The Economist - USA (2022-03-12)

14 BriefingThewarinUkraine TheEconomistMarch12th 2022

lytakenbyRussiansecurityforces.Sixof

the 43 were found dead; 18 were never

foundatall.

Khersonmaybeseeingsomethingsim­

ilar.OnMarch7thlocalmediasaidOlek­

sandrTarasov,anactivist,hadbeenreport­

edmissingfollowingthatevening’sprot­

est.Heemerged 24 hourslater,apparently

distressed,andsaidina bizarre“confes­

sion”thathehadbeenworkingasa provo­

cateurforUkraine’ssecurityservices.

Occupationneednotmeanterror.But

PhilipIngram,onceacolonel inBritish

militaryintelligence,saysa successfuloc­

cupyingforceneedscivilengineers,medi­

calsupportandcivil­affairsstaff,andthis

hasneverbeenanareainwhichRussian

forces have excelled. “They are notde­

signed,froma militaryperspective,tooc­

cupyandrebuild,”hesays.“Justholdand

destroy.”LocalsinKhersonreporttheoc­

cupierstobehungry,lootingand“outof

control”.

Many Ukrainians with pro­Russian

sympathiesusedtothinkthata rapproche­

mentbetweenthetwocountrieswaspos­

sible.“Forallofmyfriendsthathopeisal­

readydead,”saysAndriiYatskevich,a sail­

orfromKherson.ViktorMerinkov,thedi­

rector of a boarding school for deaf

childreninthecity,saysthat“Asfaraslo­

calsareconcerned,Russiahasbecomea

by­wordforfascistinvaders.”HiswifeVa­

lentinainterruptstourgehimtotemper

hislanguage;thecouplehaveresponsibil­

ityforeightchildrennowstrandedinthe

city,sheremindshim.n

Mariupol

Berdyansk

Mykolaiv Melitopol

Belgorod

Odessa Kherson

Dnipro

Chernihiv Konotop

Sumy

Okhtyrka

Kharkiv Novopskov

Lviv

Warsaw

Kyiv

Chisinau

Black

Sea

Seaof

Azov

UKRAINE

BELARUS

P OLAND

SLOVAKIA

MOLDOVA

RUSSIA

Crimea

Do

nba

s

Controlled

byRussian-

backed

separatists

Ukrainianterritory

annexedbyRussia

Luhansk

Donetsk

150 km

ClaimedRussian-controlled

AssessedRussianadvances*

AssessedRussian-controlled

Russianunitmovements†

ClaimedUkrainiancounteroffensives

March th

*Russiaoperatedinorattacked,but

doesnotcontrol †March6th

Sources:InstitutefortheStudyofWar;

RochanConsulting;TheEconomist

TheupperestimateofRussiantroop

casualtiesatMarch8th.Source:DIA

The second week of war: The military situation Russia’s domestic deterioration

4,

Russian forces continued to make more

progress in the south than the north,

andremained unable to achieve air

superiority. A number of cities suffered

ferocious artillery bombardment,

however few were taken.

Almost all independent Russian

media have been shut down. Western

companies, including iconic ones such

as Adidas and McDonalds, shuttered their

Russian outlets. Roubles can no longer be

exchanged through official channels.

Russia’s situation

The great leap backward

T

he pantsir-s1is  an  impressive  beast,

almost 17 tonnes of top­notch hardware

capable  of  shooting  down  planes  tens  of

kilometres  away.  The  specimen  photo­

graphed not far from Kherson, though, was

a sorry spectacle; its missile­tubes bristled

like porcupine quills, but it was axle­deep

in mud—one of nearly 1,000 pieces of Rus­

sian  equipment  destroyed,  damaged,

abandoned  or  captured  by  Ukraine  over

two weeks of war. 

Seeing  the  Pantsir  on  social  media,

Trent Telenko, a former auditor in Ameri­

ca’s defence bureaucracy, noticed a telltale

detail  which  spoke  of  very  poor  mainte­

nance: its tyres were in terrible nick. Worse

still,  they  were  cheap  Chinese  knock­offs

of  the  tyres  you  might  have  expected  on

such  a  vehicle,  observed  Jon  Hawkes  of

Janes,  a  defence­intelligence  firm;  they

would have been unable to support the ve­

hicle fully loaded. 

There  were  however  limits  to  the  visi­

bility  of  these  synecdoche­inviting  de­

fects. No such pictures were to be seen in

Russian  media,  any  more  than  the  word

“war”  was  to  be  read  there.  Russia’s  Presi­

dent,  Vladimir  Putin,  has  not  used  the

word; norhas he declared a state of emer­

gency. In a plainly­weird­but­purportedly­

normal  event  televised  on  March  5th  he

told  a  group  of  Aeroflot  flight  attendants

that  the  special  operation  to  demilitarise

Russia’s brother country was going to plan

and would soon be complete. Russian forc­

es were using precision weapons and only

hitting military targets. The damage to ci­

vilian buildings was the work of evil Ukrai­

nian  Nazis  shelling  their  own  cities.  To

make  sure  this  important  message  is  not

distorted,  a  law  passed  on  March  4th

makes  dissemination  of  any  information

at odds with the official version of the con­

flict punishable by a prison sentence of up

to  15  years.  As  George  Orwell  knew,  when

War is to be Peace, Ignorance is Strength.

Almost  all  independent  media  have

shut  down,  and  the  government  is  block­

ing access to some social media. Neverthe­

less, accurate news seeps in via Telegram,

an  encrypted  messaging  service,  foreign

sites accessed through virtual private net­

works and, the simplest expedient, phone

calls with relatives in Ukraine. When their

Vladimir Putin’s war is a turning-point in Russian history