RU-UA war thread

[Istanbulite]

Not seeking any participation. (but no problem if there is) Will post everything here regarding the invasion of Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini.

 

[GentleJerk]

Here we go.

 

[Istanbulite]

May 26, 6:30pm ET​

Russian forces have made steady, incremental gains in heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine in the past several days, though Ukrainian defenses remain effective overall. Deputy Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that the fighting is currently at its "maximum intensity" compared to previous Russian assaults and will likely continue to escalate.[1] Spokesperson for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Oleksandr Motuzyanyk characterized Russian gains as "temporary success" and stated that Ukrainian forces are using a maneuver defense to put pressure on Russian advances in key areas.[2] Russian forces have now taken control of over 95% of Luhansk Oblast and will likely continue efforts to complete the capture of Severodonetsk in the coming days.[3] Russian forces have made several gains in the past week, but their offensive operations remain slow. Russian forces are heavily degraded and will struggle to replace further losses.

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance southeast of Izyum near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border.
• Russian forces continued steady advances around Severodonetsk and likely seek to completely encircle the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area in the coming days.
• Russian forces continued to make persistent advances south and west of Popasna toward Bakhmut, but the Russian pace of advance will likely slow as they approach the town itself.
• Russian forces in occupied areas of the Southern Axis are reportedly preparing a "third line of defense" to consolidate long-term control over the region and in preparation to repel likely future Ukrainian counteroffensives.

 

[CrossroadsCurious]

 

[Istanbulite]

May 27, 7:30pm ET​

Russian forces began direct assaults on Severodonetsk on May 27 despite not yet having fully encircled the town. Russian forces have performed poorly in operations in built-up urban terrain throughout the war to date and are unlikely to be able to advance rapidly in Severodonetsk itself. Russian forces continue to make steady and incremental gains around the city but have not yet encircled the Ukrainian defenders. Ukrainian forces continue to maintain defenses across eastern Ukraine and have slowed most Russian lines of advance. Russian forces will likely continue to make incremental advances and may succeed in encircling Severodonetsk in the coming days, but Russian operations around Izyum remain stalled and Russian forces will likely be unable to increase the pace of their advances.

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces began direct assaults on built-up areas of Severodonetsk without having fully encircled the city and will likely struggle to take ground in the city itself.
• Russian forces in Lyman appear to be dividing their efforts—attacking both southwest to support stalled forces in Izyum and southeast to advance on Siversk; they will likely struggle to accomplish either objective in the coming days.
• Russian forces in Popasna seek to advance north to support the encirclement of Severodonestk rather than advancing west toward Bakhmut.
• Positions northeast of Kharkiv City remain largely static, with no major attacks by either Russian or Ukrainian forces.
• Russian forces continue to fortify their defensive positions along the southern axis and advance efforts to integrate the Kherson region into Russian economic and political structures.

 

[whatevs]

Is anyone in this forum pro-Russia or not pro-Ukraine in this conflict? I don't care about the war personally, I'm just curious if there is anyone with an "odd" opinion in here regarding this.

I'm also curious how many IDGAF about the subject as well.

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Not seeking any participation. (but no problem if there is) Will post everything here regarding the invasion of Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini.

That's Ben Grant, he's the son of a British MP, and a Royal Marine. He's getting some publicity here, he pulled another British volunteer out of the line of fire. I think they're ABC volunteers. American, British and Canadian. Whomever is speaking has a British accent.

Not shown in footage. The BTR exploded moments later, they think it was a live ammo explosion. I wish I could go to Ukraine and help.

Not really pro-anything, but the war in Ukraine seems senseless to me, I don't agree with the Casus Belli if there even is one, and I'm anti-war.

 

[Istanbulite]

Is anyone in this forum pro-Russia or not pro-Ukraine in this conflict? I don't care about the war personally, I'm just curious if there is anyone with an "odd" opinion in here regarding this.

I'm also curious how many IDGAF about the subject as well.

Yeah there are few Putin trolls. I almost got banned cuz of them early March

 

[Chinaski]

Yeah there are few Putin trolls. I almost got banned cuz of them early March

Seriously? I've never seen a pro-Putin position taken here, obviously I'm willing to stand corrected, can you link the threads?
Okay l take from the laugh react that there were in fact no instances of this.

