Russian TV Debates Whether Ukrainians Should Be ‘Eliminated or Re-Educated’
By Aleks Phillips
1/12/23 at 6:26 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-war-russia-tv-debate-eliminated-reeducated-kremlin-1773203
Pundits in Russia have taken to daytime television to discuss whether Ukrainians should be “eliminated” or “re-educated” as the war continues.
In a clip of a TV discussion on Channel 1 Russia, panelists repeated the propaganda lines that Russia has used throughout its invasion of Ukraine, including describing Ukrainians as Nazis and suggesting they were somehow to blame for the conflict.
Yuri Kot, a pro-Kremlin journalist who has previously threatened nuclear attacks on the U.S. and Britain, made reference to the “illness of Ukrainianism” and suggested Russia’s enemies should be “strictly eliminated.”
The words come as Russian forces appear to have made an advance in recent days on the salt-mining town of Soledar—a strategic outpost for either side, lying 6 miles from Bakhmut, which Ukrainian forces recaptured in the last month. The Russian military has failed to make any significant territorial gains in recent months, typified by a retreat from Kherson—the only regional capital it had been able to completely subjugate—in November.
In an apparent recognition of Russia’s setbacks on the battlefield, General Sergei Surovikin, the head of the Russian forces in Ukraine, was demoted after just three months, and replaced by General Valery Gerasimov. In an intelligence update on January 11, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said the move was “an indicator of the increasing seriousness of the situation Russia is facing, and a clear acknowledgment that the campaign is falling short of Russia’s strategic goals.”
It added that this would likely be greeted with “extreme displeasure” from Russian ultra-nationalists given Gerasimov’s role in the planning of the initial invasion, which Russia maintains is a “special military operation.”
That balance of the war would not be easily gleaned by watching Russian TV, however, which continues to craft a narrative in which Ukraine and its people continue to misunderstand Russia is a civilizing force.
discussion, a presenter referenced a recent interview with Daniil Bezsonov, the Russian-installed minister for the Donbas region of Ukraine, in which he “asks himself the question: is it not now time to recognize them as enemies?”
In response, Kot differentiates between “involuntary Russians” who “are the same nation as us”—a reference to the stated objective of the Russian offensive to successfully annex the Donbas, which since 2014 had been held by Russian separatists—and “Russophobes who have caught the illness of Ukrainianism [and] who are holding our brothers hostage.”
In the clip, another presenter asks of “call the mothers of our soldiers and say ‘your son has died,’ when he hasn’t”, an apparent allusion to a Ukrainian tactic of contacting the families of dead Russian soldiers to ask them to collect their bodies.
“Absolutely right, those are guns too,” Kot replies. “You know, there are different types of guns. Words are also guns in this situation. That is to say, such people have taken the dark side and are proving themselves to be Russophobes, so it’s simply pointless trying to talk to them in human terms.”
The Kremlin has often claimed the invasion of Ukraine was an effort to “denazify” the country, without clear explanation as to what it means. Ukraine’s Azov battalion, a paramilitary group, has links to far-right and neo-fascist organizations, but has been used as an effective fighting outfit by Ukraine’s Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Asked if Russia’s enemies should be “eliminated or re-educated,” Kot responds: “Strictly eliminated! The enemy’s children can be re-educated but the enemy himself must be eliminated.” Russia has been found to have deported Ukrainian children from their homeland to Russia in order to make them citizens, The Associated Press reported in October.
“In many countries, daytime TV consists of anodyne cookery or travel shows,” Francis Scarr, a BBC Monitoring journalist, commented. “Meanwhile in Russia, they’re discussing whether Ukrainians can be ‘re-educated’ or need to be ‘eliminated’.”
Interesting in that it was only 80 years ago that they previously tried to kill off the whole population (well documented now.)
Russia’s Greatest Military Strength Has Now Become Its Weakness
By Brendan Cole On 1/12/23
3:00 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-winter-war-putin-1773021
ladimir Putin had his eye on his place in Russian history when he compared his invasion of Ukraine to the expansionism of Peter the Great. “It has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen,” Putin said in June 2022.
But the tsar was the beneficiary of cold weather in 1708 and 1709 during the Great Northern War, which helped stop Sweden’s Charles XII’s troops from advancing on Moscow, military historian Antony Beevor wrote in Foreign Affairs last month.
Beevor noted that while the winter has been an asset for Russian war efforts, such as Napoleon’s Grande Armée retreat from Moscow in 1812 and the turning back of Adolf Hitler’s forces from the capital in World War II, Putin cannot count on the coldest season being the same ally.
“It may be Russia, rather than its adversary, that suffers the worst consequences,” Beevor wrote as reports abound of shortages of body armor, equipment and training for Putin’s troops, especially the estimated 300,000 newly mobilized reservists.
