Ukraine update - 10/07/2014

Is Kiev Wildly Understating Combat Deaths?

_{by Charles Bausman for Russia Insider}

Kiev claims 1000 dead, but in reality it could be 3 to 8 times more. A political explosion looms...

the Vineyard Saker

7 October, 2014

In the past two weeks persistent rumors that Kiev has been hiding thousands of killed and wounded Ukrainian servicemen and ‘volunteers battalion’ casualties have forced their way into the Ukrainian press.

The most vocal allegations of a cover-up of Ukrainian combat deaths comes not from Russian media or the leaders of the ‘separatist’ Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, but from right wing MP and Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko, and from the commander of Kiev’s ‘Donbas Battalion’ Semyon Semchenko.

Last month on his Facebook page Lyashko directly accused President Petro Poroshenko of hiding over 8,000 Ukrainian combat deaths -- a number nearly eight times the ‘official’ KIA figures reported by the English-language Kyiv Post, which as of Friday was still stubbornly reporting ‘only’ 974 confirmed Ukrainian combat deaths - a highly dubious figure that has barely budged since the disastrous battle for Ilovaisk in early September.

According to Myroslava Petsa, a correspondent for Ukraine’s 5th Channel, Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey refused to discuss the casualties from in the Ilovaisk disaster in a recent parliamentary hearing. Ms. Petsa tweeted on October 1st that Heletey referred to the casualty lists from the Ilovaisk battle as classified. But who is Lieutenant General Heletey trying to hide Kiev’s true losses from, the Donbas militias or the Ukrainian people?

It’s easy to dismiss Semchenko as an incompetent  battlefield commander seeking to excuse his failures, and to call Lyashko a fascist clown who kidnaps alleged ‘separatists’ and strips them down to their underwear for videotaped interrogations. But Lyashko’s estimate of Ukraine’s total KIA is consistent with numbers put forward by pro-Novorossiya sources such as Colonel Cassad’s blog. It’s also consistent with the grim casualty reports from the bloody battle underway as of this writing for the Donetsk airport.

The ruins of the airport were reportedly 95% controlled by the Novorossiya armed forces (NAF) as of this past weekend after Ukrainian units rejected offers to pull out under the terms of the Minsk ceasefire agreement, which places an armistice line 20 kilometers behind the doomed airport garrison’s positions.

Novorossiya spokesmen have told Col. Cassad’s site they estimate Ukrainian losses at the airport will eventually reach 600 wounded and 1,000 dead.

Western journalists covering the Ukraine conflict can plead ignorance until now about Ukraine’s true as opposed to admitted casualties. They can cite Carl von Clausewitz’s maxim that “casualty reports on either side are never accurate, seldom truthful, and in most cases deliberately falsified”.

But the truth is at least one BBC journalist has been aware of Ukrainian rumors about horrendous losses for weeks.

In an interview with a Ukrainian journalist translated and subtitled into English by Russian-Canadian attorney Gleb Bazov’s team of Russian translators in mid-August, members of the Mykolaiv-based 79th Airmobile brigade complained bitterly that Kiev has been hiding enormous casualties. They state [at 6:38] that Ukraine has already lost more soldiers fighting the Donbas rebellion since April than the Soviet Union lost during nine years of occupying Afghanistan.

(For those readers who may not be familiar with the cost of the USSR’s disastrous Afghan campaign, that number exceeds 14,000 combat deaths and 53,000 wounded. If one considers that the soldiers may have been referring to total combat deaths in the Ukrainian SSR to the Soviet Afghan War during the 1980s, over 8,000 combat deaths in the War for Donbas is possible.)

In the same video, the 79th brigade survivors also claim that they were abandoned by the Ukrainian high command, and refuse to concede that the forces that defeated them with weeks of shelling in the so-called ‘Southern Cauldron’ near Saur Mogila were Novorossiya rebels and foreign volunteers rather than the Russian army.