 

[Istanbulite]

May 28, 7:30pm ET​

Russian President Vladimir Putin is inflicting unspeakable suffering on Ukrainians and demanding horrible sacrifices of his own people in an effort to seize a city that does not merit the cost, even for him.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine that aimed to seize and occupy the entire country has become a desperate and bloody offensive to capture a single city in the east while defending important but limited gains in the south and east. Ukraine has twice forced Putin to define down his military objectives. Ukraine defeated Russia in the Battle of Kyiv, forcing Putin to reduce his subsequent military objectives to seizing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine stopped him from achieving that aim as well, forcing him to focus on completing the seizure of Luhansk Oblast alone. Putin is now hurling men and munitions at the last remaining major population center in that oblast, Severodonetsk, as if taking it would win the war for the Kremlin. He is wrong. When the Battle of Severodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.

Russian forces are assaulting Severdonetsk even though they have not yet encircled it. They are making territorial gains and may succeed in taking the city and areas further west. The Ukrainian military is facing the most serious challenge it has encountered since the isolation of the Azovstal Plant in Mariupol and may well suffer a significant tactical defeat in the coming days if Severodonetsk falls, although such an outcome is by no means certain, and the Russian attacks may well stall again.

The Russians are paying a price for their current tactical success that is out of proportion to any real operational or strategic benefit they can hope to receive. Severodonetsk itself is important at this stage in the war primarily because it is the last significant population center in Luhansk Oblast that the Russians do not control. Seizing it will let Moscow declare that it has secured Luhansk Oblast fully but will give Russia no other significant military or economic benefit. This is especially true because Russian forces are destroying the city as they assault it and will control its rubble if they capture it. Taking Severodonetsk can open a Russian ground line of communication (GLOC) to support operations to the west, but the Russians have failed to secure much more advantageous GLOCs from Izyum partly because they have concentrated so much on Severodonetsk.

The Russians continue to make extremely limited progress in their efforts to gain control of the unoccupied areas of Donetsk Oblast, meanwhile. Russian troops have struggled to penetrate the pre-February 24 line of contact for weeks, while Russian offensive operations from Izyum to the south remain largely stalled. The seizure of Severodonetsk could only assist in the conquest of the rest of Donetsk Oblast if it gave the Russians momentum on which to build successive operations, but the Battle of Severdonetsk will most likely preclude continued large-scale Russian offensive operations.

Russian progress around Severdonetsk results largely from the fact that Moscow has concentrated forces, equipment, and materiel drawn from all other axes on this one objective. Russian troops have been unable to make progress on any other axes for weeks and have largely not even tried to do so. Ukrainian defenders have inflicted fearful casualties on the Russian attackers around Severodonetsk even so. Moscow will not be able to recoup large amounts of effective combat power even if it seizes Severdonetsk, because it is expending that combat power frivolously on taking the city.

Ukrainian forces are also suffering serious losses in the Battle of Severodonetsk, as are Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure. The Russians have concentrated a much higher proportion of their available offensive combat power to take Severodonetsk than the Ukrainians, however, shaping the attrition gradient generally in Kyiv's favor. The Ukrainians continue to receive supplies and materiel from their allies as well, however slow and limited that flow may be. The Russians, in contrast, continue to manifest clear signs that they are burning through their available reserves of manpower and materiel with no reason to expect relief in the coming months.

 

[Istanbulite]

Karolina Hird, Mason Clark, and George Barros

May 29, 5:30 pm ET​

New reports confirmed that Ukrainian forces conducted a successful limited counterattack near the Kherson-Mykolaiv oblast border on May 28, forcing Russian forces onto the defensive. This Ukrainian counterattack is likely intended to disrupt Russian efforts to establish strong defensive positions along the Southern Axis. While the Ukrainian counterattack does not appear likely to retake substantial territory in the near term, it will likely disrupt Russian operations and potentially force Russia to deploy reinforcements to the Kherson region, which is predominantly held by sub-standard units. Ukrainian counterattacks may additionally slow Russian efforts to consolidate administrative control of occupied southern Ukraine.[1]

Russian forces continued to assault Severodonetsk on May 29 but did not make any confirmed advances; Russian progress in intense urban combat will likely be slow. The Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine—which previously aimed to capture the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts—is now focused almost entirely on Severodonetsk. Russian troops are unlikely to be able to conduct multiple simultaneous operations and will likely further deprioritize advances southeast of Izyum and west of Lyman in favor of concentrating available forces on Severodonetsk in the coming days.

