1) There is a large difference between using artillery against military targets located among civilians, & "using ... military force on unarmed civlian [sic]"/ As far as I can see, Ukraine hasn't deliberately targeted unarmed civilians. It's guilty, if you can call it that, of what every army used to do routinely, i.e. shelling any place from which it was being shot at, or where it thought the enemy was. Compared to what the Russian army did in Chechnya, for example, the Ukrainians seem to have been very civilised.
Putin and his marionettes continue to damn the Ukrainian forces for their deliberate targeting of civilians although civilians losses in no way support this and rebel actions are in no way nice and pure.
I wanted to respond to both of these. It's true that at this point damage to civilian infrastructure has been fairly low, and the quantities of arty and air used against densely populated areas has been low too. However this does not stem from civilized behavior, or from a desire to limit civilian casualties. You'll note that there are almost no incidents of Ukrainian troops providing humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave cities under siege (common practice in Chechnya for example).
The low overall destruction and damage is more due to a lack of artillery and airpower for massive use, not due to an ability or desire to discriminate targets.Ukrainian artillery has been consistently firing into densely populated civilian areas. They have limited ammo, and limited tubes, and thus only do a little damage. But they are definitely doing so in a fairly random and indiscriminate fashion. I would go so far as to say that they're essentially wasting time, and doing damage to civilian infrastructure for no reason at all. The military impact of that type of shelling in negligible. Slavyansk and Kramatorsk were besieged for ~2 months, and they were not massively destroyed, nor did the rebels take significant damage from enemy arty. The story is repeating itself in Donetsk and Lugansk.
I don't think we can attribute this to malice, ill will, or an active desire to kill civilians. Quite on the contrary, I think it's primarily a lack of resources, and ability to do more then what they are. But I certainly don't think we can give them credit for being civilized.
Remember the giant craters left by heavy arty or rockets in Shahtersk? Ultimately it amounted to nothing. They hit no rebel targets, and did no real damage. Shahtersk remains in rebel hands, and fought off a subsequent government attack.
Found an interesting article:
Alexander J. Motyl | Why Ukraine Should Withdraw from Russian-Held Donbas | Foreign Affairs
The interviewee (Vladimir Lukin) claim is that Putin's goal is to make it impossible for the Ukrainian government to win and then force a negotiated split of the Ukraine into a confederation of republics with the ‘Donbas’ or ‘New Russia’ republic aligned with Russia, thereby making it impossible for the Ukraine as a whole to get the unanimous agreement required for any political, economic, or military unions, other than with Russia.
Sounds a bit convoluted but, as he points out, it makes a certain amount of sense given the damage inflicted on the cities and industry in those areas. The rebels (or pretend rebels) don’t seems concerned that there won’t be much of an economy left, so the area will just be an economic drag on whichever country ends up in charge. It all hinges on the Ukraine being unwilling to give the areas up.
A very sneaky bit of thinking if correct. Also sneaky if it is double think to get the Ukraine to surrender the area.
If you go back in this thread, you will see that I made that argument many pages back, long before there was even a war in the east. Federalization is a ploy to put Ukraine in a position where they can not effectively move westward, even if they somehow gather the necessary ability and resources.
But the problem is that losing the east now, may mean losing it forever, without any guarantees that it will ultimately let the rest of Ukraine become part of the EU, or even overcome it's internal problems.
And people here complain that Russia gets portrayed too negative? Seriously?
Do not underestimate the power of Russian info-war, and powerful propaganda. This is not 2008. Despite Russian actions being far less within the bounds of acceptable international behavior, perception of Russian actions is on the whole far less negative then it was then. The MoD, and the government in general, have learned their lesson and this time around have in a coordinated, and well organized, manner created a perception of a very different type of conflict from what is actually happening on the ground.
