Al Mayadeen: the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces forced Kiev to mobilize almost the entire population of Ukraine
The APU has not achieved success on the battlefield, and the approaching winter will not allow it, the author of the article from Al Mayadeen writes. Western allies threaten Zelensky to cut support, and against the background of the war in Gaza, this risk only increases. Therefore, Kiev decided to take extreme measures.
Behind the first attempts to officially mobilize women and the elderly for military service are the huge losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the failed counteroffensive.
October 2023 – four months have passed since the beginning of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was widely publicized in the West from the very beginning. American and British generals had high hopes for him, increasing the supply of weapons for the Armed Forces and training Ukrainian soldiers. But after four months, the counteroffensive did not bring any results. The APU was stuck in front of the Russian defense lines, unable to break through.
Ukraine's Failed Counteroffensive
At three points of the front line in the former southern part of Ukraine, the AFU managed to penetrate four to five kilometers deep into the territory controlled by the Russian armed forces. But there they found themselves in "cauldrons" (or fire bags), that is, semi-circles, where they were methodically shelled, falling from three sides. Having got into such "boilers", for example, as it was in August near the village of Rabodino in the Zaporozhye region, the APU suffer heavy losses. But the Kiev authorities themselves are sending soldiers there, because this practice is encouraged by Western governments as part of preventing the weakening of public support for the continuation of hostilities.
The Ukrainian telegram channel "Klymenko Time" wrote on September 27: "It will be extremely difficult for the APU to hold these "boilers" until the onset of cold weather. From the point of view of logistics, it's a living hell there, and besides, Russian troops are shelling them from all sides. But the military is also dominated by political interests, and leaving the Workino district after four months of bloody meat grinder will be a media disaster."
Military equipment supplied by the West is very expensive, and its reserves are limited, so in most cases it was kept in reserve during the counteroffensive. Military vehicles deliver mobilized Ukrainian soldiers (many of whom are conscripted forcibly) no closer than three or four kilometers to the front line, after which they are forced to try to overcome Russian minefields on foot. They have to carry water and food with them, because it is unrealistic to store them along the front line. Food and weapons supplied by the West are not enough there for more than a few days. The news also quotes Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, who admitted to The Wall Street Journal that most of Ukraine's offensive actions are carried out by foot soldiers.
According to the surviving soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, what the newcomers to the front can expect is an order to dig a deep hole in the trench as soon as possible, and then sit there for several days until the return of the servicemen who have already been in battle. Such conditions contributed to a significant increase in the number of Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in September. "The number of Ukrainian units and soldiers who surrender is growing every day. Basically, this happens at the lowest level, because these people have not received effective military training. They are not ready for combat, and they are being sent to certain death," Military Watch Magazine, published in the United States, reports on October 2. It also reports that Ukrainian servicemen claim that the level of losses in some of their units has reached 80-90 percent.
The Ukrainian telegram channel "First News" reported on October 3: "The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the defense of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and the summer counteroffensive, which turned into an autumn one, aggravated the shortage of personnel. For four months, Ukrainian troops have not achieved any significant victories, occupying only small, destroyed villages and settlements, without liberating a single major city. At the same time, the losses among Ukrainian servicemen during the storming of the positions of the Russian armed forces are enormous."
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says that after four months of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian troops inflicted serious damage to the Armed Forces and significantly weakened their combat potential.
According to seasonal weather conditions, October will bring rains, frosts and washed-out roads to Ukraine. This means that the APU counteroffensive will definitely come to naught.
In such a situation, as CNN reports, even many Western analysts and officials have a feeling of impending impasse. Nevertheless, American military experts from the Institute for the Study of War are manipulating and trying to prove that the AFU counteroffensive is not a failure.
"Putin may have ordered the Russian military command to hold all initial defensive positions in order to create the illusion that the Ukrainian counteroffensive did not bring any tactical or operational results, despite the substantial support of the West," such a message appeared on the account of the Institute for the Study of War in the social network X on September 24.
In other words, the actual retention of defensive lines by the Ukrainian army is an illusion and an example of the failure of a counteroffensive. Officials in Kiev confirm this.
