The battlelines in Ukraine remain relatively static and the war grinds on at enormous human cost. Ukraine has developed the ability to strike military targets with drones that the Russians are finding difficult to deal with. Unfortunately the Ukrainians are also using their new power to do damage in ways that are problematic.
Dan Katz looks at the issues.
On 13 July Ukraine again accused Russia of executing a prisoner of war, a soldier who had apparently been interrogated and then shot after been taken captive in Yalta, a small village in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has documented over 300 cases of POWs being murdered by Russian forces, although according to Ukrainian military intelligence the real figure is around 900 executed POWs. In addition, Ukraine believes 206 POWs have died from torture and medical neglect while in Russian custody.
According to the UN’s Human Rights Office there have been 65,000 Ukrainian civilian casualties since the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022, including 16,400 deaths. CNN reports that at least 377 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in July and 2,129 injured, the worst month since April 2022, as Russia targets housing blocks, transport, public buildings and power plants.
Ukraine has recorded 230,000 alleged Russian war crimes including use of chemical weapons, murder of civilians, destruction of schools, hospitals and civilian housing, abduction of children and sexual violence.
Unfortunately Ukraine has recently taken a turn towards also destroying civilian infrastructure. It is no justification that Russia’s dictatorship commits war crimes, and on a vast scale, as all such attacks contravene the rules of war. Socialists should argue against them.
In Crimea the electricity grid which serves a population of 2.4mn is being systematically destroyed by newly effective mid-range Ukrainian drone strikes. By 15 July 42 substations had been hit.
A further 18 “energy nodes” were attacked over 25-27 July, bringing the total to 154 in the last month. Most of Sevastopol was without power on 27 July and there were restrictions on water supply and public transport. Widespread petrol shortages continue.
The Medusa news site has analysed recent night-time light patterns in Crimea. On the night of, “3 July, illumination across the peninsula was 83 percent below its April level.”
Electricity blackouts have been particularly severe in northern and central Crimea. Some areas are operating a 3-hours on, 3-hours off system. Electricity cutouts also cause water shortages, sewage disruption and intermittent mobile connections.
Tatyana, quoted by Radio Free Europe, from the coastal town of Chornomorske near the western tip of Crimea, has been charging her phone from a power point set up by local authorities using a generator in a park. “We only had five hours of electricity over four and a half days,” Tatyana said. “My husband brings water in buckets from the hydrant.”
Military bases have alternative power sources and fuel dumps, but not so for civilians.
On 14 July Ukraine attacked the Balaklava gas-fired thermal plant and did serious damage. Crimea’s main sources of electricity are from two thermal plants at Balaklava and Tavriiska with a combined capacity of 940 megawatts, and the Kuban-Crimea undersea cable, through which the Krasnodar region is able to supply 400 megawatts more.
Many bridges, roads and fuel sources are dual-use, military and civilian. But every Ukrainian drone used against a Crimean substation would have been better used against a clear military target. Destroying the electricity and water supplies in Crimea undermines Ukraine’s case, and so also its war.
The attacks on military vehicles along the M-14 in occupied southern Ukraine are justified, of course. And the destruction of rail tracks and bridges in the occupied south of Ukraine is understandable too.
If the Ukrainian offensive we are beginning to expect in the Russian-occupied south takes place we back the Ukrainians, of course. Such an offensive will have been made possible following the radical disruption of Russian supply lines and may well be accompanied by further steps such as the destruction of the Kerch bridge or the rail and vehicle routes along it.
However obliterating the Crimean electricity grid does not help a Ukrainian victory, it simply makes workers in Crimea unemployed, makes life there more difficult, alienates many in the region from Ukraine.
If we were Ukrainian nationalists we might join in with social media comments like: “Now they know how we feel,” or, simply, “Fuck them.” Those may be understandable emotions, but are also not reasonable or politically useful. We want decent lives for all workers, not every worker to feel as bad as the most wretched and miserable. We want workers unity against the Russian occupation, and that means attempting to appeal to Russian workers, not alienate them unnecessarily.
