WAR IN UKRAINE: September 24, 2022
A service member of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) casts his vote during a referendum on joining LPR to Russia, at a military unit in Luhansk, on Friday. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 213
Ukrainians have reported armed soldiers going door-to-door in occupied parts of the country to collect votes for self-styled "referendums" on joining Russia. Experts say the self-styled referendums, taking place across five days, will allow Russia to claim - illegally - four occupied or partially-occupied regions of Ukraine as their own. The self-styled "annexation" could lead to Russia claiming that its territory is under attack from Western weapons supplied to Ukraine, which could escalate the war further. British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK had evidence that Russian officials had already set targets for "invented voter turnouts and approval rates for these sham referenda” - BBC
Ukrainian officials claimed some residents ignored the voting, but acknowledged that some were forced to participate. Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, said the results will never be recognized. “The United States will never recognize Ukrainian territory as anything other than part of Ukraine. Russia’s referenda are a sham — a false pretext to try to annex parts of Ukraine by force in flagrant violation of international law, including the United Nations Charter," Biden said in a statement.
UN experts report disturbing war crimes evidence: A UN panel of experts said it found evidence of war crimes committed during Russia's invasion, including cases of rape and torture of children. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday the international justice probe was "undoubtedly a put-up job."
The exhumation of those killed by Russian forced and buried in mass graves in Izium, Kharkiv region, has been completed. A total of 447 bodies have been found. "The works continued for a week without interruption. 447 bodies were removed from graves. Of them, 215 are women, 194 are men, 5 are children, and 22 are service members. In addition, the remains of 11 people were found, whose gender cannot be determined at the moment," Chief of the National Police of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko posted on Facebook. As noted, "there are many bodies with traces of torture. Police forensic experts face a difficult task: to identify the body of each killed person. Relatives should bury them in a human way."
In its September 2022 report “Component commonalities in advanced Russian weapon systems”, Conflict Armament Research (CAR) investigators reviewed captured Russian military equipment and considered what that equipment can tell us about Russian defense supply chains. The main takeaway? For advanced weapons systems deployed in Ukraine this year, like satellite navigation systems needed for cruise missiles, Russia is “highly reliant” on specific technology produced outside of Russia. CAR identified 144 non-Russian manufacturers of evaluated materials captured by the Ukrainian military. Russian supply chain vulnerabilities account for one of many challenges facing the Russian military which will persist and likely affect effective armament of Putin’s newly announced military 300,000 conscripts.
Oxford Analytica: President Putin has ordered a partial mobilisation, arguing that Russia and its proxies in Ukraine are under threat
President Vladimir Putin today announced a partial mobilisation of the Russian armed forces in which reservists will be called up. The Kremlin previously resisted mobilisation because it knew this would be unpopular and claimed it was unnecessary. Now Putin has justified the move by accusing Western states of "crossing every line" in their hostility to Russia. The order comes as four Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine announce referendums this week on joining the Russian Federation.
What next
If the military thinks this hasty plan through, it will prioritise the drafting of reservists with recent and relevant experience. Even then, it will struggle to form and equip cohesive, deployable units in time to shift the military balance. Western governments will take Putin's threats (including of nuclear war) seriously as they cannot afford to view them solely as justifications aimed at a Russian audience.
Required reading…
Philip Short is the author of the latest Putin biography, entitled, “Putin – The Man Behind the War in Ukraine.” Also, here is the NY Times review of Short’s book.
The interview was about Short’s opinions of the war. Here are two takeaways:
• “If you look back at the last 20 years of Putin’s time in power, this is the first time he’s taken a major initiative that has gone seriously wrong, so there’s nothing really to guide us in how, in the end, he’s going to react. “ Putin has made one idiotic mistake in Ukraine after another, starting as far back as 2004. Short says, “He (Putin) did not expect the Ukrainians to resist as strongly as they have done……….he(Putin) didn’t expect them (Ukrainians) to rise up as a nation and oppose the Russians.” Based on his own experience, Putin should’ve known. Putin came to Kyiv just before the 2004 Presidential election, to campaign for Viktor Yanukovich. His visit was roundly criticized, and Yanukovich eventually lost the election.
• Crimea – I think Short is right, when he says “I don’t believe it’s possible to push them out of Crimea. That I think would be a casus belli. Then kind of all bets would be off about how the Russians might react.” I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it isn’t possible. At the time of the Russian invasion of 2014, the population of Crimea was roughly 58% Russian, 13% Crimean Tatar, and the rest Ukrainian. If Ukraine made a move at Crimea there will likely be local support, from both Ukrainians and Tatars. We have already seen the influence played by Partisans, in Southern Ukraine and, Increasingly, Luhansk.
• Short’s last answer implies that Russia is relying on a breakdown of Western resolve. Starting this coming Winter. Western “resolve” for Ukraine runs through the United States, Canada, the UK, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark Slovakia, and the 3 Baltic States. As long as these countries continue to support Ukraine’s war effort, as my late cousin used to like to say, the support from those European countries whose support for Ukraine might be considered questionable, “doesn’t matter.”