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces continued attempts to take full control of Severodonetsk.
• Russian forces continued offensives southeast of Izyum but did not make any confirmed advances toward Slovyansk.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations to cut Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) northeast of Bakhmut and appear unlikely to attempt to directly assault the city.
• The Ukrainian counteroffensive in northwestern Kherson Oblast has forced Russian troops to take up defensive positions and will likely disrupt Russian efforts to effectively dig in and consolidate control of occupied areas along the Southern Axis.

 

[GentleJerk]

**trigger warning, this comment contains stuff about Ukrainian white supremacy. If you don't want to hear it, stop reading now**

I'm putting this here because this issue is one of the key points that Putin was supposedly trying to address when Russia invaded in Feb. So for that reason I feel like it's relevant to the RU/UA war thread. I'm aware of the OP's bias about all this and I know they will react badly but I don't care. FYI I'm not on any side of this, I hate war and I don't support either of these countries or their leaders over the other. I'm mentioning it also because there seems to be a sudden huge denial of this particular subject going on, and there have been many members on this site who deny this also, or have no clue so they take whatever popular position is pushed on them.

My guess is that by acknowledging the reality of Neo Nazi's in Ukraine, it comes across as insensitive to Ukrainian suffering, or that this somehow lends some sort of justification to Putin's regime, but I want to stress that I do not think so. It's simply a fact, and we can't all go and sweep known facts under the rug or deny them just because we are trying to show solidarity. My sympathies go out to all the people suffering because of this horrible war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, my buddy gave me his password for the Disney channel. I just watched The Mandolorian and thought it was good, I can't seem to understand why everyone thinks Disney ruined Star Wars but there you go. I'm happy to hear opinions about this.

...Anyway.

Last night I just watched the white supremacy episode of Trafficked by Mariana van Zeller, where they go into Ukrainian Nazification with some detail. If anyone wants to learn more about the whole Ukraine Neo Nazi thing, they should give it a watch. Very interesting. I think it was released in January right before the war started.

It talks about Ukraine's reputation as a safe haven and 'global hub' for white supremacy, how racists from all over the world including the US travel there and are trained in combat, and how the Ukrainian government gave weapons and funding to a far-right fascist Neo Nazi paramilitary, and legitimised them.

I find it strange that Ukraine has been well known for quite some time as a country with a large Neo Nazi problem in comparison to other nations, but this fact has been suddenly hush-hushed since the war with Russia started. I'm not saying the majority of Ukraine is racist or anything, I'm sure most Ukrainians probably dislike those people who give Ukraine a bad name and ruin basically every soccer match- but the number of white supremacists and Neo Nazi's there is probably the highest in the world, and the level of power they have been allowed to wield is on par with the military of a small nation. In fact, that was all I knew about Ukraine before the war started, because I watched Ross Kemp's Ukrainian soccer Nazi's special and went to school with a guy who ended up becoming a skinhead and moving to Ukraine.

Yeah, so watch Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. It's a good show!

 

[Istanbulite]

**trigger warning, this comment contains stuff about Ukrainian white supremacy. If you don't want to hear it, stop reading now**

I'm putting this here because this issue is one of the key points that Putin was supposedly trying to address when Russia invaded in Feb. So for that reason I feel like it's relevant to the RU/UA war thread. I'm aware of the OP's bias about all this and I know they will react badly but I don't care. FYI I'm not on any side of this, I hate war and I don't support either of these countries or their leaders over the other. I'm mentioning it also because there seems to be a sudden huge denial of this particular subject going on, and there have been many members on this site who deny this also, or have no clue so they take whatever popular position is pushed on them.

My guess is that by acknowledging the reality of Neo Nazi's in Ukraine, it comes across as insensitive to Ukrainian suffering, or that this somehow lends some sort of justification to Putin's regime, but I want to stress that I do not think so. It's simply a fact, and we can't all go and sweep known facts under the rug or deny them just because we are trying to show solidarity. My sympathies go out to all the people suffering because of this horrible war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, my buddy gave me his password for the Disney channel. I just watched The Mandolorian and thought it was good, I can't seem to understand why everyone thinks Disney ruined Star Wars but there you go. I'm happy to hear opinions about this.

