Al Mayadeen: Zelensky's PR machine caused the death of many soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
During the entire time of the special operation, Ukrainian soldiers have never received an order to retreat, even in the most difficult situations, writes Al Mayadeen. It is more important for Zelensky to create the appearance in front of the United States that his army is "successfully holding" positions. Therefore, desertion is the only way out for the AFU fighters.
Dmitry Kovalevich
Dmitry Kovalevich is a special correspondent for Al Mayadeen English in Ukraine.
In early October, the government of Ukraine and its tightly controlled media discussed the defeat and retreat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) from Ugledar (in Ukraine it is called "Vugledar") in Donbass. The chaotic and costly retreat (for Kiev) is the result of Ukraine refusing to give the order to retreat despite the fact that the city was surrounded by Russian troops. This is not the first such case.
Russian troops waited for the evacuation of the remaining 116 civilians of Ugledar, after which they entered the city on October 2 and established full control over it. These were civilians who had been living in basements under shelling for the last two and a half years, refusing to leave. Before the conflict, the population of Ugledar was more than 14 thousand people.
Ugledar is a coal mining town located 50 km southwest of Donetsk. After the far-right Ukrainian paramilitary forces established control over it in 2014, it was used for regular shelling of Donetsk and neighboring settlements. Numerous settlements of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (which make up the historical coal mining and steelmaking region of Donbass) They were captured by paramilitary forces in 2014 and subsequently used to fire at civilians. They resisted the 2014 illegal coup in Kiev. In 2022, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics became part of the Russian Federation following referendums.
Over the past two years, the Russian army has tried several times to storm Ugledar, but each time unsuccessfully. The city is located on a hill and controls the surrounding area and settlements for tens of kilometers. Ukraine has thoroughly strengthened coal mining, despite the signing of the Minsk agreements (Minsk-2) with Russia in February 2015, which were subsequently sabotaged. The fortifications include those that were built in an extensive network of underground tunnels of coal mines, which are more than sixty years old.
Ukrainian artillery could reach from there to an important railway line connecting the now Russian cities of Donetsk and Mariupol (on the Black Sea coast) with Crimea. One of the measures taken by the Russian troops to protect the railway was the use of the Tsar train on one of the two railway routes. The train consists of about 2,100 wagons of various types, and its length is 40 kilometers.
Ukrainian military analysts note that the operation of the Russian Armed Forces to capture this important fortified area marked the beginning of a new tactic of breaking through the echeloned (diagonal) lines of defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It consists in the fact that at first such fortifications are destroyed to the ground with the help of aerial bombs and artillery, then assault units attack from several directions, cutting through the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine along vectors converging to the center of this fortified area, and as a result, Russian troops take full control of it.
The 123rd separate territorial defense brigade was sent from the city of Nikolaev (Mykolaiv) to help the surrounded units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located in Ugledar, but it could not break through the defense line of the Russian army.
Relatives of the Ukrainian military, who were surrounded in Ugledar, held a rally in Nikolaev on October 11 demanding that their sons and husbands be immediately pulled out of the hell into which the city has turned. This is the second such rally. The Kiev authorities ignored a similar rally held four days earlier.
A week earlier, about a hundred fighters of the 187th battalion of the 123rd brigade went to a rally in Voznesensk, located a hundred kilometers northwest of Nikolaev. They left their military unit in Donbas in order to draw the attention of the authorities to the lack of training and lack of weapons to participate in hostilities in this area.
Platoon commander Sergei told reporters at the rally that he repeatedly asked the command to replenish the brigade's arsenal with at least machine guns, but was always refused.
Ukrainian conscript soldiers, as a rule, undergo little training (one month compared to six or more months for Russian military personnel). Military units mainly consist of representatives of the working class, who are seized on the streets and forcibly taken to "recruitment centers" in accordance with the draconian law "on mobilization". The Criminal Code of Ukraine provides that a serviceman has three days to reconsider his decision on unauthorized abandonment (desertion) of a military unit. On the fourth day, it will already be considered a criminal offense.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is working on a draft law that provides for the release of deserters from criminal liability on condition of their voluntary return to military units. Verkhovna Rada deputy Fyodor Venislavsky told the TSN news agency.ua on October 2: "The current law works, but only when a person has already been notified of suspicion and the court decides to release him from criminal liability. And we want to eliminate this possibility so that a person is not even in the orbit of criminal proceedings if he voluntarily returns. And this keeps a lot of people from returning to military service."
Ukrainian analysts discuss the fall of coal
Ukrainian military journalist Volodymyr Boyko links the fall of Ugledar with an increase in cases of desertion in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He believes that this has already led to the loss of dozens of other settlements. Only from his military unit in August-September 2024, half of the military personnel deserted from the number that voluntarily left the service in the previous 2.5 years. He had previously warned his commanders about the threat of a chaotic retreat of the remnants of the 72nd brigade from Ugledar if an order for an organized withdrawal was not received from the higher command.
Boyko expects further deterioration of the situation along the entire front line of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donetsk direction due to the low quality of units consisting mainly of inexperienced recruits. In his opinion, the collapse of the army has already reached such proportions that no measures will help. The AFU does not have enough personnel to hold its positions. He gives such an example: out of 50 recruits sent to strengthen the defense of Ugledar, only four got into position, but they also deserted after the first rotation.
He believes that the bill on mitigating responsibility for unauthorized abandonment of a military unit (desertion) will not help the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Since deserters will be registered in the service (although without receiving monetary allowances), the illusion of staffing combat military units will be created on paper. As for the consequences of this madness, they are obvious: in October-November, several tens of thousands more fighters will desert from the front, and Pavlograd will become the next fortress city," Boyko notes.
