The Vineyard of the Saker: Why Novorussians and Russians are right to treat the Ukie soldiers with compassion and kindness

For a couple of days now, I have posted various items showing the large number of casualties amongst the Ukie forces fighting against Novorussia, and I have observed with some amusement how many of you have expressed doubts about the veracity of these figures. Today Nora drew my attention to a short video of a Ukie army recruiting officer being confronted by a crowd of civilians, mostly women, mostly mothers. The video is a few days old, but this version is subtitled in English, so please watch it now:



Now, there are a couple of thing I would like to share with you after this video.

First, believe me, these women are aware of the terrifying rumours which speak of casualty figures way higher then those mentioned officially. Keep in mind that a lot of Ukie soldiers simply disappear either torn into unrecoverable small pieces of meat and bones, or hastily buried into mass graves by their own officers to cover up their deaths, either quietly killed and secretly buried by the civilians of Novorussia (I have seen a video of Ukie recruits who say that they are terrified of the local civilians who smile at them and then kill them as soon as they get an opportunity).

Second, and this what a lot of you are missing, the Ukie and Novorussian militaries are dramatically different. Let me explain:

Ukrainian military:

The Ukrainian military has been completely neglected by all the governments in power since 1991. Do you remember the condition of the Russian military during the First Chechen war? Now imagine taking that military, and instead of turning it around, you let it further degrade for another 20 years. That would be more or less what the Ukie military is today. Add to this that most officers and soldiers do not want to fight. Besides fighting a war they personally don't want (again, not all Ukrainians are Right Sector Nazi fanatics!), they are also literally hungry (they eat snakes now) and totally under equipped. The command and control system of the Ukie military is more or less dead. The ONLY advantage of the Ukies is the sheer number of aircraft, tanks and artillery, and that really is a purely quantitative advantage.

Novorussian military:

It is composed solely of volunteers. Even the partial mobilization decreed recently in Donetsk is a moral obligation: you are told you have to show up, but if you do not, nobody will get you. Second, there are a lot of very experienced soldiers and officers on the Novorussian side. As as a direct result of that the following is true:

1 Ukie Grad MLRS is not equal to 1 Novorussian Grad MLRS

That is literally true. Even if it is exactly the same Grad MLRS. In fact, many, possibly most Grads used by the Novorussians are trophies taken away from the Ukies. But whereas the Uky artillery almost exclusively shoots in more or less random way in the general direction of the other side, hitting only civilians, the Novorussians use each Grad with devastating effectiveness choosing the correct munition, landing it with surgical accuracy right on top of the Ukie positions.

Then look at the footage of Novorussian fighters: a lot of them are 30+ to 40+ years old group. These are folks who have already spent a lot of time in the military, often with experience of war, and who know their job very very well. Yes, it is true that the Novorussians still need many more of such experiences "wolves of war" as they are called in Russian, but they already have a lot of them. So on one hand you have clueless but young guys, and on the other, older, but experienced pros who know how to survive.

Furthermore, you can look at any video shot on the Novorussian side, and it is clear that their morale is extremely high. Most of you have probalby seen the footage made a few days ago of the Vostok Battalion on Saur Mogila where the local commander, Samurai, was preparing his men to go into battle to attack the Ukies in the southern cauldron and then the footage shows them jumping on their vehicles and going into battle. Sure, the guys were tired and serious, but also extremely motivated and impatient to resume the fight. The contrast with footage taken on the Ukie side could not have been stronger.

And then, let's be honest about it, by now there are a lot of very experienced fighters from Russia in the Novorussian military. Again, these are older men, often with brand new gear, who appear to be either NCOs or officers and who are clearly very highly motivated.

Finally, the Ukies are lead by corrupt and incompetent generals, imagine Pavel Grachev, but even worse. The reports that the fighting Ukies absolutely hate and despise their commanders (not the direct commander, but the top brass, the generals) are all over the social media. On the other hand, you have folks like Strelov, Samurai, Motorola, Kedr, Khodakovskii and others of clearly are both very experienced and very talented. And, again, this is my personal opinion, but there is no doubt in my mind that these local commanders not only have all sorts of, shall way say, "advisers" from the Russia, but that the Russian military supports the Novorussians with intelligence and expertise (who do you guess was the first to detect the envelopment manover attempted by the Ukies along the Russian border?).

So this is in no way the fault of the Ukrainian foot solider who is, by all accounts, courageous, extremely strong willed and who will execute his mission in the toughest conditions. Just look at how long the poor Ukrainian soldiers in the Southern Cauldron have been resisting under absolutely nightmarish conditions! But in these circumstances the Ukies don't stand a chance, and even though they do have an advantage in the open field by the sheer number of artillery, tanks and aircraft, as soon as they get into closer combat the Novorussians make minced meat out of them.


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