...Anyway.

Last night I just watched the white supremacy episode of Trafficked by Mariana van Zeller, where they go into Ukrainian Nazification with some detail. If anyone wants to learn more about the whole Ukraine Neo Nazi thing, they should give it a watch. Very interesting. I think it was released in January right before the war started.

It talks about Ukraine's reputation as a safe haven and 'global hub' for white supremacy, how racists from all over the world including the US travel there and are trained in combat, and how their government gave weapons and funding to a far-right fascist Neo Nazi paramilitary, and legitimised them.

I find it strange that Ukraine has been well known for quite some time as a country with a large Neo Nazi problem in comparison to other nations, but this fact has been suddenly hush-hushed since the war with Russia started. I'm not saying the majority of Ukraine is racist or anything, I'm sure most Ukrainians probably dislike those people who give Ukraine a bad name and ruin basically every soccer match- but the number of white supremacists and Neo Nazi's there is probably the highest in the world, and the level of power they have been allowed to wield is on par with the military of a small nation. In fact, that was all I knew about Ukraine before the war started, because I watched Ross Kemp's Ukrainian soccer Nazi's special and went to school with a guy who ended up becoming a skinhead and moving to Ukraine.

Yeah, so watch Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. It's a good show!

All Ukrainians are Nazis bs is long thrown into the bin. Please leave this thread before I call you worse names.

 

[Istanbulite]

 

[Istanbulite]

 

[Istanbulite]

A lot of confusing information, some says that Russians took Severodonetsks and Ukrainian troop retreated. While other saying that Russians control about half of the city with heavy street battles in the process.

 

[NSA]

**trigger warning, this comment contains stuff about Ukrainian white supremacy. If you don't want to hear it, stop reading now**

I'm putting this here because this issue is one of the key points that Putin was supposedly trying to address when Russia invaded in Feb. So for that reason I feel like it's relevant to the RU/UA war thread. I'm aware of the OP's bias about all this and I know they will react badly but I don't care. FYI I'm not on any side of this, I hate war and I don't support either of these countries or their leaders over the other. I'm mentioning it also because there seems to be a sudden huge denial of this particular subject going on, and there have been many members on this site who deny this also, or have no clue so they take whatever popular position is pushed on them.

My guess is that by acknowledging the reality of Neo Nazi's in Ukraine, it comes across as insensitive to Ukrainian suffering, or that this somehow lends some sort of justification to Putin's regime, but I want to stress that I do not think so. It's simply a fact, and we can't all go and sweep known facts under the rug or deny them just because we are trying to show solidarity. My sympathies go out to all the people suffering because of this horrible war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, my buddy gave me his password for the Disney channel. I just watched The Mandolorian and thought it was good, I can't seem to understand why everyone thinks Disney ruined Star Wars but there you go. I'm happy to hear opinions about this.

...Anyway.

Last night I just watched the white supremacy episode of Trafficked by Mariana van Zeller, where they go into Ukrainian Nazification with some detail. If anyone wants to learn more about the whole Ukraine Neo Nazi thing, they should give it a watch. Very interesting. I think it was released in January right before the war started.

It talks about Ukraine's reputation as a safe haven and 'global hub' for white supremacy, how racists from all over the world including the US travel there and are trained in combat, and how the Ukrainian government gave weapons and funding to a far-right fascist Neo Nazi paramilitary, and legitimised them.

I find it strange that Ukraine has been well known for quite some time as a country with a large Neo Nazi problem in comparison to other nations, but this fact has been suddenly hush-hushed since the war with Russia started. I'm not saying the majority of Ukraine is racist or anything, I'm sure most Ukrainians probably dislike those people who give Ukraine a bad name and ruin basically every soccer match- but the number of white supremacists and Neo Nazi's there is probably the highest in the world, and the level of power they have been allowed to wield is on par with the military of a small nation. In fact, that was all I knew about Ukraine before the war started, because I watched Ross Kemp's Ukrainian soccer Nazi's special and went to school with a guy who ended up becoming a skinhead and moving to Ukraine.

Yeah, so watch Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. It's a good show!

Even if this is true, it still doesn't justify Putin's bullshit. Gonna invade the USA to "denazify" it. Lol I'd (almost) like to see him try. This Is no moral war on his part. He's only picking on Ukraine because he thought he could get away with it.