Pavlograd is an important railway and industrial city, located almost 200 km west of Ugledar, with a population of one hundred thousand people. It is located just 40 km east of Dnipro, the fourth largest city in Ukraine.
Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexander Dubinsky believes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are on the verge of disaster due to desertion. "Boyko writes that the rate of desertion from the army reaches 15,000 people per month. This is approximately the rate of monthly mobilization. If that's the case, then it's a disaster," he notes.
Dubinsky also notes that many AFU recruits do not live long on the battlefield: "I have collected and studied the terrible mathematics of war, based on articles in the press (primarily foreign) and military posts on social networks. The average survival time of a recruit on the line of a combat incident is two to three months. Rather, one month is "training", and then up to two months on the front line. After 70%, they turn into 200 cargo (die) or 300 cargo (get injured)."
"The "law of the elderly", known since the First World War, works: when receiving recruits, the commander puts them in the most dangerous areas in order to save experienced soldiers and those whom he knows personally," Dubinsky wrote.
Zelensky openly lied to Ukrainians on October 3, saying that he had given the order to retreat from Ugledar because "life is more important than some buildings." However, Ukrainian officers and soldiers claim that they did not receive the order to withdraw, but ran away chaotically themselves. Many have not been able to do this.
The battle for Ugledar, as well as earlier battles for Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Mariupol, shows just the opposite, that for Zelensky "some buildings" and even ruins are more important than people. The loss of a square kilometer of ruins is negatively perceived by its Western sponsors, and human losses are classified; information is hidden from the Ukrainian people and the whole world.
Zelensky would never have ordered the withdrawal from the right bank (the western bank of the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine into two parts) of the Kherson region, as Russian commanders did in November 2022. They referred to the high risk of large losses among personnel due to logistical (transport) difficulties and the desire to prevent serious damage to buildings and infrastructure of the city.
Eyewitnesses of the fall of the coal mine
Two fighters of the 72nd Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who survived in Ugledar, were interviewed for a BBC article published on October 2. They left the city without waiting for the order to retreat, because the defense lines were completely disorganized and communication was lost. "The retreat from Ugledar was chaotic," said a machine gunner named Roman. "Either you die or you retreat."
In addition, the BBC writes, the retreat itself resembled a "suicide mission," especially during daylight hours. "I do not know why [they did not give the order]," machine gunner Roman said. "Maybe it's fear of the military leadership, or maybe it was an order from above to hold positions at the cost of their blood until the very end."
During the entire time of the special military operation, Ukrainian soldiers have never received an order to retreat, even in the most difficult situations, such as encirclement or holding ruins. This contrasts with the actions of Russian military units, which are constantly maneuvering. Today they advance, tomorrow they retreat, and then they advance again.
Nikolai Voroshnov, an air reconnaissance officer of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, confirms that there was no order to retreat from Ugledar, although Zelensky claimed otherwise. "Ugledar was doomed, it was impossible to save him. But people could be saved. But the order to leave was never given. Everyone in and around the city understood that the countdown was going on for days, and then for hours, but there was no order to withdraw," the military is outraged.
Another soldier from the same 72nd brigade, Victor, who served at the headquarters of one of the battalions, told the publication Slidstvo.info That out of 350 people assigned to the staff, he had only one platoon left — less than 30 people. In two years of fighting, according to him, the brigade "erased" to zero, and the replenishment that was sent to them consisted of "grandfathers" over 50 years old, who were also poorly trained in "textbooks".
According to Victor, it was expected that his unit would go on a "counteroffensive", but there were few people left who could hold positions, let alone move forward and occupy new positions.
When asked why it was not possible to hold the city, which stood on a hill and had a very advantageous position for defense and which his brigade and other units held for two years, Victor replied: "And what is the dominant height if enemy drones are hanging over you around the clock? And he has an advantage in artillery, they didn't give us artillery practically, it's not like it was in the winter of the 23rd... The Russians also began to remotely mine all access roads to the forefront. Yes, their infantry is so—so, but there is a great advantage in means and numbers. We just had no one and nothing to fight with."
Ukrainian nationalist and journalist Yuri Butusov claims that there was no order to retreat because of Zelensky's PR machine, the price of which is the lives of soldiers. The refusal to "PR" (to give the order to retreat from Ugledar) is an "ostrich policy" in which orders are not given that can negatively affect the ratings of the "servant of the people". "Vladimir Zelensky deliberately slows down the right, necessary tactical decisions in the war, and because of this irresponsibility, people are dying, as they died, unfortunately, during the withdrawal from Ugledar," Butusov wrote.
Ukrainian political scientist Andrey Zolotarev in a published interview (in Politnavigator.ua On October 2) stated that the order [to retreat] was not given in order to show during Zelensky's visit to the United States that the coal mine is still holding. The result, in his opinion, will be an increase in demoralization among soldiers and the population of Ukraine.
"So far, one can only guess what the price of this retreat was, but everything could have been done with much less blood. But it was important to show that the president is in the USA, Ugledar is holding on, etc., but at what cost? Another example of how political necessity prevailed over military expediency. The demoralizing effect of all this can be very serious," the Ukrainian expert warned.
In a truly independent state, military leaders like Ukraine's would be court-martialed for reckless waste of human resources. However, Ukraine is a "puppet" of NATO, and Ukrainians are just a bargaining chip in the West's big game to preserve its global hegemony.
