The regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up its relentless aerial assault on civilian targets in Ukrainian cities, increasing deaths and destruction. Putin is punishing the Ukrainian toilers for their intransigent defense of their country’s sovereignty. And his escalation is an unambiguous answer to ceasefire negotiations pushed by the Donald Trump administration.
A “double-tap” ballistic missile strike on Sumy in northeast Ukraine April 13 — Palm Sunday — killed at least 34 people and injured over 100. The attack, 18 miles from the Russian border, is the second recent large-scale missile attack on a major Ukrainian city. Russian missiles targeted the city center of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, April 4. Nine children in a playground were killed.
“I was told they made a mistake, but I think it’s a horrible thing,” President Donald Trump said after the deadly attack on Sumy. “Cities are being destroyed all over Ukraine.”
Two days earlier Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin in St. Petersburg. Top U.S. and Russian officials have also met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible ceasefire. While the Ukrainian government has agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day halt to fighting, Moscow responded with stepped-up assaults.
Trump continues to dish blame out on everyone else for Moscow’s war. “Biden could have stopped it, and Zelensky could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it,” he told reporters April 14. “Everybody’s to blame.”
The White House is seeking to end the conflict, not to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, but to achieve a measure of stability in the region to advance the U.S. rulers’ economic and political interests. Trump also hopes to make a deal with Putin to draw him into a bloc with Washington against Beijing.
Russian casualties stir opposition to war
As the bloody war drags on, fewer and fewer Russian men are volunteering for Putin’s army. The Kremlin is desperate to avoid another round of mobilization, which might make the widespread opposition to the war break out in public again, despite the fierce repression the regime enforces.
In January, the regional government in Samara offered a record signing bonus of $40,000, the independent investigative news website Vyorstka reported. Putin’s regime hopes this incentive is high enough to attract volunteers even though Moscow’s assault squads in Ukraine are said to have a survival rate of just 5%!
The battle front in eastern Ukraine is largely frozen today. The small gains Russian forces have made came at a very high cost — more than 1,200 casualties per week. Over 48,000 Russian troops were killed or severely wounded in both December and January. In 2024, the Kremlin claims they averaged 36,600 recruits per month. That leaves a shortfall of 12,000 a month.
Kyiv’s commanders have a higher regard for their soldiers’ lives. Ukrainian forces’ losses are four times less than Moscow’s army.
The April 15 Kyiv Post reports on the way Russian soldiers are being demoralized by the brutal treatment they face at the hands of Putin’s officer corps.
Russian infantryman Artem Ushakov and a number of his fellow soldiers fighting in eastern Ukraine surrendered to a drone that led them to the Ukrainian lines. He told the Ukrainians, “If you want to try and go back, they shoot you, they eliminate you, you have no chance.”
Another Russian soldier told Ukrainian forces how his commanders would push their troops to keep moving forward even if it meant certain death. “Our instructors chased us forward,” he said, telling them if they didn’t move quickly enough, “they would shoot us in the knees or kill us.”
Salomachu Shokubodov, another captured Russian infantryman, said, “The treatment we got wasn’t human. They would hit us with fists, with rifles. On the head. That’s how they beat us.”
The New York Post in March interviewed dozens of Russian troops captured by Kyiv who said they enlisted in the military for the money. Very few mentioned any sense of patriotic duty and none could suggest any reason or need for the war.
Vladislav Balgrabskiy, a company commander in Russia’s 18th Motor Rifle Division, told Ukrainian reporter Yury Butusov April 3 that the only rational choice for an honest Russian unit leader is to find a Ukrainian outfit and surrender.