“The curious thing about the Napoleonic and the Hitler invasions is that in both cases, the invaders thought they were going to be achieving victory before winter set in and so they didn’t properly prepare their troops for the winter climate,” William Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan and now an adjunct senior fellow at the non-profit Rand corporation told Newsweek.
“In the current circumstances it looks like Russia is making the same mistake,” Courtney said.
“The Ukrainians seem to be better prepared with winter provisioning than the Russians are so it’s not clear that Russia would see winter as having an advantage than in Stalingrad for example,” he added, referring to the pivotal World War II battle.
Putin’s troops have complained they are short of basic equipment, with Russian citizens reportedly having to crowdfund to pay for socks, winter clothes and even body armor.
“Think about that at scale compared to the Ukrainians who are getting literally the best uniforms, boots and equipment in the world shipped to them,” said Dale Buckner, a former Green Beret and CEO of the international security firm Global Guardian, which has intelligence teams in Ukraine.
“We think that Ukrainians are postured both at the individual level and their supply chain that they would have the advantage, not the Russians, in extreme cold weather,” Buckner told Newsweek.
The Mobilization Factor
Kyiv has repeated its claims that Putin is planning another mobilization. The partial call-up he announced in September was widely criticized for thrusting people not fitting draft criteria onto the front line.
But this is still providing Russia with more manpower and much depends on how well recently mobilized soldiers can eventually be integrated into an effective fighting force.
“If you can train soldiers, that mass can be an important factor on the battlefield,” said Courtney, explaining that “mass is more important for defensive rather than offensive operations” even if the ability “to be effective in offensive operations will be limited.”
Ukraine’s forces entered the winter with momentum following an offensive at the end of August which saw gains including retaking Kharkiv Oblast, parts of the Donetsk Oblast, and the right bank of Kherson Oblast.
Both sides have committed significant resources to the monthslong battle for Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, with Russian forces spearheaded by the Wagner Group of mercenaries.
But the 2023 Global Risk Forecast by international risk management firm Crisis 24, seen by Newsweek, predicted that winter will likely see Putin’s troops maintain a mostly defensive posture which will give time for their remaining new reservists to be trained.
There may be a decrease in combat intensity, except for some Ukrainian offensives to maintain momentum, and Russia trying localized advances and long-range strikes on infrastructure, it said.
Buckner said that even if Russia could mobilize 300,000 people they were likely to be used to maintain the terrain Moscow controls out of Crimea and the Donbas region, and not focus on more offensives. If Russia is in that posture, “it’s much easier to sustain that and just stay static for an enduring period of time,” he said.
Meanwhile, Crisis 24 predicted that after integrating its mobilized troops, the Russian high command may try a late winter or early spring offensive to break through Ukrainian lines, most likely in the Donetsk or Luhansk regions.
“However, any such operation will almost certainly fail to achieve its main objectives,” it said, due to Russian military command-and-control problems, low troop morale, and ineffective supply and logistics.
“The Russians are investing a lot of hope in the coming winter,” Vuk Vuksanovic, an associate at the London School of Economics foreign policy think tank, LSE IDEAS said, referring to strikes against energy infrastructure aimed at freezing the Ukrainian population.
But he told Newsweek that reports of Russian equipment shortages, which have been around since the start of Putin’s invasion on February 24, should be treated with caution.
“Confirmation of whether these reports are true will probably arrive on the battleground since Ukraine is also faced with a tough time of being entirely dependent on the support of Western allies to preserve its economy and military.”
This includes the Patriot Missile systems which Ukrainian servicemen will start training on in Oklahoma next week. The United Kingdom is also reportedly considering supplying Challenger 2 tanks which could push Germany to give Ukraine the Leopard II tanks it has long requested.
Ukrainian Forces Still Vastly Outnumbered
Military and strategic studies specialist Allan Orr believes some western assessments of the progress of Ukraine’s offensives have been overly optimistic. He said that whatever happens over winter, Ukraine’s troops are vastly outnumbered by Russian forces which they cannot wear down at a level high enough to win.
“This winter will show if Russia takes the conservative route, and just keeps methodically punching forward, or gets imaginative. If it gets imaginative, it would be an indication Putin knows he’s pressed for time in the east,” he told Newsweek.
“Unless the West bites the bullet and provides Ukraine much more wherewithal and finds a workaround to Ukrainian losses, all while navigating the un-navigable nuclear risk, every winter from here out will be risky for Kyiv,” he said.
“General Winter will again do to the war what it did to Napoleon. But nobody can say whether Putin or Zelensky will be the 21st-century Bonaparte.”