Russia worries about internal dissent as Wagner ally runs out of troops
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Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his campaign against anti-war dissent and the misappropriation of military assets within Russia. Putin signed two bills into law on March 18 that significantly increase the fines and jail time for discrediting Russian forces in Ukraine and for selling Russian arms to foreign actors.[4] Russian sources reported that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) personnel detained over 40 people in raids against two Moscow bars for suspicion of financing Ukrainian forces and made patrons participate in pro-war activities on March 17.[5] Russian sources have increasingly reported on FSB detaining Russian civilians under suspicion of financially assisting Ukrainian forces since February 28 after Putin instructed the FSB to intensify counterintelligence measures and crackdown against the spread of pro-Ukrainian ideology.[6]
Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigohzin is likely attempting to set informational conditions to explain the Wagner Group’s culmination around Bakhmut. Prigozhin-affiliated outlet RIA FAN published an interview with Prigozhin on March 17 in which he asserted that Ukrainian forces are preparing to launch counteroffensives in five separate directions: into Belgorod Oblast, in the Kreminna area, in the Bakhmut area, towards Donetsk City, and in Zaporizhia Oblast.[7] Prigozhin stated that Ukrainian forces will launch these operations starting in mid-April and urged Russian forces to prepare for these counteroffensives by preserving ammunition and equipment.[8] Prigozhin likely depicted Ukrainian forces as having enough combat power to launch a massive theater-wide counteroffensive to justify the Wagner Group’s inability to complete an envelopment or encirclement of Bakhmut. Prigozhin stated that Ukrainian forces are preparing to counterattack Wagner’s flanks in the Bakhmut area and that Wagner fighters are preparing for these counterattacks.[9] ISW previously assessed that Wagner fighters are likely conducting opportunistic attacks on easier-to-seize settlements further north and northwest of Bakhmut as their ability to make tactical gains in Bakhmut itself diminishes, and Prigozhin likely seeks to frame these activities as securing flanks in preparation for Ukrainian counteroffensives.[10] A prominent Wagner-affiliated milblogger similarly argued that Wagner fighters are conducting offensive operations northwest of Bakhmut to spoil Ukrainian counterattacks and asserted that Wagner fighters are focused on advancing towards the Siverskyi Donets Canal west of Bakhmut to complete the envelopment of the city.[11] The milblogger likely tried to rationalize the Wagner Group’s failure to envelop Bakhmut by setting the necessary conditions for the envelopment further away and farther out of the Wagner Group’s current operational capabilities. Prigozhin also claimed that Ukrainian forces have at least 19,000 personnel deployed within Bakhmut, likely an attempt to justify Wagner’s lack of progress within the city.[12]
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Putin appears to be concerned with bar talk inside Russia that is critical of the war and his execution of it. Using the secret police for such operations looks like a waste of resources when Russia is scrambling for troops in Ukraine. It looks like the Wagner group is running out of prisoners and other fighters to make it unlikely they can continue operations within Ukraine. If so, the Russians may try to incorporate their remaining troops into the Russian army or what is left of it. The Russians do appear unwilling to recognize their defeat at this point and will probably try to continue to find young people they can round up for combat.
See, also:
Russia loses 15 of its so-called ‘invincible’ T-90M tanks in Ukraine, GS reports
Like much of its expensive, top-of-the-line military equipment, Russia’s occupying forces have chosen to keep its T-90M tanks – the most technologically-advanced they possess – from combat actions.
They turned out to be not so "unbeatable" or "perfect" as Russia pretended, Rudyk said.
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An inspection of the incapacitated tank revealed that the T-90M is "the upper limit of what the Russian military-industrial complex has been able to squeeze out of Soviet developments." According to Rudyk, Russia not only does not produce electronics for it, but also tries to conceal information about the origin of some components.
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Russia's new offensive in Ukraine has likely fizzled out after only a month, Western intel says
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In recent days, Russian troops and the Wagner Group's forces have "obtained footholds west of the Bakhmutka River in the centre of the contested Donbas town of Bakhmut," the British Ministry of Defense said. But the intelligence assessment added that "more broadly across the front line, Russia is conducting some of the lowest rates of local offensive action that has been seen since at least January 2023."
The British Defense Ministry said this is likely because Russian forces have depleted their "combat power" to such a degree that "even local offensive actions are not currently sustainable."
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Ukrainian forces have used Maxim machine guns, a weapon often associated with World War I, to mow down frontal assaults by Russian troops in the battle for Bakhmut.
"It only works when there is a massive attack going on," a Ukrainian soldier identified as Borys, 48, recently told BBC News of the Maxim gun. "Then it really works."
"We use it every week," Borys added.
Ukrainian forces have found the Maxim M1910 — was first introduced in 1910 (the initial version of the gun emerged in the 1880s) and employed by the Imperial Russian Army during World War I — useful in the fight against the Russians. Ukraine's troops have modified the guns with modern add-ons such as optics and suppressors, according to reporting from Task and Purpose.
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Ukrainian troops use 19th century machine gun to repel Russians in Bakhmut
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Putin's claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially absurd given its history
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First, it is worth pointing out that Ukraine today is a vibrant, pluralistic democracy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won a five-year term in the 2019 presidential election with a landslide majority, defeating 39 candidates. His Servant of the People party then swept the parliamentary elections in July 2019, winning 254 seats in the 450-seat chamber, becoming the first majority government in the history of the modern Ukrainian state. Zelensky was well-known as a comedian and star of the popular sitcom “Servant of the People,” from which his party’s name was derived.
The fact that Zelensky is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and was raised in what he told The Times of Israel was “an ordinary Soviet Jewish family” was barely noted during the election. “Nobody cares. Nobody asks about it,” he remarked in the same interview. Nor did Ukrainians seem to mind that the prime minister at the time of Zelensky’s election, Volodymyr Groysman, also had a Jewish background.
For a brief period of time, Ukraine was the only state outside of Israel to have both a Jewish head of state and a Jewish head of government. “How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky asked in a public address after the Russian invasion began. “Explain it to my grandfather.”
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There were evidently attacks on Jews in Ukraine during the Russian occupation.
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Russia claims that these children don’t have parents or guardians to look after them, or that they can’t be reached. But an investigation found that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they weren’t wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda, and given them Russian families and citizenship.
The investigation, by the Associated Press, is the most extensive to date on the grab of Ukrainian children, and the first to follow the process all the way to those already growing up in Russia. It drew from dozens of interviews with parents, children and officials in both Ukraine and Russia; emails and letters; Russian documents and Russian state media.
Whether or not they have parents, raising the children of war in another country or culture can be a marker of genocide, an attempt to erase the very identity of an enemy nation. Prosecutors say it also can be tied directly to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has explicitly supported the adoptions.
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