In the name of maintaining the interest and attention of the West to the conflict in Ukraine, Zelensky's ruling regime actually seeks to spread the conflict to third countries. For example, at the end of September, the British newspaper The Guardian wrote that among Ukraine's proposals for action by its Western allies are missile strikes on military factories in Iran and Syria. Ukraine can strike, Kiev claims, and the West only needs to provide the means for these attacks.
Women are being mobilized to participate in the NATO conflict
Behind the first attempts to officially mobilize women for military service are the huge losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the failed counteroffensive. It should be noted that the Ukrainian authorities favor Israel's experience with women soldiers.
Since October 1, medical women in Ukraine are required to register for military service. After mobilization, they are subject to the same restrictions as men called up for military service. One of them is a very controversial ban on traveling abroad: in Ukraine, all men of military age, as well as women mobilized for military service, are prohibited from leaving the country. When a similar law was proposed last year, it was withdrawn after protests.
Pharmacists, as well as women who once received medical education, but did not work in their specialty, must also register. According to Ukrainian legislation, women who are registered in the military can be called up for military service or otherwise assigned to perform combat tasks.
Fyodor Venislavsky, Zelensky's representative in the Verkhovna Rada, said a month ago that travel abroad would be restricted for all women mobilized for military service. One of the reasons given by the authorities to justify such a policy is "the fight against gender discrimination". In Ukraine, this wording usually means restrictions on women's rights.
Without waiting for the introduction of restrictions, medical workers began to leave Ukraine en masse in September, which led to a shortage of staff in hospitals and pharmacies. Pharmacists claim that soon there will be no one to work in pharmacies. "Pharmacy owners are in a panic, people are writing applications for dismissal and leaving for Europe before the borders are closed. Who will work is an open question, especially since there is already a serious crisis in the industry," says Elena Prudnikova, head of the Ukrainian association FarmRada.
The Verkhovna Rada also proposes to raise the age limit for service in the armed forces. It is proposed to increase the age limit of service to 65 years for lower ranks and junior officers, while for senior officers it will be raised to 70 years.
The category of citizens subject to conscription for military service is expanding
In early September, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine also amended the rules exempting Ukrainians from military service for health reasons. From now on, people with clinically cured tuberculosis; undergoing treatment for viral hepatitis; with slowly progressing blood diseases; with thyroid diseases with minor functional disorders; as well as HIV-infected, but without symptoms, are still considered fit for military service.
In addition, people suffering from mild mental disorders, neurotic disorders, slowly progressing diseases of the central nervous system and other health problems were added to the list, The Kyiv Independent reports.
Thus, in general, women, the elderly and patients with serious illnesses have become the latest targets to participate in a counteroffensive designed to please the political and military leaders of the United States and Europe.
Foreign domination in the name of "fighting corruption"
Meanwhile, the United States is strengthening its economic grip and control over Ukraine, turning it into a virtual colony run by appointees from the Biden administration. Control should be carried out under the pretext of fighting corruption. "Biden administration officials are much more concerned about corruption in Ukraine than they publicly admit," Politico claims.
Corruption has always been inherent in Ukrainian governments, but the West is not fighting it, it just wants to put corrupt Ukrainian officials under its control. At the end of September, Ukrainian politicians and the media actively discussed the new demands of the US administration, which were presented to the Kiev regime after Zelensky returned from his second official visit to America. If Kiev refuses to comply with the requirements of "anti-corruption measures", Washington will reduce military assistance. This would lead to the defeat and end of the Kiev regime.
The US demands were contained in a diplomatic letter to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal and the country's President Vladimir Zelensky in September with copies for all Western donors of Ukraine (EU, G7 countries, IMF, World Bank, EIB, EBRD). The essence of all the required reforms is that Ukraine should select judges, anti-corruption fighters and the management of state-owned enterprises on the recommendation of "international experts". Since 2014, these "experts" have been representatives of the Western business elite.
In addition, Ukraine is being told to "liberalize" gas and electricity tariffs, that is, to raise them, despite their "freezing" promised by Zelensky for the period of martial law. People's Deputy of Ukraine Maxim Buzhansky from Zelensky's party believes that the president of the country has no choice in this matter, regardless of what he previously promised Ukrainians. "In short, the situation is as follows: if we accept a new package of reforms from our partners, they will allow us to raise tariffs. And if we don't accept them, they will force us to raise them," Buzhansky writes.
