The war in Ukraine is approaching three years, and the tenacity of kyiv’s soldiers is being put to the test. Russian endurance too, on Ukrainian territory as in the motherland since the tricolor infantrymen entered the Kursk region, about three months ago. The trend in the east of the country is towards “Russian grabs”, with the help of North Korea, and towards Ukrainian retreat.
Kilometer after kilometer, death after death, Moscow’s forces are advancing in the Donbass towards Pokrovsk, a key logistical node for Ukrainian forces in the east of the country.
In the Donbass, the Russian advance
This Sunday, November 3, the Russian authorities claimed the capture of a village located about ten kilometers south of the city. Last week, they announced the “liberation” of the village of Kurakhivka in the eastern region of Donetsk, and that of Pershotravneve in the Kharkiv region. In total, according to an AFP analysis of data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russians took 478 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in October, a record since the first weeks of the conflict.
Ukraine – Russia: military planes of the war
At the end of July, more than 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees were registered worldwide, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in the largest population displacement since the Second World War. 3.7 million people were internally displaced, according to the United Nations.
The ebb movements from the east of the country towards the center or the west are accentuated with the arrival of a third winter of conflict which promises to be harsh for the Ukrainians. Those who are not fleeing the bombs are fleeing energy supply cuts caused by Russian strikes.
The movements are massive… and rightly so. Because the treatment of Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army leaves little room for conjecture. The most traumatic story of Moscow’s abuses on Ukrainian lands undoubtedly remains that of the Boutcha massacre, in the first hours of the invasion, which left at least 419 victims.
But Russian soldiers, worn down by the pitfalls of a war of attrition, are still regularly guilty of violence or murder against civilians in the areas they capture.
A “red zone” in Kherson
In fact, the phenomenon has become so common that residents of parts of the Kherson region controlled by Ukraine have called it “human safari,” The Insider reveals. The nickname refers to the deliberate actions of Russian forces against Ukrainian civilians in the region, accounts of which were compiled in early October by the Kyiv Independent.
According to these testimonies, Russian drone operators would use “any moving target for training”. Targets including vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.
The Ukrainian Telegram channel Tysk reported according to The Insider that the Russian armed forces have designated a “red zone” in the city where they target any vehicle, without worrying about civilian casualties. Information which seems confirmed by the worrying message published by drone operator Moisei (“Moses”), a well-known figure in the Russian army, on Telegram on October 2:
Dear civilians. In order to save your life and property (cars, houses), we need information about the location of the AFU in the Antonivka locality (Kherson region). We guarantee you absolute immunity against our drones, we guarantee you anonymity. You can love Ukraine, we don’t forbid you, but we need to know exactly where the enemy is. You help us, we don’t accidentally touch you.
“You help us, we don’t accidentally touch you”. The threat is palpable, as is the irony.
In October 2024, The Insider recalls, the Ukrainian Center for Investigative Journalism discovered that Russian soldiers had tortured a resident of the occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, in the Kherson region. Until death. Earlier in September, Ukrainian volunteer Serhiy Nakonechny reported that Russian troops had killed 11 residents of the recently captured city of Ukrainsk
The figures do not lie: since the start of the war in Ukraine, 11,700 Ukrainian civilians have lost their lives, and 24,600 have been injured, the UN established in September. These are only verified deaths, actual totals could be much higher.
Extrajudicial executions of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers
The lawless zones also apply to Ukrainian soldiers, for whom there is ample evidence of summary executions. In early October, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the alleged execution of 16 Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian army near Pokrovsk.
The case is not isolated: on October 6, three other unarmed Ukrainians were shot dead in cold blood in Donbass. Four days later, a platoon of nine soldiers from the 1st Ukrainian Separate Mechanized Brigade who had surrendered were stripped naked and then shot on the spot near the village of Zeleny Shlyakh in the Kursk region, according to the office of the high Ukrainian representative for human rights quoted by Liberation’s kyiv correspondent. Killings, regularly filmed by drone, committed without the shadow of a judgment, in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Those who are left alive but captured are mistreated, as evidenced by the well-known case of Yuri Hulchuk, who lost his ability to speak after being electrocuted while in detention. According to UN data, 95% of Ukrainian prisoners suffer torture and ill-treatment.
And again, in Vladimir Putin’s army, extrajudicial executions are not reserved only for enemy soldiers. The French commanders sometimes reserve the right to punish their troops, in a manner that was formerly attributed to Wagner’s contract mercenaries. Thus The Insider reported in July on the “gulag” type punishment system within Russian units. Some anonymous soldiers complain about the rhetoric of their commanders, who threaten them with “reduction to zero” for disobeying orders.
Some also mention “blocking units” tasked with shooting down storm troopers who refuse to advance. Finally, the most common way to evacuate “dysfunctional” elements in the ranks of the army is still to send them to the front line in the Ukrainian “chopper”, and let the enemy camp do the work.
These atrocities, combined with the deplorable condition of a Russian army burdened by shortages and the “Russian disease”, corruption which is rotting the different layers of Defense, are increasing the pressure on what the Russian media call the “home front”, or the civilian population, who are concerned about the return of their soldiers traumatized by months on the front line.
According to independent Russian media outlet Verstka, as of the end of September 2024, at least 242 people have died in Russia and 227 others have been seriously injured following violence by veterans of the Ukraine invasion. With the prolongation of the war, and the return of the first mobilized, this figure can only increase.
