physical fitness or coordination.
The Times article above talks about a 58 year old being pulled off the street. What kind of assault can 58 year olds conduct? And the few assault-worthy brigades Ukraine has left are being sacrificed by criminal political orders to fight for useless symbolic objectives.
Which brings us to the second article, again from NYTimes, about the AFU Marines’ horrific struggles on the Dnieper front. In the last report I covered a BBC article about this same issue, but this doozy from NYTimes is even more eye-openingly forthright:
Just a few choice highlights:
Soldiers and marines who have taken part in the river crossings described the offensive as brutalizing and futile, as waves of Ukrainian troops have been struck down on the river banks or in the water, even before they reach the other side.
“We were sitting in the water at night and we were shelled by everything,” the marine, Maksym, said. “My comrades were dying in front of my eyes.”
Fresh troops arriving on the east bank have to step on soldiers’ bodies that lie tangled in the churned mud, said Oleksiy, an experienced soldier who fought in Krynky in October and has since crossed multiple times to help evacuate the wounded.
The Marines, who spoke under anonymity, confirmed that any putative ‘success’ in Khrynky is being overstated by their command; in fact, they consider it a pointless suicide mission to a place that doesn’t even have any real ‘positions’ to speak of:
“There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position,” said Oleksiy. “It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It’s impossible to move equipment there.”
“It’s not even a fight for survival,” he added. “It’s a suicide mission.”
As validation to the article, just today a new post from an AFU-linked channel had this harrowing cry for help:
“I don’t know if this will help or not anymore. But I will write it here once again! We are being exterminated by our own command. I am asking for help from everyone who can provide it. Knock on all doors, hold rallies and actions! Record a video! Do something. We are almost openly threatened with execution if we record videos ourselves and ask for help. Help us!
Krynkyi is a real hell. Mountains of corpses of our brothers. This will not end if everyone remains silent…
Reach out to the global community! It is useless to appeal to the country’s authorities! They give the order for our extermination. They will not punish themselves.
I have found people who will be willing to translate your videos into English!
Record and send. It is necessary to reach the Hague International Court.
What is happening now is a crime against one’s own people. Genocide of Ukrainians. I can’t call it anything else.
Ukrainian Post
As I’ve stated before, the only reason Ukraine continues to persist in this area is due to sunk cost fallacy, as well as a refusal to destroy credibility by ending the operation. They’ve already built it up so grandly that to abandon it now would be an admission of defeat almost equal to losing one of the prized cities, like Bakhmut or Avdeevka. So they’re now forced to squander on and continue exterminating some of their best units just to “keep up appearances” and keep the world from witnessing another massive, demoralizing setback which could kill the last bit of Western support.
The only question is, why now? Are these press outlets angling to draw attention and coverage to these horrors for the purpose of increasing aid at such a critical time? That’s probably likely, though there may be more to it, like the gradual campaign of tarnishing Zelensky in order to effect his ouster later.
The truth is, I almost didn’t cover it because it all feels so same-y after a while. I prefer to do reports that expand our awareness or understanding of new issues rather than treading the same ground, with the same dreary tales telling us things we’ve known for a long time. However, it does make the important revelation that much of Russia’s contentions are slowly being proven right as time goes by.
Many of these reports merely repeat what the Russian side has been saying for months—which they were heavily criticized and lampooned for.
It was “Russian propaganda!” to dare contradict that the valiant Marines were slaughtering all the orcs in Khrynky, and advancing day by day. It was “Russian propaganda!” to call into question Ukraine’s supposedly bottomless resource pool, and dare assert that the side taking a mere “15,000 total casualties”—as per Zelensky and co.—would ever begin to “run out of men.”
But suddenly we have it from ever-tight-lipped Budanov himself that not only does the Ukrainian society now lack willing able-bodied men, but that the body-snatched ones are effectively useless in real combat.
Lastly, there’s just one thing I wanted to highlight from this new CNN piece:
On the topic of major ‘sobering’ admissions, CNN quotes a senior US defense official as stating that Ukraine may not just suffer “setbacks” but total defeat by summertime:
When they blow the whistle like that, you know things have gotten dire.
They even admit again that Russian forces now regularly fire 5-7 times more shells than Ukraine:
Ukrainian forces are already rationing ammunition, US and Ukrainian officials told CNN, as Russian forces fire back at a ratio of five to seven times greater than Ukrainian forces are able to. A senior Ukrainian military official told CNN that Ukrainian commanders believe the impact on their firepower has led to additional Ukrainian casualties.
They state that Ukraine would first run out of long range missiles like Storm Shadows, then air defense, then artillery, citing the Storm Shadows in particular as having single-handedly pushed the Russian fleet away from Crimea and won control of the entire Black Sea for their grain corridor.
I keep hearing this narrative being spouted on the Ukrainian side. First of all—the Black Sea fleet wasn’t wholly pushed back anywhere, only some of its ships relocated to Novorossiysk, many if not most are still in Sevastopol and the ‘wunderwaffen’ missiles have yet to reach them.
Secondly, as I’ve stated before, the grain corridor has nothing whatsoever to do with Russian ships being pushed anywhere as Russia has never claimed they would “shut down” the corridor. Russia merely withdrew participation in the grain deal, implicitly allowing Ukraine to move its grain but under the warning to international shippers that the lane’s security can no longer be guaranteed with Russian protection. If Russia wanted to stop any ship moving there it could easily do so with an instant strike from a variety of platforms.
Once again, here’s a current livemap of maritime traffic in the region:
The red circle is the Odessa region, the green circle is already Romanian territory. Note the dozens of ships actively trafficking in and out of Romania, yet not a single ship visible in the waters toward Odessa (those red squares aren’t ships but are actually danger warning signs, maybe mines or other obstructions). That’s their miraculously ‘liberated’ grain corridor?
This broader view captures the lacuna more strikingly:
Every region has bountiful ship traffic except one. Yet we’re supposed to believe this is the heroically “liberated” region, according to CNN and Zelensky.
