“The Institute “has been trying to avoid surveys directly related to the military action” because mobilization is a “sensitive issue” of state policy..”
• Just 8% of Ukrainians Ready To Take Up Arms Against Russia (RT)
Most Ukrainians expect their country to win in the armed conflict with Russia, but just 8% are willing to fight to further their cause, the head of a leading Kiev-based polling agency has claimed, in an interview published on Tuesday. The Ukrainian leadership has said that it is seeking to boost the military’s ranks by up to 500,000. Additional troops are required to relieve forces on the frontline, some of which have not been properly rotated in years, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has claimed. Vladimir Paniotto of the International Institute of Sociology discussed how the Ukrainian people’s worldview is reflected in research conducted by his organization with local news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda.
They tend to “wish for conflicting things,” he mused, such as capitalist liberalization alongside robust social support by the state, or democracy as well as the “strong arm” of the government. The conundrum is present in what Ukrainians are willing to do to defeat Russia – an outcome that they overwhelmingly believe will end the ongoing hostilities. ”Certainly, many people are willing to act, to send donations or work as volunteers,” Paniotto said. “But facing a direct risk to life and taking part in military action – that is much harder… We estimate that the share of those willing to take arms is roughly 8% across all categories.” The figure may be overestimated, since the pollster takes the responses at face value without conducting follow-up studies to confirm the respondents’ true intentions. The Institute “has been trying to avoid surveys directly related to the military action” because mobilization is a “sensitive issue” of state policy, he explained.
The Ukrainian parliament is considering a major reform of the military system, which would facilitate the draft, including by imposing serious penalties for evasion. Fighting-age Ukrainian men residing in foreign nations, for example, would not be able to replace their expired passports without the consent of a conscription officer after the bill goes into force, MP Fyodor Venislavsky told the media last week. The lawmaker is a member of the parliamentary Committee for National Security, Defense and Intelligence. The Russian military said on Tuesday that Ukrainian frontline losses since January have surpassed 80,000.
No wonder there are few volunteers.
• Kiev Has Lost More Than 80,000 Troops Since January – Russian MoD (RT)
Ukrainian forces have lost more than 80,000 troops since the beginning of the year, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday, adding that the Russian military is continuing to reduce “the enemy’s combat potential.” More than 14,000 units of military hardware have also been destroyed by Russian forces since January, including 1,200 tanks and other armored combat vehicles. During the same period, Moscow has liberated some 403 square kilometers of Russia’s new territories, Shoigu said. Despite Kiev’s lack of success on the battlefield, the Ukrainian leadership “is still trying to convince its Western sponsors of its ability to resist the Russian Army,” he said. To do so, Kiev has resorted to terrorism and long-range strikes on Russian territories, targeting the civilian population, the minister added.
Not the first time..
• West to Use Hypothetical Russia-Ukraine Talks to Supply Arms to Zelensky (Sp.)
The West will use hypothetical negotiations between Moscow and Kiev to supply weapons to Ukraine and to regroup its forces, Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of the Russian delegation at the talks in Vienna on military security and arms control, told Sputnik. “Even if we imagine the hypothetical possibility of resuming negotiations, it is clear that the [Kiev] regime’s curators will use them to give the Ukrainian armed forces time to rest, pump them up with weapons, and complete a regrouping of troops,” Gavrilov said in an interview dedicated to the 75th anniversary of NATO marked on April 4. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on April 4, 1949.
A repeat of a scenario that emerged after the March 2022 talks in Istanbul when the Ukrainian armed forces received time to rest is unacceptable for Russia, Gavrilov added. Gavrilov also said that the West will use hypothetical negotiations between Moscow and Kiev to supply weapons to Ukraine and to help Kiev regroup its forces. “We have been through this before after the Istanbul talks in the spring of 2022, and the repetition of such a scenario is unacceptable to us. Therefore, at the moment, the future of the Ukrainian conflict is being decided on the battlefield, where our troops hold the initiative along the entire front line,” Gavrilov said in an interview dedicated to the 75th anniversary of NATO marked on April 4.
“If Ukraine’s position weakens, there may be a ‘rallying behind the flag effect’ more favorable to the forces in place..”