It is noteworthy that BBC journalist Daniel Sandford, whose Twitter feed is widely followed among Western journalists covering Russia and Ukraine, tweeted the video on August 20, 2014 saying “Both pro-Ukrainians AND pro-Russians are now citing this video to support their views of the conflict.”

In other words, Western journalists covering the Russian and Ukrainian beat cannot plead ignorance.

The 79th brigade members’ stories of losing hundreds or thousands of comrades to artillery and GRAD rocket fire are corroborated byanother video interview with Ukrainian journalists hundreds of miles to the west, this time with survivors of the 30th brigade based in the western Ukraine town of Novohrad-Volysnki.

In the video veterans of the 30th brigade and their furious relatives confront a Ukrainian officer about the whereabouts of the unit and its pathetic supply situation. The officer admits near the end that only 83 out of 4,700 soldiers who deployed with the brigade have returned unhurt. Which begs the question -- what happened to the rest? Are they dead, or wounded?

The Hromadske TV journalists, whose salaries are funded by the Dutch and American tax payer through government grants, certainly weren’t asking those questions on camera. Neither are Western journalists like Sandford who are very likely to be aware of this clip which was also translated and subtitled by Gleb Bazov’s team of translators at the Slavyangrad blog in mid-August.

Pro-Kiev Twitter warriors have denounced Lyashko’s claims that Ukraine is disposing of thousands of its servicemen or labeling as ‘Missing in Action’ thousands of combat dead as Russian misinformation -- without explaining how the Kremlin could have recruited the viciously Russophobic Lyashko and Semchenko to repeat the allegations.

But many of these sources are the same fanatics who insist Ukrainian troops hold the Donetsk airport and will never lose it despite overwhelming video evidence to the contrary. They insist that Kiev could never silence all of the relatives of the dead, wounded and missing even if it were to try.

But in a country where Right Sector goons now beat opposition politicians on camera with impunity, silencing angry relatives and imposing a blackout over the subject of hidden casualties is entirely plausible.

Especially when Western journalists have refused to question Kiev’s fraudulent casualty figures and simply wait around for Kiev’s mouthpieces to sell them their latest bill of goods.

Mozgovoi's message to Putin (with English subs)

Interview of commander of the 'Ghost' brigade Mozgovoy:

- 'Truce' fighting is continuing without a break. Hurricanes flying. Village Vergunka was under massive artillery fire for 5 hours

- Don't trust Internet maps

- We cant attack Lisichansk until Southern group is destroyed in Debaltsevo with one of the biggest enemy cluster. Therefore if we go north we will get into a cauldron

- The enemy is concentrating near the borders to take us out at once. Why the need for such forces, if no fighting is supposed to happen according to the agreement? Let's look at history and Molotoff-Ribentrop pact - there is your analogy. You underestimate the enemy. Until we destroy them, they will be destroying us.

- We became too spoiled and accustomed to comfort. Our grandfathers survived in the harshest winter conditions. Let's not cry about the coming winter, we will make it.

- We don't need any massive aid, we asked for help and instead got a truce we didn't want. We will survive the winter with firewood without any unnecessary diplomacy.

- The volunteer flow is at the highest point. And people are ideologically charged - for the Russian world, against oligarchs, for freedom of thought and personal freedom. Our main task today - to revive personal identity and to do away with slave mentality. The idea for a just state did not appear out of nowhere, but with Gods will. The limit of patience of Russian people has been reached. The line when you can suppress and destroy us has been crossed. Now its time to get off our knees.

- Unity - is our chance. At all times Russian people have been divided. All political parties divided us. Striving for consumer values kills our spirit, resulting in a loss of faith in ourselves and our historical mission. Today we need to unite beyond political lines, as Russians we should be one.

- If Novorossia lost it would be on the conscience of some leaders, who today declare that they are for United Rus.

Ukraine: Red Cross worker's death "being hushed up", says Moscow

The European Union is playing down the death of a Red Cross worker killed last week during the shelling of Donetsk, while the Kiev authorities have failed to provide a clear explanation of the incident, the Russian foreign ministry said today.

