Soldiers like little flags: this is how Moscow is mapping out the invasion

Winter already has its own formula – repetitive, deadly, predictable – and, in Vladimir Putin’s view, it entails Ukrainian cities being punished because Russia is failing to achieve what it wants on the front line. It is not just a question of what Putin says he wants – the conquest of the entire Donetsk oblast – but also of what he claims he can conquer. He has been saying this for some time, even explaining to the Americans that he can take it all easily and quickly, provided he wants to. That is not enough; Moscow is at a standstill, gnawing away, being pushed back, and, since the war will have to end sooner or later – because it is also weighing heavily on the Kremlin’s shoulders – it is persevering with attacks on civilians, energy infrastructure, the electricity grid and the internet, with the aim of forcing Ukraine to collapse in on itself and surrender. This is not the first time Russia has tried to use the winter to its advantage; last year it subjected Kyiv to the freezing cold during its coldest months, but this year it wants to push the pain threshold even further. On 7 October, the day of Vladimir Putin’s seventy-fourth birthday, the Russian army launched an attack with missiles and drones, killing twenty-eight people across the country. On the Kremlin leader’s birthday, his supporters usually present him with horrific ‘gifts’. Yesterday, however, the Russian army struck two buses full of civilian passengers in Kramatorsk. Thirty people were killed and eighteen were injured. Kramatorsk is located in Donetsk, the oblast that Putin claims but has failed to conquer; it is a city with vast areas in ruins, where civilians’ lives are constantly under threat, and, following yesterday’s attack, the authorities have suspended public transport. According to Ukrainska Pravda, the Russians used a guided bomb to strike the two buses.

Not only is the Kremlin failing to take control of the Ukrainian region, but in recent weeks it has been losing ground. The Russians are retreating, surrendering and handing over their weapons as ‘Operation Vivaldi’ – the four-season offensive, the third phase of which was announced to have ended a few weeks ago – advances. During the operation, Moscow has lost ground and men; around 250 have been captured after surrendering. “During the operation, a key command and control centre was captured, and several units were surrounded, including a significant number of company and battalion officers,” Lieutenant Colonel Petro Horbatenko, chief of staff of the Third Army Corps which led the offensive, explained to Il Foglio. The Ukrainians found themselves facing exhausted soldiers, whom their officers had told to surrender, assuring them that everything would be all right, that they would be given water and fed.

“Most of them complained of having gone hungry for at least a week, and in some cases two of them had been feeding on stinging nettles, from which they had made a sort of watery soup. They were drinking their own urine. Some were with a soldier from the Republic of Khakassia – in southern Siberia – who was a hunter and managed to shoot a roe deer, so they had something to eat for a while”. Among the prisoners there is also a soldier whom the Russian command sent, despite his crutches, to man a post, where he remained for six days with a malfunctioning assault rifle: ‘Six days without food or water. On the sixth day,’ says Horbatenko, ‘he ran across a field to drink from a puddle. When our soldiers approached, he surrendered.” Some lost as much as 60 kilos due to lack of food; others drank anything that resembled water; still others shot themselves whilst fighting over a small tin of meat. These soldiers were mere shadows, yet Moscow wanted them to hold their positions right up to the very last moment for reasons that have little to do with success on the battlefield: “The Russian command would not allow its soldiers to abandon their positions. According to official Russian reports, these were their rear lines and there were no Ukrainian forces in that area, so the soldiers were ordered to remain until the end, so that, on paper, the territory would appear to have been conquered by Russia.” They served as mere figureheads, with no real purpose; “even when they were already surrounded, the Russian command insisted that they remain in position. If there is just one Russian soldier in an entire area who manages to establish radio contact, the Russians report that the territory is under their control. What matters is simply that someone is there, that a radio signal comes from that territory, allowing them to report to their superiors that everything is under control’. The important thing is to colour in the map, to create the illusion that, as Putin always says, ‘everything is going according to plan’. Moscow frequently announces that it has captured areas and suffered no defeats; for Russia, the front line is obscured by deception: “They claim to have captured Borova, the towns of Lyman and Sviatohirsk. They are deceiving their own command more than 1,000 kilometres away. If even a single person manages to reach a particular location and transmit a radio signal from there, they mark that area as their territory, colour it red on the map and report it to the Russian leadership. It doesn’t matter if, a few hours later, a soldier is killed or captured. Once the report has been transmitted by radio, they can use it to report back to the Kremlin and might even be awarded the title of Hero of Russia.”

Ukrainian detention centres are visited by the Red Cross, whereas Russian ones are not. Ukrainian prisoners in Russia often go missing, whilst Russian soldiers who surrender are used to facilitate prisoner exchanges: ‘The value of these prisoners lies in the fact that they reduce the number of soldiers in the Russian army and provide information on the location of Russian positions, weapons, defensive resources or supply infrastructure. They are also an important bargaining chip for bringing our prisoners home. These exchanges are always unequal: we hand over more people than we receive in return. Therefore, we must capture a large number of Russian soldiers to exchange them even for a small number of Ukrainian prisoners. Not only military personnel, but also Ukrainian civilians’. Sometimes the Russians do not want to return home; “some are willing to work, clearing rubble after bombings in residential neighbourhoods, just to avoid being sent back to Russia. A Belarusian citizen we captured had found work in Russia as a construction worker, but was forcibly mobilised and sent to the front. Whilst he was a prisoner, he told us: ‘Give me a spade. I’ll work. Don’t send me back, because they’ll send me to the front again, to the slaughterhouse’.” For Ukrainians, the sight of these soldiers is not meant to evoke pity – they are, after all, the enemy sent to attack them – but it helps them understand the difference in human capital: Moscow does not insist on getting its own people back; it has a vast supply of people to send to the front, even if only to hold up a flag.