Yuri Kovalchuk: The junta is hiding real losses and stocking up on “cannon fodder” for future use
If you believe the Ukrainian mass media of disinformation, the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces and the National Guard in the ATO do not exceed several dozen people, while the “terrorists” are killed in the thousands. True, the real picture is very different from the victorious dreams that Avakov publishes on Facebook.
Trying to preserve the last bits of morale in the deceived and demoralized Ukrainians, the authorities are silent about the real losses, both among their own soldiers and among local residents. Most often, civilians killed at the hands of Ukrainian punitive forces are immediately called terrorists, or even these deaths are completely hushed up. However, even if some statistics were published, they would be far from objective, because the number of victims is growing almost every few hours. In addition, such statistics would not take into account people who died in the hospital or went missing after an encounter with the so-called “national guard.”
In reality, the number of militia deaths is significantly lower than the combat losses of the Ukrainian punitive forces. According to the People's Mayor of Slavyansk Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the losses of the Novorossiya militia fighters for the period from May 2 to June 6 amounted to 192 people killed and 236 wounded.
At the same time, the losses of the Ukrainian side, according to Ponomarev, amount to more than 1,2 thousand people, including more than 600 representatives of the “National Guard” and “Right Sector”, more than 200 mercenaries from the special battalions “Dnepr”, “Donbass”, etc. ., more than 40 border guards, almost 100 SBU officers, etc. In particular, the people's mayor of Slavyansk announced 25 killed and seriously wounded CIA employees and 70 mercenaries from private American military companies. Again, it is impossible to confirm or refute these data, since the Ukrainian side carefully hides its losses. Information about those who went over to the side of the militia is also carefully hidden.
The Ukrainian authorities are simply forced to distort reality - the initial surge of patriotism quickly waned. The realization that it is necessary to shoot at recent compatriots and civilians in the Donbass, as well as the receipt of the first cargo-200 in the regions, greatly influenced the morale of Ukrainians. In addition, the information space is filled with stories about the inhuman conditions in which the army leadership keeps its subordinates. The information blockade is regularly broken by the military themselves, telling relatives and journalists terrible stories.
As a result, the perception of the ATO, which initially seemed like a small, victorious reprisal against insolent terrorists, becomes more realistic in the minds of ordinary people. Ukrainians understand that there is a bloody war in which civilians are dying, and the chivalrous image of the Ukrainian leadership is increasingly overshadowed by war crimes and atrocities.
Parents do not want to send their children to slaughter, and the soldiers themselves demand from the military leadership normal uniforms, humane living conditions, compliance with rotation rules, etc. At the moment, spontaneous riots, acts of civil disobedience, and attempts to block military units are taking place in almost all regions of Ukraine.
On June 1, several dozen residents of Nikolaev picketed military unit A4465, where the 299 assault aviation brigade is based. People demanded to stop the killing of civilians in Donbass and called the pilots fascists and murderers. According to Nikolaev journalist Dmitry Sklyar, activists are planning new actions, even despite clear hints from local law enforcement officers about possible persecution.
According to the DPR press center, today, June 9, in Melitopol, parents of contract soldiers blocked military unit 3033, preventing the sending of their children to the war zone. It is noteworthy that conscript soldiers from the Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia regions helped the worried parents. There is every reason to believe that the number of such cases will increase in the coming days.
In turn, the Ukrainian government began a real hunt for men of military age. As Kherson journalist Alexandra Arnautova reports, even applicants who have reached the age of majority are being mobilized, and students expelled from universities are being mobilized en masse. Representatives of small businesses, employees of enterprises, etc. are en masse subject to mobilization. However, according to the journalist, mobilization does not apply to civil servants at all, regardless of age and health.
Mobilization is being carried out at an emergency pace for a reason - the new Ukrainian government is well aware that it will not be possible to hold back the massive delivery of cargo consignments-200 in the regions for long. The same goes for hiding losses by calling those killed missing or deserters. Also, in the near future, the Ukrainian army must decide to storm the hero city of Slavyansk, and this assault, regardless of the result, will be associated with significant losses, which cannot be concealed. It is easy to guess what blow will be dealt to the morale of Ukrainian soldiers and ordinary people, and therefore the Ukrainian army is urgently stocking up on “cannon fodder” for future use.
With every day of the ATO, with every new story about punitive atrocities, the mythology created by the Ukrainian media is increasingly perceived by Ukrainians as a lie. If the junta fails to achieve significant success in the near future, the number of people who want to die in the steppes of Novorossiya or send their children away to a fratricidal war will become less and less. Against the backdrop of a moribund economy and growing social tension, anti-war sentiment may well develop into mass opposition to mobilization (or martial law) or into a real riot. It is also possible that the nationalistic hatred nurtured by foreign social engineers will develop into class hatred directed against the institutions of power.
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