Laurent DuPasquier, 38, was killed on Thursday when a shell exploded near the Red Cross building in the centre of the city of Donetsk.

“Several days have passed, but we have heard no clear explanations from the Kiev authorities about the circumstances surrounding the death of a member of a prominent international humanitarian organisation," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. "This issue is being hushed up. We have also seen no practical steps towards finding and punishing those guilty."

“Moreover, numerous international structures, including the European Union, have in their comments turned a blind eye to the fact that the International Red Cross office was located on territory controlled by self-defence forces and was attacked from positions held by Ukrainian troops,” adds the statement.

"In Kiev they didn't want to admit the obvious: the area of Donetsk that came under fire is under the control of the rebels and the shelling came from positions occupied by Ukrainian forces," said the ministry.

"We vigorously condemn such actions, which are blatant violations of international humanitarian law," the ministry said in the statement, calling for an objective investigation into the killing.

Russia also expressed condolences to the Red Cross and the victim's family.

Kiev forces and pro-independence rebels in the largely Russian-speaking south-east of Ukraine have been fighting since mid-April and though a ceasefire has been in place since September 5, there have been several violations.

Russian airlines to resume flights over Ukraine

Meanwhile, it was reported today that the biggest Russian airlines may resume flights over parts of eastern Ukraine starting October 25.

“Flights will be conducted over the territory of eastern Ukraine, according to the winter schedule. Clearance for the flights will be requested from Ukrainian airspace authorities. We were assured that the conduct of flights will not be hindered,” a source told RIA Novosti.

The representative of Aeroflot airlines refused to give comments, while the Transaero airlines representative said that the company is not planning to resume flights over eastern Ukraine.

Aeroflot and Transaero stopped flying over eastern Ukraine and using the airports on its territory after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 came down there on July 17.

(VoR, RIA Novosti, ITAR-TASS)

THE JUNTA'S MILITARY DEBACLE IN THE EASTERN UKRAINE

Alexander Mercouris

Via Facebook

Further to my previous comment, which suggests that the true fatality rate of the junta's army during the "anti terrorist operation" may have been in the region of 8,000 to 12,000, a number of important points can be made:

1. These figures are of course unverified. However they do not look unreasonable to me in light of Poroshenko's admission that the Ukraine lost during the ATO something like 65% of its armoured vehicles. It seems the Ukrainian airforce has also been essentially annihilated. Certainly it has ceased to be a presence in recent weeks.

2. Assuming that the figures are true then the Ukraine has just been witness to a slaughter unprecedented in any European country since the end of the Second World War. It bears saying that the fighting only achieved full intensity following the fall of Slaviansk on 5th July 2014. The fighting around Slavyansk in May and June was of a lesser intensity. It is surely the case therefore that the bulk of the losses the Ukraine suffered were accounted for by the fighting that took place after Slavyansk fell on 5th July 2014. In other words it is likely that between 8,000 to 12,000 Ukrainian troops were killed in a period of around 2 months from 5th July 2014 until the announcement of the ceasefire on 5th September 2014. If so this would mean the Ukraine was losing during this period men at a rate of roughly 129 to 190 a day. Nothing comparable has happened in Europe since the German surrender on 9th May 1945.

3. Another way of looking at the scale of these losses would be to consider what proportion they make up of the Ukrainian force involved in the ATO. Most of the figures I have heard put the size of that force in the region of 60-80,000 men. If the estimate for dead of 8,000 to 12,000 is anywhere near the truth then between a tenth (10%) and a fifth (20%) of this force may now be dead. The reality would surely in fact be worse since it is a certainty that a disproportionate share of the dead would be front line combat soldiers who would account for only a part of the force involved in the ATO. A large proportion of the total of 60-80,000 men in the force involved in the ATO would be support and logistics troops who would be expected to come out more lightly. I once read that a loss rate of anything more than 5% in a combat action is more than a unit can be reasonably expected to bear and that anything above that figure would render the unit inoperable. If the figures of 8,000 to 12,000 are anywhere close to the truth then this figure of 5% has been exceeded in which case the Ukrainian army has ceased to exist as an effective force.

