[Pandareus]

Om de afrikaanse escapades even te vergeten, terugkeren naar het onderwerp ?

Dit is de evolutie van 31/05 :

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31

Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, and Frederick W. Kagan

May 31, 5:45pm ET

Moscow’s concentration on seizing Severodonetsk and Donbas generally continues to create vulnerabilities for Russia in Ukraine’s vital Kherson Oblast, where Ukrainian counter-offensives continue. Kherson is critical terrain because it is the only area of Ukraine in which Russian forces hold ground on the west bank of the Dnipro River. If Russia is able to retain a strong lodgment in Kherson when fighting stops it will be in a very strong position from which to launch a future invasion. If Ukraine regains Kherson, on the other hand, Ukraine will be in a much stronger position to defend itself against future Russian attack. This strategic calculus should in principle lead Russia to allocate sufficient combat power to hold Kherson. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen instead to concentrate all the forces and resources that can be scraped together in a desperate and bloody push to seize areas of eastern Ukraine that will give him largely symbolic gains. Continuing successful Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson indicate that Ukraine’s commanders recognize these realities and are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that Putin’s decisions have created.

The Ukrainian leadership has apparently wisely avoided matching Putin’s mistaken prioritization. Kyiv could have committed more reserves and resources to the defense of Severodonetsk, and its failure to do so has drawn criticism.[1] Ukrainian forces are now apparently withdrawing from Severodonetsk rather than fighting to the end—a factor that has allowed the Russians to move into the city relatively rapidly after beginning their full-scale assault.[2] Both the decision to avoid committing more resources to saving Severodonetsk and the decision to withdraw from it were strategically sound, however painful. Ukraine must husband its more limited resources and focus on regaining critical terrain rather than on defending ground whose control will not determine the outcome of the war or the conditions for the renewal of war.

Sound Ukrainian prioritization of counter-offensive and defensive operations pushed the Russians almost out of artillery range of Kharkiv City and have stopped the Russian advances from Izyum—both of which are more important accomplishments than the defense of Severodonetsk. Ukraine’s leadership has had to make incredibly difficult choices in this war and has generally made the right ones, at least at the level of strategic prioritization and in the pace, scale, and ambitiousness of its counter-offensives. That is why Ukraine still has a good chance to stop and then reverse the gains Russia is currently making.

Russian forces are likely attempting to exploit Belarusian equipment reserves to compensate for heavy material losses in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May 31 that Belarusian forces are moving tanks and infantry fighting vehicles from storage facilities in Belarus to Russia to replenish combat losses.[3] This report corroborates previous reporting that Russian forces have largely exhausted their own reserves and indicates that the Kremlin is still leveraging its influence over Belarus in order to use Belarusian equipment.

Some pro-Russian milbloggers began to capture the frustrating realities of limited warfare, which may further intensify societal tensions in Russia. Pro-Russian political figure and self-proclaimed “People’s Governor of Donetsk Oblast” Pavel Gubarev said that the limited mobilization of Russians for war has divided Russian society into two groups: a small proportion that is involved in the war and the “peacetime Russians” who distance themselves from the war effort and are inconvenienced by foreign sanctions.[4] Gubarev blamed the “peacetime Russians” for failing to start collecting donations for Russian equipment, while criticizing the Kremlin for increasing propaganda about Russian successes during the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Gubarev also blamed the “peacetime Russians” for slowing down rotation rates due to fear of conscription. Guberev noted that mass mobilization could resolve the divide in society but opined that Russian commanders will not order such a mobilization to avoid mass casualties of unprepared conscripts as occurred, he notes, in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR and LNR).

Gubarev is accurately capturing a phenomenon that is normal in a limited war that nevertheless generates high casualties. Resentment by those fighting such a war and their families against those who are untouched by the horrors of combat can grow even in an all-volunteer professional military, as Western countries experienced during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is likely to be even more pronounced in Russia, whose military relies so heavily on conscripts and involuntarily-recalled reservists. This resentment can erode morale and will to fight as well as the propensity to volunteer for military service.

Russian citizens continued to conduct a series of attacks on Russian military recruitment centers in late May, likely in protest of covert mobilization. Russian Telegram channel Baza reported that the Russian Federal Security Service arrested a former Moscow artist and opposition figure, Ilya Farber, for Molotov Cocktail attacks on military recruitment centers in Udmurtia in the Urals on May 21.[5] A Russian court had previously sentenced Farber to an eight-year prison sentence for a bribery case. The case gained Farber significant support from Russian opposition leaders.[6] Farber admitted to committing arson in court on May 30. Baza also reported two more attacks on recruitment centers in Simferopol and Tula Oblast on May 28 and May 31, respectively.[7]

Key Takeaways

Russian forces are increasingly focused on advancing on Slovyansk from the southeast of Izyum and west of Lyman.
Russian forces are making gains within and around Severodonetsk.
Russian forces are likely hoping to advance on Lysychansk from Toshkivka in order to avoid having to fight across the Severskyi Donets River from Severodonetsk.
The Russian grouping in Kherson Oblast is likely feeling the pressure of the limited Ukrainian counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast, especially as much of the Russian operational focus is currently on the capture of Severodonetsk.

bron : https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...essment-may-31

Gaat Putler genoegen nemen met de nu imminente inname van severodonetsk, en dat dan uitroepen tot 'grote overwinning' zoals sommige analysten denken ?
Of gaat hij toch nog mits het inzetten van Bellarussisch reservemateriaal zijn eigen gedecimeerde eenheden terug proberen aan te vullen, en dan verder op te rukken ?
En heel belangrijk : gaat Ukraïne erin lukken om Kherson terug te krijgen via hun tegenoffensief ?