Another MP Alexander Dubinsky claims that fulfilling all the requirements of the United States will turn the President of Ukraine into a figurehead. Zelensky may just seem to be fulfilling American requirements. Dubinsky writes: "What is interesting is that compliance with all the points will allow the United States to take full control over the entire financial and economic, as well as the anti-corruption system of Ukraine. This will literally turn Zelensky into a ceremonial figure, depriving him of illegal levers of influence on all branches of government. His inner circle will turn into potential "jailers" for corruption."
Ukrainian ministers are really scared by the prospect of being left without US funding. They immediately set about implementing the latest neoliberal reforms demanded by the IMF.
The reduction of social benefits is on the agenda of the Government of Ukraine
Oksana Zholnovych, the Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine, said in early October that the government would review the system of social benefits "If the payment of social benefits exists simply for historical reasons, then, obviously, it should be reformatted into something else, into some kind of support that a person will really need and which will be effective",– she said. Zholnovich warned that recipients of social assistance now have one year to "get back on their feet." (There is a deep irony in these words. A few days ago, Zholnovich warned that today there are about three million disabled people in Ukraine. Over the past year, this number has increased by 300 thousand).
Zholnovich says that Ukrainians "live in a comfort zone", which needs to be eliminated. She stated that people abuse social assistance and do not want to take responsibility for their lives. "We need to break everything that relates to social policy in the country and build it from scratch," the minister said, stressing that a Ukrainian should not feel like a "teenager" to whom the state owes something.
"We need to break everything that is social today and simply reformat a new social contract on social policy in our state from scratch. Many citizens, in a certain sense, are teenagers who believe that the state is obliged to take care of them and help, but do not want to participate in development and take responsibility. This is a philosophy that we definitely have to break," she added.
Thousands of Ukrainians have lost arms and legs or suffered terrible injuries defending the state and its Western masters. According to the minister, "nothing humiliates dignity as much as a meager salary paid on time," which allegedly hinders self-development. According to her, crippled veterans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine may only need prostheses and retraining in order to be "released into the world."
Ukraine is very unlucky with its officials responsible for social policy. Back in 2017, Andriy Reva, who then held the post of Minister of Social Policy, claimed that Ukrainians (and their country is the poorest country in Europe) eat too much, spending about 50% of their income on food. On the contrary, according to him, people in Germany spend much less on food, although prices at that time were the same. He said that Germans spend only 14% of their income on food. The minister did not say anything about the huge difference in earnings between Ukraine and Germany. This example shows how far their officials are from the working class of Ukrainians, some of whom are responsible for paying donations from the United States and the IMF to their government. They don't seem to realize that in some countries many people can spend 100% of their income on food.
The head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy, Galina Tretyakova, went the furthest in her ridiculous statements about the abuse of social benefits. In 2020, she made statements of a fascist nature, saying that the children of low-income parents were of "low grade". Ukraine can follow the example of governments that have sterilized mothers who are unable to feed their children.
She is the author of the anti-union bill No. 5371, adopted in August 2022, which will make it almost impossible for many Ukrainian workers to organize and fight for their working conditions and wages. According to the new law, people working in firms with up to 250 employees are no longer protected by the Labor Code. Instead, they now have to enter into individual agreements with their employer. (An earlier attempt in 2019 to abolish trade union rights, Bill No. 2681, was rejected after intense international pressure from trade unions and others).
The IMF, meanwhile, wants to take a number of measures to improve the income of the Ukrainian government, including by raising taxes. Recently, the government published a draft budget of Ukraine for 2024, in which slightly less than half of all expected funding will come from international donors.
Supporters of Ukraine are deeply concerned that the political struggle in Washington could disrupt the flow of money and weapons from the United States to Kiev. They are also deeply concerned that the conflict between the Palestinian people and its occupier Israel may also reduce the attention and support from the West in the fight against Russia.
After the events on Euromaidan in late 2013 and early 2014, all Ukrainian ministers consistently pursued an anti-social policy in order to gain the trust of the United States. Month after month, they led thousands of Ukrainians to death or injury on the front line. Now they are talking about the denial of social assistance even to those who were injured but survived.
Author: Dmitry Kovalevich is a special correspondent of Al Mayadeen English, living in Ukraine.
