The overall pace of frontline operations in Ukraine has been delayed in the past few days due to worsening weather conditions. But it is likely to accelerate again in the coming weeks as temperatures drop further and the ground freezes. This is written in the new summary of the “Institute for the Study of War” (ISW).
Ukrainian and Russian reports from critical frontline areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, including Swatov, Bakhmut and Vagledar, show operations on both sides at the moment they are hampered by heavy rain and mud.
Another important topic of Russia’s daily actions in Ukraine is touched upon once again – the deportation of children.
The Russian authorities continue their efforts deporting children to Russia under the guise of medical rehabilitation programs and adoption programs. On November 26, the Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that the Russian administration in the Luhansk region had engaged medical visits of 15,000 children of age aged between two and 17 and found that 70% of the children (10,500) needed special medical treatment, requiring them to be transferred to Russia for “treatment”.
The Resistance Center said Russian officials are targeting these forced deportation schemes also bring families of children to Russia to pick up their children, after receiving the treatment. The Center of Resistance will then determine that these families cannot go home to Ukraine. The Center’s report is consistent with ISW’s earlier finding that Russian officials are waging a deliberate depopulation campaign in the occupied Ukrainian territories. The Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova also published an excerpt from a documentary film, telling the story of his adopted children from Mariupol. These actions may constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention as well as a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Russian officials may be trying to counter the influence of Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin through the promotion of other parallel military structures. Ukraine’s General Intelligence Directorate (GUD) said on Nov. 26 that Russian officials had appointed Armen Sargsyan, a pro-Kremlin businessman linked to former President Viktor Yanukovych, as the new administrator of prisons in the Russian-occupied territories. of Ukraine, and that Sargsyan intended to use the role to create a new “private military company”. GUR reported that Sargsyan modeled his efforts to create a new private military company about the recruitment of prisoners from the group Wagner in the Russian Federation and that Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan is sponsoring the effort. Karapetyan is the owner of Tashir Holding, a longtime subcontractor of Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom. GUR reported that the experience of Sargsyan creating a new private military structure is an attempt to create a counterweight of Prigozhin’s de facto monopoly in the field of Russian private military companies.
High-ranking Russian officials are likely to have approved of Sargsyan’s efforts, as private military companies are illegal in Russia.
The head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov said he met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 25 and said that they discussed the participation of Chechen units in the war in Ukraine and the creation of new Russian military units and Rosgvardia units made up of Chechen personnel.
ISW had already reported this Kadyrov regularly promotes his efforts to create a base in Chechnya parallel military facilities.
Russian officials it can further promote existing parallel military structures of efforts by Kadyrov and Sargsyan to create a private military company to counter the growing influence of Prigozhin, who ISW previously reported was using its own parallel military structures to establish itself as a central figure in Russia’s pro-war ultranationalist community.
Failures in Russian tactics, logistics and equipment continue to demoralize Russian troops and heighten criticism of the leadership. First Deputy Information Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Danil Bezsonov said on November 25 that the mistakes of the military authorities at all levels forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to order an unpopular partial mobilization. Bezsonov says the Russian military authorities are relying on mobilized personnel to correct the authorities’ planning errors, leaving the mobilized soldiers in poor shape. A famous Russian blogger described the extremely outdated equipment with which the soldiers mobilized they were photographed during training in Kostroma, as depressing.
The Ukrainian General Staff said on November 26 that the Russian authorities were continuing fight to provide logistical support to mobilized soldiers. Russian civilians are less and less willing to support material initiatives to fill this gap, even as civilian actions continue to rally mobilized soldiers.
A Russian source has identified Russian President Vladimir Putin’s November 25 creation of a state information electronic resource for information on citizens registered in the militaryas a useful resource to help better supply soldiers, fighting in Ukraine. It is expected the database will start working on April 1stto coincide with conscription in the spring.
The continuing difficulty of the Russian forces to provide for the medical needs of the soldiers they already hinder the treatment of civilians in the Russian-occupied territories. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on Nov. 26 that Russian forces in the Luhansk region had suffered heavy casualties and were increasingly appropriating civilian hospitals in the occupied areas for purely military use. It is reported that civilians in the Luhansk region they face increasing difficulties in accessing medical services and find a place in morgues.
The Kremlin continues to respond disproportionately of Russia’s limited domestic resistance to the war in Ukraine. A major Russian news source reported on Nov. 25 that Russian authorities had set up three additional police checkpoints and sent nearly a dozen police and Federal Protective Service officers to patrol the Kremlin walls around the clock. after an unidentified person wrote “No to war”. on the Kremlin wall.
The extent of such an answer it shows the Kremlin’s continued concern about internal resistance.
