Desertion and incineration

Lifecycle of the AFU soldier, pt. III. 2024 territorial losses, not enough men for fortifications, hazing, latrines, lasers and disappointing France trips, scandals in the 117th and the 155th brigades

Today’s topics:

• A bird’s eye view of Donbass territorial losses since July - in June of this year, we lost about 100 km² of territory there. By September, this had increased to 400 km², and by November, 610 km²

• Not enough men to man the trenches

• From one desertion to another: Hazing, abuse and desertion at training camps

• ‘Since February 2022, 114,280 criminal cases have been registered for unauthorized abandonment of military units.’ and why this represents, at best, only half the real number.

• Desertion and death in the 117th brigade: ‘the battalion lost 11 positions, but only two in actual combat’

• Laser incineration and French disappointment: the foreign-trained 155th brigade is ‘is being dismantled like donor organs for other brigades.’ Chaos and disorganization

• One thousand desertions in the 155th as it is filled with unmotivated ‘busified’ mobilized men

But first of all, a happy new year to all my subscribers! I have written a great deal this year, and I have all of you to thank for keeping me motivated. This week I hope to write up a summary of all the interesting topics we have covered in 2024. But for now, let’s keep up with the flow of Events in Ukraine. As an entree, I offer to you a New Year’s haircut I found on a Ukrainian military meme telegram (watch it to the end, with sound on):

But most Ukrainian soldiers aren’t lucky enough to enjoy such simple pleasures. Either such delights are all they are able to enjoy, or, being like most mobilized soldiers Soviet-born rural proletarians, they have little interest in such hobbies. Here’s another meme I saw on Ukrainian military instagram that was less joyful:

"Summing up 2024:

Not trained to fight

Just civilians

Important at the rear

Professional stormtroopers”

The fat man, by the way, is Evhen Dyky, a repulsive television nationalist personality I have written about many times. Ukrainians love to hate him on social media, particularly for his suspicious role as head of Ukraine’s Antarctic research institute, which has enjoyed a remarkable funding boom in wartime. See my article ‘Nazi Penguins’

This past week, we’ve had a look at the mobilized soldier’s odyssey - busification by the TSK (mobilization organs), TSK dungeons with likely extortion and possible death, systemic torture and extortion once in a unit.

As we saw with the now-infamous story of the 211th pontoon brigade, this extortion reaches such intensity that even units stationed hundreds of kilometers from the front still suffer from desertion. An update to the 211th, by the way - the infamous Poberezhniuk was detained again on the 29th and arrested the next day.

And what happens if they survive all this and end up at the front? When they are faced with an enemy which, though it doesn’t numerically outnumber them, is said to possess superior firepower (though, I will add, Russian military journalists dispute this)?

An enemy army where most soldiers aren’t forcibly ‘busified’ through mobilization, but attracted through immense financial incentives? Ukrainian soldiers receive $550-$750 USD for signing their first contract, while Russian soldiers receive at minimum $10,000 (in the Belgorod region, a record $30,000 USD is the reward). Even according to Radio Free Europe, the number of military contracts signed in Russia has increased by a factor of six from September 2023-2024.

It’s time to bring our life cycle of the Ukrainian soldier to a close. Soon we will return back to the first, perpetual stage - mobilization. But today, to the final stage (for the lucky ones) - desertion.