Victory Chronicles
-DAY 132

Above: Russia’s calling card: utter destruction and terrorism.  Photo via Foreign Policy

• The enemy continues rolling out its campaign of terror and destruction across eastern Ukraine, focusing its scorched earth artillery campaign on civilian areas of northern Donetsk Oblast.

• After retreating from Lysychansk over the weekend, Ukrainian forces took up new defensive positions in northern Donetsk Oblast where they still control the major cities of Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Bakhmut. “This is the last victory for Russia on Ukrainian territory,” according to Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych.

• The tiny Kremlin despot encouraged the exhausted enemy forces in Donbas to have a little rest.  Analysts estimate that Russia committed sixty percent of forces to Donbas in order to take Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The trophy cities are described as “burnt-down deserts”.

• Eastern Ukraine urban infrastructure was largely built by the Russo-Soviets in the 20th-century drive to industrialize eastern Ukraine with extraction and military-industrial manufacturing.

• Throughout waves of purging of Ukrainian national identity, urban centers were colonized with Russian proletariat and party faithful, turning eastern Ukraine into a pro-Russian political power base.  Russia’s wars against Ukraine have wiped out the pro-Russian base, killed thousands of Russian speaking civilians and obliterated aesthetically-devoid Soviet-built manufacturing and housing infrastructure.

 

Above: Dasvidaniya to eastern Ukraine’s Soviet building stock.  Photo via Kharkiv Today

• Ukraine is desperately and relentlessly calling for fire power parity with the invading military, particularly with longer-range artillery systems. The complex operation of weapons provision includes training operators, maintenance crews, provision of equipment and spare parts.

• Even so, Ukrainian weapons stocks are growing and turning more and more towards Western standard modern armaments.  Over the last two days, Ukrainians have blown up at least five enemy weapons depots in the east and south.

• As some countries like the United States empty domestic inventories, manufacturing capacity is ramping up.  Ukrainians are hopeful that within two to three months, the flow of new weapons will increase dramatically.

Above: According to the Ukrainian ombudsman, Russia has imposed a ban on the exit of military-age mails from the temporarily occupied peninsula. Photo via Radio Liberty

• Ukrainian intelligence has learned that the illegal occupation authorities are preparing to forcibly mobilize residents of Crimea to fight against their own country in gross violation of international law.  The representative of the Ukrainian president for temporarily occupied Crimea issued a warning:

• “We remind you that the conscription and mobilization of our citizens to the armed forces of the occupying state is a gross violation of the standards of international humanitarian law, in particular the provisions of the IV Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians during war.

• “We urge our citizens in temporarily occupied Crimea to do their best to avoid any participation in the military formations of the aggressor country. Sabotage the decisions of the occupiers! Remember, your life is the most precious thing you have! If you can’t avoid the mobilization and be drawn to war, then surrender at the very first chance. This will save your life and keep you from obeying criminal orders.”