Die laatste stad leeft onder een immense onderdrukking, zoals BBC hier weergeeft :

Ukraine war: Stories of torture emerging out of Kherson

By Caroline Davies
BBC News, Odesa

While his homemade borsch bubbles on the hob, Olexander Guz shows me pictures of his bruised body on his phone.

The injuries, he says, were inflicted by the Russian authorities. "They put a bag on my head," Olexander tells me. "The Russians threatened that I would not have kidneys left."

The BBC has gathered several graphic testimonies of residents in Kherson who say they were tortured.

Warning: this report contains some graphic content that readers may find distressing.

Olexander used to live in Bilozerka, a small village in the Kherson region. He was one of the village's deputies. As a young man he was a conscript in the army, but now runs his own business.

He and his wife were publicly anti-Russia: she attended pro-Ukrainian rallies, he tried to stop Russian troops entering their village.

It wasn't long after Russia took over that soldiers came looking for him.

"They tied a rope around my neck and another around my wrists," he recalls. He says they told him to stand with his legs wide apart while they questioned him.

"When I didn't answer them, they hit me between my legs. When I fell, I started to suffocate. As you try to get up, they beat you. Then they ask again."
Russian troops took control of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, early in the war. Ukrainian TV stations were quickly replaced with Russian state broadcasts. Western products were changed for Russian alternatives.

According to multiple first-hand testimonies, people also began to disappear.

Piecing together what is happening inside Kherson is difficult. As Russia has tightened its grip on the region, people have become increasingly frightened to speak out.

Those who manage to leave often delete all the photos and videos from their phones for fear of being stopped and detained at Russian checkpoints. Olexander sent images of his injuries to his son, who was abroad, for safe keeping before wiping his phone.

It means to corroborate testimonies, it is necessary to speak to multiple people who say they have been victims of torture.
Broken ribs

Oleh Baturin is one of them. He was a journalist for an independent newspaper in the Kherson region. Within days of Russia's invasion, he says he was kidnapped.

"They shouted, 'On your knees'," he says. "They covered my face... and put my hands behind my back. They beat me on the back, ribs and legs... and hit me with the butt of a machine gun."

It was only later, when he went to see a doctor, that Oleh realised they had broken four of his ribs. He says he was imprisoned for eight days. In that time, he heard others being tortured and witnessed a young man's mock execution.
Both Olexander and Oleh are now in Ukrainian-held territory. They provided the BBC with photos of what they said were police reports of the abuse.

Some allegations of torture are particularly graphic. I spoke to one doctor who worked in a hospital in Kherson. He asked to remain anonymous, but provided me with a picture of his hospital ID.

"There were signs of bodily mutilation," he says, listing haematomas (localised bleeding outside blood vessels that appears as a bad bruise), abrasions, cut marks, signs of electrocution, traces of binding on the hands and strangulation marks on the neck.

He says he also saw burns on people's feet and hands, and that one patient told him he was beaten with a hose filled with sand.

"Some of the worst were burn marks on genitals, a gunshot wound to the head of a girl who was raped and burns from an iron on a patient's back and stomach. The patient told me two wires from a car battery were attached to his groin and he was told to stand on a wet rag", the doctor adds.

He believes there were many others severely injured who did not receive treatment.

Some stay at home because they are too intimidated to go outside. And some, he says, are "psychologically pressured" by the Russians. "They threaten that their families will be killed, and they intimidate them in every possible way."

He says he asked the patients why they had been picked by the Russian authorities.

"They were tortured if they did not want to go over to the Russian side, for being at rallies, for being in the territorial defence, for the fact that one of the family members fought against the separatists, some got there randomly."
Some people are afraid their loved ones could be next.

Victoria (not her real name) fears for her parents, who are still in Kherson. Her father used to be in the Ukrainian territorial defence and has already been kidnapped and beaten once, she tells me.

"They dropped him in the middle of a field. When he got home, after a few minutes he burst into tears, even though he is not a sentimental person. I'm trying to help, but it all made me feel like a little girl."

Now Victoria worries it could happen again.

The BBC is not the only one investigating what is going on in Kherson. Both the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and Human Rights Watch have told us they are also concerned about the allegations of torture and enforced disappearances.

Belkis Wille, from Human Rights Watch, says the testimony gathered by the BBC is consistent with what they are hearing.

She says the concern is that Russian forces, in areas they are occupying, are continuing to a certain extent to "terrorise the local civilian population and use abusive practices like arbitrary detention and forced disappearance and torture".

"These are potential war crimes we're looking at," she adds.

The Russian Ministry of Defence did not respond to the BBC's request for comment. Previously, the Kremlin spokesperson said allegations of war crimes in Bucha were "obvious fakes and the most egregious ones are staged, as has been convincingly proved by our experts."

Exactly what is happening in Kherson is near impossible to establish from the outside, but as more testimonies are gathered, many paint a picture of fear, intimidation, violence and repression.

Victoria is trying to get her parents out.

"In Kherson, now people go missing all the time," she tells me. "There is a war going on, only this part is without bombs."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61607410

Die Orc's zijn dus systematisch mensen aan het ontvoeren, martelen, onderdrukken : een terreur regime installeren dus om de bevolking te onderwerpen.