More and more Ukrainian troops are refusing to carry out combat missions, with others risking getting shot in the back by blocking units deployed behind their lines for attempting to retreat.
Sputnik asked a respected international affairs observer what this means for Ukraine’s war effort and President Zelensky’s chances of political survival.
Recent reports from the front are painting an increasingly gloomy picture for Ukraine’s military after the failure of last year’s counteroffensive, an unprecedented new round of Russian missile and drone attacks, concerns that Kiev’s NATO allies may abandon Ukraine.
Also because of fears of the possibility of a Russian breakthrough somewhere along the 1,000 km long embedded front-line.
On Tuesday, Sputnik obtained audio of a radio intercept of communications between Ukrainian servicemen revealing that some Ukrainian units are outright refusing to go into battle against Russian forces.
Two days earlier, Sputnik received grizzly footage appearing to show Ukrainian troops being shot at and having grenades thrown at them by their own comrades during a Russian advance by so-called ‘anti-retreat’ forces.
Before that, Ukrainian PoW’s told Sputnik and other Russian media resources that some Ukrainian units were rife with cases of insubordination and desertion, with Ukraine’s security services reportedly stepping in in some situations to ‘motivate’ troops refusing to fight.
All this comes against the backdrop of growing concerns in Kiev and in NATO capitals that the USA and its allies may not be able to justify funding the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
At least not indefinitely as the US House and Senate seem to wrangle over the White House’s proposed $61 billion in new appropriations to buy more ammo and weapons.
In short, the Ukraine war may be lost in the first half of 2024, former US ambassador to NATO, Clinton-era National Security Council official and Council on Foreign Relations fellow Ivo Daalder warned in an op-ed in Politico Europe on Tuesday.
With primary elections starting in mid-January, former President Donald Trump may well seal his nomination as the Republican nominee as early as the end of the month.
And Republicans on Capitol Hill will then want to march in lockstep with their presidential front-runner – which [is] halting aid to Ukraine. That means time is running out for Congress to sign the 2024 Ukraine aid bill before then, Daalder indicated.
To top it all off, President Zelensky gave an emotional interview to the British top business magazine on Monday, attacking the West for losing its ‘sense of urgency’ in supporting Kiev, and blaming Ukrainians for losing their ‘sense of existential threat’ against Russia.
Giving us money or giving us weapons, you support yourself. You save your children, not ours, Zelensky said, claiming Russia will take away Western children and violate the rights in the world if given the chance.
Vladimir Putin would eat you for dinner with all your EU, NATO, freedom and democracy.
The most important profession a Ukrainian can do at the moment is to be in Ukraine…and for our Western partners, it is to be with Ukraine…If you don’t have the strength, then either get out or step aside.
It is evident that Zelensky’s political and personal fate is tied to the success of his policy of waging war ‘until Russia is defeated’.
The growing improbability of that declared, self-imposed goal (which is required of him by NATO) has caught him in a trap of his own making. He can’t acknowledge de facto defeat without bowing out of politics and possibly suffering difficult and dangerous consequences.
He is of no more [use] to the American and British governments if he signs a peace deal with Russia that would consecrate Moscow’s victory, alluding to the Ukrainian president’s fate trapped between a rock and a hard place.
The Zelensky government and its Western allies often claim that they are not fighting Russia but only Putin and his ‘world-conquering ambitions’ of which the Russian people would be the victims.
However, this rhetorical position rings hollow because there is wide support among Russians for the policy of the Kremlin against Ukraine/NATO and there has been no popular revolt or widespread dissidence so far, whereas many Ukrainians have voted with their feet, going either to EU countries or to Russia.
If Americans and Europeans are not convinced that Russia wants to conquer Ukraine and then all of Europe, they are not willing to support Ukraine in the war beyond a point that has already been crossed.
Western political and military leaders and Zelensky recognize that there is no hope to recover Ukraine’s lost territories anytime soon.
Zelensky has to admit what his generals have told him. The war cannot bring about a reversal of the current situation. All it can achieve is killing more Russians at an even higher human and infrastructural cost to Ukraine.
Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
If the troops were Jewish would Zelensky still shoot them in the back ??
No they are Slavonic so he does care as he has been given the Green light by the USA/UK/Israel.
More Slavic people have been killed since WW II, compared to the so-called Holocaust victims in Poland and Russia.
Spot on HS !!
27 million Slavs killed in WW2,nearly 6 times the Jewish “holocaust ” .
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;