• Ukraine’s Defeat May Help EU Establishment (RT)
With polls showing ‘nationalist’ parties surging in popularity ahead of the upcoming European Parliament election, Kiev’s worsening situation could prove useful to the bloc’s powers that be, according to a new book by French investigative journalist Charles Sapin. Most of the EU has been outspoken in supporting the Ukrainian government in the conflict with Russia, sending an estimated €77 billion ($83 billion) worth of weapons, equipment, ammunition and even cash to Kiev. Sapin’s analysis, however, implies that bad news from the battlefield could bolster the European People’s Party (EPP) and the second-largest group, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in upcoming elections. “If Ukraine’s position weakens, there may be a ‘rallying behind the flag effect’ more favorable to the forces in place,” he was quoted as saying by Politico EU on Monday.
Sapin is a reporter for the weekly Le Point who spent six years researching what he calls the “nationalist” parties that form the Identity and Democracy (ID) bloc in the European parliament – such as Hungary’s Fidesz, Portugal’s Chega, Spain’s Vox, France’s National Rally, Brothers of Italy and the Sweden Democrats. The final result was the book called ‘Les Moissons de la Colere’ (The Harvests of Wrath), presented as a deep dive into “nationalist Europe.” One major weakness of the parties in the ID grouping, according to Sapin, is that they have different opinions on the Ukraine conflict. Nationalists’ numbers might be rising but they are “isolated” in Brussels because of their particularism, he contends. Their victories in the upcoming election would move the needle to the right, but to the benefit of the EPP, currently the majority group. This may help explain why French President Emmanuel Macron brought up Ukraine at a recent brainstorming session about the upcoming elections.
Amid the strategy discussions the French leader suddenly voiced a concern that Ukraine “could fall very quickly,” according to sources that spoke with Politico. He then set up a ‘New Europeans’ coalition, an alliance of liberal parties from France, Denmark, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – long the sole dissenter when it came to aiding Kiev – doubled down on calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine and a negotiated peace. According to Sapin, parties like Orban’s have gained power thanks to semantic tricks and ideological acrobatics, converting “old bourgeois” voters by talking about immigration, identity and the environment and abandoning calls for leaving the EU. His book includes insights from both the closest political advisers to Orban, from Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen – and from their political enemies.
“Bucha” has become a curious narrative.
• Stop Covering Up Kiev Role In Bucha Events – Zakharova (TASS)
Russia is calling upon international organizations to stop covering up for the Kiev regime and its role in perpetrating the events almost two years ago in the Kiev suburb of Bucha, and instead to push for a thorough investigation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment ahead of the second anniversary of what she called the staged incident in Bucha. “Once again, we demand that international organizations stop covering up for the Kiev regime and instead work toward conducting a thoroughgoing investigation that will, at long last, disclose the names of those killed, the time and cause of their deaths <…> as well as of those responsible for that terrible crime committed by the Kiev regime,” Zakharova said.
Meanwhile, numerous previous calls by Russia for international organizations, including agencies of the United Nations, to conduct a serious investigation of precisely what transpired in Bucha two years ago have to date remained unanswered, the Russian diplomat added. “Multiple Russian calls on international organizations, including appeals to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, to investigate every detail of what happened <…> in Bucha or [reveal] other information remain unanswered,” Zakharova lamented. “It shows that the organizers of that deadly operation have something to conceal,” she said. According to Zakharova, this year, Ukrainian officials will be pursuing the goal of preventing the international community from focusing too much on the dire situation in Ukraine and along the line of engagement.
Russian Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin said in April 2022 that a criminal investigation had been launched under Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Public Dissemination of False Information about the Use of the Russian Armed Forces”) following a Ukrainian false flag operation in Bucha, a suburb of Kiev. He noted that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry had provided video footage purportedly taken in Bucha to Western media outlets, describing it as proof of mass killings of civilians, in a bid to discredit the Russian Armed Forces. However, statements made by the mayor of Bucha on March 31, 2022, combined with other reports, have substantiated the fact that the Russian Army pulled out of the town on March 30. Moreover, a video filmed by Ukrainians that surfaced on social media immediately after the withdrawal of Russian troops made no mention at all of the alleged killing of civilians in the town.