It is annoying that people always need a "perfect hero and villian" for every damn thing, though. No one or country is perfect. It's all about who's being the bigger dickhead at the moment. And currently that's Russia.

 

[GentleJerk]

it still doesn't justify Putin's bullshit

Yeah. I mean, it's not like Ukraine has tons of oil and poppy fields like Afghanistan or something.

Did you watch the episode? Season 2 episode 6 I think.

 

[Istanbulite]

Yeah. I mean, it's not like Ukraine has tons of oil and poppy fields like Afghanistan or something.

Did you watch the episode? Season 2 episode 6 I think.

eff off from my thread, last warning

 

[GentleJerk]

eff off from my thread, last warning

Why? I haven't done anything wrong. I was just replying to someone tagging me. Plus I happen to agree with him.

FYI you don't get to decide who can and can't post in this thread, it's a public forum. And stop sending me DM's, I'm not reading them.

 

[Istanbulite]

Why? I haven't done anything wrong. I was just replying to someone tagging me. Plus I happen to agree with him.

FYI you don't get to decide who can and can't post in this thread, it's a public forum. And stop sending me DM's, I'm not reading them.

Eff off. You are not wanted here you freaking KKK supporter. Root for UA even more if they are Nazi, since you are an American Nazi it turns out, reading your sig below.

 

[Chinaski]

Eff off. You are not wanted here you freaking KKK supporter. Root for UA even more if they are Nazi, since you are an American Nazi it turns out, reading your sig below.

You can't keep telling people who can post and where, this is a public forum, once you've started a thread anyone can post in it.

 

[Istanbulite]

You can't keep telling people who can post and where, this is a public forum, once you've started a thread anyone can post in it.

Do you remember @Snake of Eden ? he had a thread exclusively for himself, no one else posted in it. Sure I said I welcome contributions but the far right nut cases are pain in the ass.

 

[Chinaski]

Do you remember @Snake of Eden ? he had a thread exclusively for himself, no one else posted in it. Sure I said I welcome contributions but the far right nut cases are pain in the ass.

Yeah nobody posted in it because literally nobody read that shit, that didn't mean he had the right to tell people they couldn't if they wanted to.

 

[rationaltake]

You know what? I feel like posting in this thread now. I'm banging the knocker, I'm slamming the door, I'm strewing wet towels around the bathroom and hiding mouldy mugs of cold coffee under the bed. I'm leaving the kitchen tap running and I'm opening the Cadbury's Roses and taking a bite out of every single chocolate.

PS I'll be back tomorrow so kindly get some ginger ale in.

 

[whatevs]

I want to side with Russia to be the contrarian I'm always trying to be but overall its reasons to invade don't seem enough to warrant the magnitude of the move. I get it that pro-russians were being murdered in the zones in dispute and the democratic process to decide separation had become impossible but it still seems lacking as an excuse.

I can't understand how Putin says that he is trying to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine with a straight face. Absolutely ridiculous. I don't account that as an excuse, it's just a brain fart said with a serious countenance. Ridiculous.

 

[αmber]

such an amazing world we live in

 

[NSA]

"A brain fart with a straight face". Best description of world politics ever

 

[PreussenBlueJay]

I want to side with Russia to be the contrarian I'm always trying to be but overall its reasons to invade don't seem enough to warrant the magnitude of the move. I get it that pro-russians were being murdered in the zones in dispute and the democratic process to decide separation had become impossible but it still seems lacking as an excuse.

I can't understand how Putin says that he is trying to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine with a straight face. Absolutely ridiculous. I don't account that as an excuse, it's just a brain fart said with a serious countenance. Ridiculous.

I wonder if the Crimea annexation didn't ruin everything for him as it made the diplomatic road impossible forever. Was it really inevitable that Russia would be isolated entirely? It just seems like their methods are stuck in the 20th century with no adaptation.

The invasion is a disaster as well for the lack of recognition that the corrupt officials had corroded the fighting ability of the armed forces. Much of the fear factor has been taken out of Russian military might as they eagerly rolled out a force woefully unprepared for an invasion on that scale.

