THE YARD PUNK IS FAILING

despite four days of the heaviest aerial bombardment of Ukraine since the beginning of the war, the Russian attacks have failed. Those cruise missiles that were not shot down by the defenders did not hit any targets of high military or political value.

With nearly 700,000 Russian men having departed Russia rather than remain to be drafted and turned into cannon fodder for the unpopular war, and no success in his aerial terror campaign, Putin has been forced to admit failure, though he has not specifically admitted to such. Members of ethnic minorities and rural residents have complained of being drafted at higher rates than ethnic Russians and city dwellers. At the same time, Russian forces have continued to lose ground in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Today, the Yard Punk announced that the mobilization of “reserves” would cease by the end of October. During a news conference at the conclusion of a summit in Kazakhstan he said 222,000 out of a planned 300,000 reservists had already been mobilized. "This work is coming to an end. I think that in about two weeks all the mobilization activities will be finished.” No mention was made of the now-widespread public complaints across Russia from ethnic minorities and rural residents about being drafted at higher rates than ethnic Russians and city dwellers.

Putin had already announced the postponement of Russia’s autumn conscription cycle from October 1 to November 1 because the partial mobilization is taxing the bureaucracy that oversees the semiannual conscription cycle. Putin has ordered the conscription of 120,000 men for the autumn cycle, 7,000 fewer than a year earlier. However, the annexation of occupied Ukraine changes the use of conscripts. While Russian law prohibits deployment of conscripts abroad, Russian-occupied Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts are now to be Russian territory, ostensibly legalizing use of conscripts on the front lines.

The Russians may intend that mobilized personnel plug gaps in the front lines long enough for the autumn conscripts to receive some training. Mobilized personnel are receiving little training before being sent to the front. Training consists of 5-10 days of “initial training,” 5-15 days of training with combat units, then they are sent to units at the front. The training likely does not consist of actual combat preparation; anecdotal reports state men in some units wandered around training grounds without commanding officers, food, or shelter for several days before being shipped to Ukraine, while many would-be trainers and officers were injured or killed in Ukraine before mobilization began. Russian training grounds are understaffed, a problem that will persist into the autumn conscription cycle.

Of the 220,000 mobilized since September 21, 35,000 are already in Russian military units and 16,000 are already involved in combat missions. Russian media reported that five mobilized men from Chelyabinsk have already died in combat in Ukraine just three weeks after President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of partial mobilization. Several pro-war milbloggers claimed that the number of dead and wounded among mobilized servicemen is likely higher than this due to lack of promised training, equipment, unit cohesion, and commanders, as well as repeated instances of wrongful mobilization. There are dozens of anecdotal reports from Russian outlets of untrained, unequipped, and utterly unprepared men being rushed to the frontlines, where some have already surrendered to Ukrainian forces. A Western official said some of the newly mobilized Russian troops were already taking casualties, and that their presence was unlikely to turn the tide. "It is clear that they have been fielded with very, very limited training and very, very poor equipment."

While Russian forces have continued to conduct limited ground attacks in northwestern Kherson Oblast in order to regain lost positions, Russian officials continue to say that their movement of populations out of Kherson Oblast are recreational “humanitarian trips” rather than evacuations. The fact these evacuations are on the increase means that the Russian attacks to regain territory around Kherson are not succeeding.

Putin also stated in the news conference that Russia had no plans "for now" for further massive air strikes like those carried out this week, claiming that Russian forces struck 22 of their 29 intended targets and that there are now unspecified “other tasks” for Russian forces to accomplish. More than 100 long range missiles were fired at targets across Ukraine, seriously depleting a supply of cruise missiles that the Russians cannot replace in the face of the Western sanctions that deny them access to the high technology items like semiconductors necessary to manufacture new missiles. Russia now has too few missiles to sustain a further attack. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov stated on October 14 that Russian forces have 609 high-precision missiles left from the pre-war stockpile of 1,844.

Ukrainian and Western officials continue to reiterate that they have observed no indicators of preparations for a Belarusian invasion of Ukraine, despite alarmist reports in the Belarusian information space that President Alexander Lukashenko has introduced a “counter-terrorist operation” regime. It is believed that Lukashenko would put his domestic control at risk if he entered an unpopular war. The Russians consider the Belarusian forces to be of poor quality and unreliable for combat purposes. Additionally, there are no Russian forces that could join in an invasion of Ukraine from Belarus.

In the meantime, the promises by EU leaders to provide further weapons for Ukraine is being made good on an acelerated basis. The EU plans to step up its military support for Ukraine with an extra €500 million in arms donations and a new initiative to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers in EU countries. The joint EU mission will last for two years; this represents a major change in European support.

The Russian attempt to eradicate the Ukrainian nationality continues with authorities in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory continuing to engage in “Russification” social programming schemes targeting Ukrainian children. On October 13, 24 orphans from Luhansk Oblast arrived in Novosibirsk for placement with Russian foster families. Russian occupation authorities in Melitopol and other southern regions are deporting Ukrainian children to Russian-occupied Crimea, Krasnodar Krai, and Tula and Volgograd Oblasts under the guise of “children’s trips” and “further education” programs. Forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-occupied territory constitute violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Occupation authorities in Mariupol are pressuring Ukrainian teenagers to join the “Youth Guard,” a children’s paramilitary organization that encourages anti-Ukrainian sentiments. Uniformed members of the Youth Guard visited a Ukrainian school and gave children one week to consider joining the group. The coerced engagement of Ukrainian children in youth militarization programs fits into wider Russification schemes intended to erase Ukrainian identity in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

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