The negotiation theatre continues. Many commentators find succor in lip-reading Trump or Putin or speculating which of the latter’s doubles was sent. Personally, I’m quite tired of the psychoanalyzing.
Despite the constant peace talks, the war is more vicious than ever. In early August, Russian forces around Pokrovsk made their quickest ever advance since early 2022, moving forward around 15 kilometers in just several days. In response, Ukraine transferred its most effective troops away from other locations on the vast, 1,000 kilometer frontline.
Ukrainian forces managed to stem the Russian advance around Pokrovsk. However, their method of containing the breach is symptomatic of the broader problem. The Russian strategy isn’t simply to breakthrough at a specific point - it is to exhaust Ukrainian forces along a massive frontline by constant pressure everywhere. I wrote about this strategy a week ago here.
Said strategy has shown its latest fruits - Russian forces advanced significantly between August 19 and 24 in the Serebriansky forest of the Luhansk oblast. Here is what Ukraine’s OSINT group DeepState wrote on the matter on August 24:
🏹 The enemy continues to build on their success, taking advantage of previous advances and the problems that have arisen in the area. They mainly operate in small infantry groups that infiltrate deeper into the territory, maintain constant pressure on Ukrainian positions, and look for any opportunity to hide in order to consolidate. There are cases when Ukrainian Armed Forces positions exist only in reports, and then the enemy suddenly appears in the rear at the positions of drone operators or electronic warfare units, and so on.
⚔️ The most difficult situation is currently in the forest on the northern bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, from Hryhorivka to Dronivka, where the enemy can easily cut off the route near the latter, which would create unfavorable consequences for the positions located there. Therefore, we hope that those positions will be withdrawn in time so that they do not fall into encirclement.
🇷🇺 At present, the enemy is trying to completely drive the UAF out of the Serebrianske Forestry and put an end to the years-long history of fighting for it. The enemy is exerting pressure in the direction of Yampil and has already been observed in the area of the Yampil–Zarichne road. In Zarichne itself, the situation is also developing unfavorably for Ukrainian forces, as the enemy is gradually moving into the settlement past Ukrainian positions, making it increasingly difficult to dislodge them from there.
The advance here is ‘only’ around 5 kilometers. However, the fact that the advance has been made on a wide front makes it less likely that forward Russian forces could be surrounded, as Ukrainian forces claim has happened around the recent Dobropillia salient.
And besides, the distance moved isn’t the deciding factor in a war in attrition. Here, what matters is the losses suffered by the enemy.
The past few months have seen a number of dour Ukrainian interventions on the problem of losses:
—Ukrainian serviceman and journalist Ihor Lutsenko, July 25: 5-8 thousand killed, the same number permanently wounded. According to significantly deflated official statistics, 19,000 desertions a month. Official claims of 30,000 mobilized a month, more realistically under 20,000. As a result, the army has been shrinking by 10–15 thousand people each month.
— Ukrainian military fundraiser and analyst Maria Berlinska, August 1: ‘Daily killed: up to 300. Wounded: up to 750. Desertions: up to 500. Approx. per day: 1,550. Approx. per month: 46,500. Mobilized: up to 20,000. So we’re going into a deficit of 26,500 per month.’
Meanwhile, Berlinska stated that the Russian army is growing by ‘roughly 9-10 thousand men per month’, given existing losses and enlistment levels.
Now, Berlinska probably wasn’t saying this with the aim of fomenting pacifist sentiment in society. On the contrary - she is well-known for constantly pushing to mobilize women and the youth.
Amidst what seems like peace talks, the bet of the Ukrainian government and political establishment is clearly on war. Today, we’ll take a look at several signs pointing to the continuation and intensification of forced mobilization - whose suspension, by the way, has been one of Russia’s key demands for a peace settlement. Among today’s topics:
— A historical polemic by Ukraine’s premier liberal, western-funded publication, arguing in favor of civilian massacres against villages that resist mobilization
— New calls by military figures to execute men or women executing mobilization
— Large scale protests by ordinary people, largely women, against violent forced mobilization
— The use of live fire against anti-mobilization protestors, severely wounding several grandmothers in a poor village
— Western-funded ‘anti-corruption civil society activists’ condemn the anti-mobilization protests. Protests are only legal for those supporting war to the bitter end. As one Ukrainian social media user put it:
You mention the law and the Constitution, which are “on pause” for workers and peasants, while the fat, pro-government bastards and their spawn are feeling just fine. Do you really think that in the fourth year of full-scale war people don’t see the social injustice???
— While Zelensky half-promises to allow younger men out of the country (electioneering?), his prime minister proposes new legislation increasing punishment for those attempting to escape the world’s most democratic concentration camp.
But before we get to the paid content, a snapshot of the human cost:
On August 22, the western-funded Ukrainian media outlet suspilne reported on another death by mobilization in the city of Zaporozhye. The patriotic Ukrainian-language reporter lets the Russian-language widow do most of the talking:
Yulia Balabakh buried her 48-year-old husband Roman. He was mobilized on July 22, and already the next day his body was found in the camp of the Basic Military Training Center in Dnipropetrovsk region. The woman says she was only informed about the death of her beloved a week later.
"On Monday, the 29th, in the morning I called the unit. They told me: ‘He’s fine. Either he or the commander will contact you. Leave your details.’ And literally half an hour later, representatives from the Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center came and handed me a paper about my husband’s death."
The woman explains that Roman had not updated his data at the military enlistment office and did not have military registration documents. He was detained near his home and taken to the district recruitment and social support center, and at night to the military unit.
"He never got in touch. I called the unit, and they told me: ‘Our database has not been updated yet, call back in three days.’ I didn’t wait those three days. I called the next day. And so they strung me along like that for a whole week."
When the woman received the death notice, the cause was listed as acute heart failure. But Yulia says she does not agree with the conclusion of the forensic examination carried out by the unit.
"Yes, maybe that’s what it was, because no heart could withstand such a beating. But he died because he was simply beaten to death. It’s not clear why he was beaten. His whole body was covered in injuries. His eye was black, his cheeks, forehead, ribs. I couldn’t even bring myself to examine his legs. The back of his head was smashed and covered in blood.”