 

[Istanbulite]

Institute for the Study of War

www.understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, May 31

Moscow's concentration on seizing Severodonetsk and Donbas generally continues to create vulnerabilities for Russia in Ukraine's vital Kherson Oblast, where Ukrainian counter-offensives continue. Kherson is critical terrain because it is the only area of Ukraine in which Russian forces hold ground on the west bank of the Dnipro River. If Russia is able to retain a strong lodgment in Kherson when fighting stops it will be in a very strong position from which to launch a future invasion. If Ukraine regains Kherson, on the other hand, Ukraine will be in a much stronger position to defend itself against future Russian attack. This strategic calculus should in principle lead Russia to allocate sufficient combat power to hold Kherson. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen instead to concentrate all the forces and resources that can be scraped together in a desperate and bloody push to seize areas of eastern Ukraine that will give him largely symbolic gains. Continuing successful Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson indicate that Ukraine's commanders recognize these realities and are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities that Putin's decisions have created.

The Ukrainian leadership has apparently wisely avoided matching Putin's mistaken prioritization. Kyiv could have committed more reserves and resources to the defense of Severodonetsk, and its failure to do so has drawn criticism. Ukrainian forces are now apparently withdrawing from Severodonetsk rather than fighting to the end—a factor that has allowed the Russians to move into the city relatively rapidly after beginning their full-scale assault. Both the decision to avoid committing more resources to saving Severodonetsk and the decision to withdraw from it were strategically sound, however painful. Ukraine must husband its more limited resources and focus on regaining critical terrain rather than on defending ground whose control will not determine the outcome of the war or the conditions for the renewal of war.

Sound Ukrainian prioritization of counter-offensive and defensive operations pushed the Russians almost out of artillery range of Kharkiv City and have stopped the Russian advances from Izyum—both of which are more important accomplishments than the defense of Severodonetsk. Ukraine's leadership has had to make incredibly difficult choices in this war and has generally made the right ones, at least at the level of strategic prioritization and in the pace, scale, and ambitiousness of its counter-offensives. That is why Ukraine still has a good chance to stop and then reverse the gains Russia is currently making.

Russian forces are likely attempting to exploit Belarusian equipment reserves to compensate for heavy material losses in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May 31 that Belarusian forces are moving tanks and infantry fighting vehicles from storage facilities in Belarus to Russia to replenish combat losses. This report corroborates previous reporting that Russian forces have largely exhausted their own reserves and indicates that the Kremlin is still leveraging its influence over Belarus in order to use Belarusian equipment.

Some pro-Russian milbloggers began to capture the frustrating realities of limited warfare, which may further intensify societal tensions in Russia. Pro-Russian political figure and self-proclaimed "People's Governor of Donetsk Oblast" Pavel Gubarev said that the limited mobilization of Russians for war has divided Russian society into two groups: a small proportion that is involved in the war and the "peacetime Russians" who distance themselves from the war effort and are inconvenienced by foreign sanctions. Gubarev blamed the "peacetime Russians" for failing to start collecting donations for Russian equipment, while criticizing the Kremlin for increasing propaganda about Russian successes during the "special military operation" in Ukraine. Gubarev also blamed the "peacetime Russians" for slowing down rotation rates due to fear of conscription. Guberev noted that mass mobilization could resolve the divide in society but opined that Russian commanders will not order such a mobilization to avoid mass casualties of unprepared conscripts as occurred, he notes, in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR).

Gubarev is accurately capturing a phenomenon that is normal in a limited war that nevertheless generates high casualties. Resentment by those fighting such a war and their families against those who are untouched by the horrors of combat can grow even in an all-volunteer professional military, as Western countries experienced during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is likely to be even more pronounced in Russia, whose military relies so heavily on conscripts and involuntarily-recalled reservists. This resentment can erode morale and will to fight as well as the propensity to volunteer for military service.

Russian citizens continued to conduct a series of attacks on Russian military recruitment centers in late May, likely in protest of covert mobilization. Russian Telegram channel Baza reported that the Russian Federal Security Service arrested a former Moscow artist and opposition figure, Ilya Farber, for Molotov Cocktail attacks on military recruitment centers in Udmurtia in the Urals on May 21. A Russian court had previously sentenced Farber to an eight-year prison sentence for a bribery case. The case gained Farber significant support from Russian opposition leaders. Farber admitted to committing arson in court on May 30. Baza also reported two more attacks on recruitment centers in Simferopol and Tula Oblast on May 28 and May 31, respectively.