Russia makes limited gains in its brutal invasion of Ukraine

In areas occupied by Russian troops, in particular the southern city of Kherson, there are reports of large protests against the invaders with people shouting “fascists” at Russian tanks and troops.   

Also, two Ukrainian mayors have reportedly been abducted by Russian agents and there are reports of Russian troops using brutal force in towns and villages they are seizing. The Guardian newspaper cited witnesses who said Russian troops executed men in a village outside Kyiv who had served as Ukrainian volunteers and randomly shot at houses.    

On Sunday, an American filmmaker and journalist, Brent Renaud, was killed by Russian troops outside Kyiv when he tried to get close to the frontline.     

Liudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament commissioner for human rights, accused Russian “occupiers” of “terrorizing the local population,” as reported by Ukrinform.    

She alleged Russian troops in Enerhodar, a town in southern Ukraine, beat and torture “people right on the streets, abduct passers-by, take away cars.” In villages outside Kyiv, she accused Russian troops of looting houses and taking food away from residents.   

Ukrinform reported that Oleh Nikolaiev, a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, was taken from his home by Russian troops who have taken the Black Sea town of Berdiansk near Mariupol.   

Russia’s military is resorting to ever more devastating tactics to break down Ukraine’s will to fight and more photos and videos are emerging showing massive devastation in Ukrainian cities and towns, such as in Kharkiv and Volnovakha, where large areas have been turned into rubble.    

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, the fighting has been very intense and numerous residential buildings, schools and administrative buildings have been destroyed.   

Ukrainian forces and agents too have been accused of causing extensive damage as they retreat and fight Russian troops. Ukrainian agents also have been accused of killing alleged pro-Russia traitors and spies, including a mayor and even a member of its ceasefire negotiating delegation who was accused of acting as traitor.    

There were reports in Russian media on Monday that Ukraine launched a missile against Donetsk, a Russian-held city in eastern Ukraine, that was shot down. Tass, the Russian news agency, reported that 20 civilians were killed by falling fragments. Ukraine denied it launched the attack and said it was a Russian missile that rained down on Donetsk.   

As horrible as the devastation has been, military experts say Russia has so far refrained from the kind of annihilation it used in its wars in Chechnya and Syria and that it could turn to even more aerial bombing and artillery shelling because the war isn’t going as well as it had hoped.    

So far, according to military experts, Russia’s air force has largely stayed on the sidelines, perhaps because Ukraine has proven to have an effective air defense system but also maybe because the Kremlin doesn’t want to increase the level of carnage for fear of turning Ukrainians even more against Russia.    

In justifying his invasion, Putin claimed that Ukrainians and Russians need to be united as one people and in the opening stages of the war he apparently believed Ukrainian troops might lay down their arms and that Russian troops would be welcomed as liberators.    

But Western military and Russia experts speculate that Putin grossly underestimated Ukraine’s willingness to fight and, because he allegedly lives inside a Kremlin bubble with only a handful of confidants, was provided poor intelligence about how an invasion might unfold.  

Since the outbreak of war, Ukraine has shown video of captured Russian soldiers who say they were not told they were going to invade Ukraine and that they believed they had been sent to perform military drills. On Monday, Ukraine put five Russian soldiers on display at a purported news conference where they said they were conscripts who didn’t want to fight Ukrainians. The veracity of such reports is hard to assess and Ukraine is potentially violating the Geneva Convention because it forbids putting prisoners of war on display like that. Amnesty International reprimanded Ukraine for such news conferences last week.   

Besides possessing ultra-nationalistic and anti-democratic dreams of reconstituting the Russian empire and reestablishing Russia as a great nation, Putin was led into the invasion to prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member and a model of liberal democracy threatening his regime, Western experts say.    

Russia has now become the West’s No. 1 enemy and it is being clobbered by an unprecedented barrage of sanctions. The hope is that the economic, cultural and technological blockade will compel Russians to rise up and get rid of Putin.      

Despite all the setbacks in the invasion, the Kremlin insisted Monday that its campaign in Ukraine was going according to plan.

“Russia has a sufficient potential for conducting the special military operation in Ukraine. The operation is proceeding in accordance with the original plan and will be completed on time and in full,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.  

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau

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