4. I would just also say that it is clear to me that the vast bulk of Ukrainian losses are made up of troops from the regular army. It was obvious to me during the fighting that the various right wing paramilitary units rarely fought in the front line but were used to terrorist people in the rear.

5. The question then is how did such a debacle happen? Even if the 8,000 to 12,000 loss figure is an exaggeration one still has to account for the loss of 65% of the Ukrainian military's armoured vehicles. Claims that the Ukrainians had to fight the Russian regular army are clearly not true so an explanation for the debacle clearly does not lie there.

6. Firstly it needs to be said that we are not looking here at any lack of courage or determination on the part of the Ukrainian troops. This was not a collapse such as the one experienced by the Iraqi army fighting ISIS in which soldiers led by their officers simply turned tail and ran. Rather it is a case of an army that was bled to death over weeks of appalling attrition during the summer months. The fact that the casualties may be so high suggests no lack of discipline or courage on the part of the troops. On the contrary they suggest extraordinary discipline and courage on the part of troops sent into the meat grinder by their commanders in a way that to a Briton like me carries uncomfortable echoes of the Somme. Claims that were made back in February and March that the Ukrainian military had been so run down by Yanukovitch that it for all practical purposes had ceased to exist are on the evidence of what happened in July and August simply untrue. I strongly doubt by the way that soldiers from any west European country would today be able to go on fighting for so long if they were suffering losses on this sort of scale.

7. I think the explanation for this debacle is quite simply the disastrous leadership provided by the junta.

8. It is clear that after the junta ceased power in February the Ukraine's professional military leadership was no longer trusted. Instead operational control of the ATO seems to have been given to psychopathic amateurs like Parubiy, Yarosh, Avakov and Lyashko. Following the key Security Council meeting of 30th June 2014 that decided to resume the offensive, General Kovalov ("Koval"), the junta's defence mnister, who was at least a professional soldier, either resigned or more probably was dismissed (supposedly he was transferred to a new post after which he seems to have disappeared). Probably he objected to the resumption of the offensive. With him gone control of the army passed to people like Parubiy, Avakov & co who have no knowledge of war. They were joined by Geletei, the new defence minister, who is a security official rather than a soldier. Having no understanding of war or knowledge of military command these people then spent the rest of the summer hurling the Ukrainian army to its destruction by repeatedly attacking NAF positions whilst indiscriminately shelling residential areas and getting their Nazi thugs to murder and terrorise civilians. To make matters even worse, as a further indication of their ignorance and arrogance, they chose to fight the war by the calendar, setting themselves an arbitrary deadline of Ukrainian Independence Day on 24th August 2014 to win it by.

8. By contrast the NAF at some point clearly acquired a proper professional military leadership with a proper staff and headquarters consisting apparently of retired staff officers from Moscow who set up headquarters in the eastern town of Krasnodon on the Russian border. We know very little about these people but Strelkov has indirectly admitted that one of the reasons for his dismissal was to make way for a more professional military leadership, that could not be provided by himself as he is not a trained soldier. This could refer to the people in Krasnodon. They for their part seem to have fought a classic Soviet style defensive battle, relying on cities like Donetsk and Lugansk to provide a barrier behind which an armoured reserve capable of taking offensive action was built up. A fair parallel (though obviously one fought on an immeasurably greater scale) might be the battle of Kursk.

That at least is my take on the disastrous course of the ATO. Of course it should never have been launched at all. That it was launched was criminal. So however on my reading was its conduct, both towards the civilians it so indiscriminately slaughtered, and towards the hapless Ukrainian soldiers it sent to the slaughter. Anyone who pretends to real Ukrainian patriotism ought at this time to be condemning not Putin and the Russians but those who to the accompaniment of inane cries of "Glory to Ukraine" are responsible for sending so many of the Ukraine's sons to their deaths.