Shipping, oil
Ukraine has also begun attacking shipping – tugboats, oil tankers and cargo vessels - in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. Using the codename MoLoCHKa (Moscow Will Fall Through Crimea), launched on 6 July, 183 Russian ships, mainly oil tankers - were hit in the first 15 days.
The predictable Russian response has been to ramp up attacks on Ukrainian cargo ships, undoing a tacit agreement with Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority Russian forces have attacked 23 port infrastructure facilities and 17 civilian vessels during the first two weeks of July, killing 11 workers.
On 20 July a Turkish-owned grain ship was attacked killing 10, and on the evening of 25 July a ship carrying 2,800 tons of grain to Greece was attacked by drones after departing Odessa. Seven crew were rescued and two are missing.
Lloyds List Intelligence says that world wheat prices have increased as a result, as shipping companies weigh up the risks of operating in Ukrainian waters.
Drone attacks and disruptions to Russian oil refining and storage and hikes in petrol prices inside Russia might make the Russian population anxious and angry, but do nothing to stop the war.
Socialists distinguish between actions that might stop the war and those that simply cause damage. They are not synonymous. We see the danger in the disruption of the grain trade to the populations of poorer nations and how the dismemberment of oil supply might feed into crises in the world economy.
Wildberries
Beginning on the night of 17-18 July Ukraine began to destroy warehouses belonging to Wildberries, a Russian equivalent of Amazon, burning down facilities in Tambov and Elektrostal and killing eight workers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy justified the spectacular strikes by claiming Wildberries supplies drone parts and bulletproof vests to the Russian army. It is true that these things are available from Wildberries, which sells a vast range of goods.
Let’s not exaggerate. Wildberries doesn’t sell weapons. It is used – together with its main competitor, Ozon – by over 90% of economically active Russian citizens to buy gadgets, household goods, books, clothing and food. The retailer employs 4mn workers and sells goods worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia’s GDP. Wildberries overwhelmingly serves the civilian marketplace.
Zelenskyy was making an excuse for this type of Ukrainian attack because he understands he will be accused of hypocrisy and perhaps war crimes for destroying civilian infrastructure. The reality is that Ukraine and Russia are locked in a battle to see how much economic damage they can cause to each other. And that’s not a battle Ukraine can win, given its relative economic size and the lack of military help from Trump-led America to stop Russian ballistic missile attacks.
Russia launched a large-scale attack on Kyiv on 19 July launching 40 ballistic missiles in one hour at the Ukrainian capital. In retaliation Ukraine launched 400 drones at Moscow on 20 July hitting oil storage facilities and Wildberries distribution centres.
If we were Ukrainian nationalists we would join in with those who are laughing at a video of a Russian woman who says, crying, “The Ukrainians killed my husband… now my business is destroyed [in flames as a Wildberries depot is destroyed]”. As we are socialist internationalists, we are not laughing, and we advocate a different policy: attack Putin’s ability to wage war on Ukraine while working for solidarity from Russian workers.
The response from Putin’s regime is to launch more missiles at civilian targets in Ukraine. In the week up to 26 July Russia launched 1,700 drones, 1,630 guided bombs and 95 missiles at Ukraine.
Putin looks likely to expand his war against Ukraine, not to negotiate and quit. It is probable that after the Russian elections in September Putin will order a new draft, perhaps aiming to increase the armed forces by 500,000. And he seems to be looking for another 30,000 troops from North Korea, too.
It is instructive to consider how a Ukrainian workers’ government might differently approach the anti-imperialist fight against Russian occupation. In the first instance it would consider the workers of Russia as potential allies, continually emphasising a common interest in defeating Putin. It would avoid actions that needlessly harm Russian workers, emphasising the need for solidarity.
If Ukraine has 400 drones to spare, launch them at military targets, not Russian oil infrastructure or electricity substations in Crimea.
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