Russian President Vladimir Putin is driving to conquer more territory in Ukraine’s southeast despite the staggering loss of the lives and limbs of Russian workers in uniform. Moscow’s bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and power grid continues to strike blows at working people there, but they remain determined to defend their country’s sovereignty.
Moscow is pushing to expand its grip in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, which Putin in 2022 declared were “four new regions” of “a greater historical Russia.” Moscow’s forces have only been able to occupy a part of each of these provinces.
Putin hopes to use Russia’s numerically superior forces to try to take more of the Donbas industrial region. They are trying to encircle the well defended transport hub in Pokrovsk, which is becoming the biggest battleground of the war. The Russian army has now lost more armor there than the German army during the siege of Stalingrad in World War II. Hundreds of Russian infantry were mowed down near Pokrovsk Dec. 11 with their bodies “piled up high against a wall,” according to a report in Euromaidan Press. Two days later, Ukrainian units mounted successful counterattacks. They may be stretched, but they have higher morale than Moscow’s forces, as they fight Putin’s attempt to subjugate them.
Deaths in one month exceed those in Afghan war
Russian casualties have been mounting for the past five months, to over 45,000 in November, the highest so far. That month’s deaths exceed the 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed during Moscow’s entire 10-year war in Afghanistan. The Kremlin contemptuously throws away the lives of demoralized Russian workers in uniform. Those from the non-Russian ethnic regions suffer disproportionately high losses.
The North Korean government has sent troops to reinforce depleted Russian forces. Putin is desperate not to launch a new wave of conscription that would likely lead to wider protests against his regime inside Russia. But North Korean forces themselves face heavy losses trying to dislodge the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Of the more than 200 casualties inflicted on Moscow’s forces there Dec. 16, over 30 from North Korea were killed or wounded.
A column of Russian military vehicles headed north through Crimea Dec. 12, reported Atesh, a Crimean Tatar-led underground movement there. The Crimean Peninsula has been occupied by Moscow since 2014. The Atesh partisans said, “We know where and how to stop this equipment from reaching mainland Ukraine!”
The next day two Ukrainian rail workers in Simferopol, Crimea, were detained and beaten by political police from Russia’s FSB. Atesh declared that such actions would only strengthen their will to fight.
Putin targets nuclear plants
Putin’s threats of escalation include a Nov. 21 strike on Dnipro with a new ballistic missile, and targeting Ukraine’s power grid linked to its nuclear plants. He aims to increase the pressure on the “democratic” imperialist governments in Washington and Europe to get Kyiv to end the war on terms favorable to Moscow.
The Joseph Biden administration has provided Ukraine with just enough weapons to avoid defeat, but not enough to repel Putin’s forces. Washington’s foreign policy seeks stability for the U.S. rulers’ own economic and political interests, not those of working people in Ukraine or anywhere else.
In one of the largest missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the Russian military Dec. 13 launched almost 200 drones, as well as 94 cruise and ballistic missiles, 81 of which were shot down. Several Ukrainian power plants were damaged, knocking out electricity for thousands of people.
Dozens of injured soldiers rioted in Russia in November over poor medical treatment, reported Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. They smashed windows, destroyed barracks and 10 of them fled the medical compound before they were forced back to the front lines. Most had not even recovered from their injuries.