WORLD WORLDWIDE UK UKRAINE RUSSIA WAR News Journal Update - (en) UK, ACG: Refusals to fight from both sides of the front: entering the second autumn of war (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The following article originally appeared on the libcom site. It was

written by the comrades of the Ukrainian anarchist group Assembly ----
The bloody counter-offensive dragged on for months, which turned into a
new meat grinder on the Somme after the new Verdun battle near Bakhmut,
is being noticeably reflected in the social atmosphere. The interlocutor
of Assembly, driving trains in the Kharkov subway, anonymously told back
on June 25: ---- "My brother is fighting near Bakhmut, the 31st assault
brigade. Last week they went on the offensive - got such fight back that
retreated further than they were before the offensive. The next day, the
colonels arrived with threats. And where to attack, there are cannons,
mortars, aircrafts. The day before yesterday, two battalions refused to
fight at all. They didn't feed the guys, they threatened to imprison
them. Three battalions laid down their arms, because they were driven to
the slaughter without support. 30 people were immediately laid on the
ground. They gave a new commander, but it's all the same. They barely
took some village. There are no tanks, there is no Bradley, they are
taking care of it, in order not to upset the West. But they are not
taking care of the infantry - they gave two Polish sniper rifles and
took them away. There is no food, only one dry ration. Were threatened
to imprison, they answer: imprison, and who will come to our positions?
Now they continue to fight somehow, but on the spot, without mood. Such
things."

The same informant confirms the June article by Der Spiegel about
tankers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine who imitate tank damage to avoid
their going on the southern counteroffensive. "They stand still. They
gave them a combat vehicle with a plastic hood. Once they went
somewhere, it stalled, they barely dug it out. These vehicles are
standing, no one wants to drive them, a death capsule," said that driver
on August 5.

Also in the first half of August, a video interview of political blogger
Yury Romanenko, close to Zelensky's Office, with sniper Konstantin
Proshinsky, who is fighting near Bakhmut, appeared. It received a
resonance, including in the Western media, with the words that the army
would not be against the "Korean scenario", as well as criticism of
"tough mobilization" and a ban on leaving Ukraine for men, because "we
will never win a war against Russia by numbers." But besides this,
Proshinsky confirmed the Assembly's information about saving Western
heavy equipment by infantry attacks in the style of Russian "meat
assaults" and about refusers in the Ukrainian army. According to the
military, among the recruits recently sent to Bakhmut, the youngest was
52 years old. Among the rest were men with tuberculosis, hepatitis and
diabetes. They were mobilized, allowed to spend the night in the
enlistment office, and the next morning were sent to the front. Many of
such fighters after the first battle write a refusal to participate in
hostilities. This is not desertion, therefore it does not entail
criminal liability - the applicant should be transferred to a supply
company, and soon such companies "will number thousands of people," the
guest of the program said.

Meanwhile, the advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the territory from
Kupyansk to Kremenna, apparently, is even less successful than the
Ukrainian attempts of breaking through to Azov Coast and Bakhmut. The
fighting spirit of the occupiers is so-so too. Our colleagues from ASTRA
published on August 9 and 11 new evidence about a clandestine basement
for Russian refusers in Zaytsevo, northeast of the Lugansk region.
Mobilized of the "Storm" detachment (military unit 31134) complained to
their families how they were being forced to go to certain death.
Relatives of several servicemen told ASTRA about this, submitting their
complaints to the Investigative Committee, as well as an audio recording
of a conversation with one of the mobilized. On the recording, the
fighter says that they will have a fourth assault in a row, they are
thrown into attacks without weapons and rest: "We are only 20 out of 100
left from "Storm". That's almost 20 minutes of combat. <...> We are
being forced to go into the minefields. Why are we so driven there?
Because the authorities have already reported that they have already
taken everything. <...> For those who went into denial, the commander
personally shot through the legs." All 24 survivors were sent to the
basement in Zaytsevo, contact with them disappeared. As the editor of
the channel, Anastasia Chumakova, added to us, the inmates there are
constantly different.

The Siberian opposition resource "People of Baikal" posted on July 25
about a mobilized resident of Irkutsk named Alexander, who served in the
"Storm" unit of the 90th tank division. In early March 2023, he, along
with three mates, left the position and went to Alexandrovsk, where they
rented an apartment and drank alcohol. There they were detained and sent
to the commandant's office. After that, Alexander was found dead near
Chervonopopovka (also on the Lugansk-Kharkov borderland) with traces of
a noose around his neck. "I realized that this is not the war that I
imagined. This is extermination, we were prepared as a bait. Let them
put me in prison, I won't die for this," his brother Sergey retells the
words of the deceased. He is trying to clarify the circumstances of
death through the military prosecutor's office and Investigative Committee.

And the timing for both states is running out. More or less warm
September, and that's all - again cold, mud and positional clashes.
Judging by the sharp tightening of the Russian conscription legislation,
a new wave of open mobilization is coming there. However, until the
presidential elections in 2024, their authorities are trying to limit
themselves by forcing the signing of contracts of the most bonded social
strata - convicts, conscripts and Central Asian migrants. Along with
those who refuse to fight, both on the Ukrainian and Russian side it is
already easy to meet a front-line soldier who vaguely suspects that he
is being used as expendable material, but is afraid to admit it to
himself. They like to ask random civilians why they are not in the
trenches and are not going to go there, but somehow they do not ask the
owners of life anything about doing business with representatives of the
enemy and corruption in army purchases. How many of them will come to
anti-war positions is still a question. It is only certain that if
everything continues as it is now, then someday both states simply will
not have the strength for new offensives.

The front line may not even change much compared to the current one, but
it may also move to the Ukraine borders of 1991. The defeats of one army
from another are not capable of ending the war on their own - they only
force the losing regime to more actively pour new tons of human chips
into the funeral pyre...

Recently, we have already told about the growing disappointment of
Ukrainians in the prospects of overcoming poverty and corruption that
feeds the desire to leave Ukraine at once after the war or even before.

In addition to this, you are welcome to take a look how at the
enterprises in our Kharkov male workers are being replaced by women and
pensioners like in Europe 1916 due to mobilisation.

Welcome to join the fundraising of our team for to work on this
international column and offline volunteer activities. A couple of cups
of coffee in your country, even before the war, could be equivalent to a
day's earnings of a worker in Ukraine. Many thanks everyone in advance!
assembly.org.ua

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2023/09/06/refusals-to-fight-from-both-sides-of-the-front-entering-the-second-autumn-of-war/
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