'Corrupt and bankrupt': ex-general dismantles Putin's army – 'armed group of thugs'
Created: 08/05/2022 04:48
By: Felix Durach
The Russian army is acting in the Ukraine war with frightening brutality - for a military expert a bad sign for the general condition of the troops.
Moscow – The Russian armed forces are acting with extreme brutality in the Ukraine war.
Independent observers accuse them of an increasing number of war crimes.
The massacre in the Kiev suburb of Bucha and the bombing of the theater in Mariupol are just two of the horrific crimes committed in the first months of the war.
The latest report of an avoidable war crime followed last Friday.
At least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in an attack on a prison camp in the Donetsk region.
The Kremlin blames Ukrainian multiple rocket launchers for the attack, but at the same time denies the International Red Cross Committee access to the destroyed barracks.
Military analysts blame the Russian military for the attack.
Ukraine-News: Human Rights Watch reports war crimes - Russian soldiers allegedly torturing prisoners
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch recently reported on various war crimes by the Russian armed forces.
According to the organization, Putin's soldiers are torturing civilians and prisoners of war in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
"Russian forces have turned the occupied territories of southern Ukraine into an abyss of fear and rampant lawlessness," Human Rights Watch said.
The international public recently got an impression of the torture in a published video that is supposed to show how a Russian soldier first chokes and then castrates a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
The brutal actions of the Russian troops, which violated the Geneva Conventions, do not appear to be an isolated case.
Russian soldiers ride on an armored vehicle on a road near the Russia-Ukraine border.
© Anton Vergun/dpa
Ex-General on Russian war crimes - more than "just war"
The extreme brutality with which Russian forces are operating in Ukraine is emblematic of the state of Putin's army, according to military expert Mick Ryan.
Ryan is a former General in the Australian Army and has worked as an author and military analyst since leaving the force.
For the Australian news portal
ABC News
, the expert takes a look at Ukraine at regular intervals and helps to classify the situation.
"A small portion of the population might dismiss these acts as 'just war,'" Ryan explains in his analysis of the acts.
However, the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers violated existing laws designed to protect soldiers and prisoners of war.
The handling of prisoners of war is clearly defined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which were also signed by Russia.
Military expert: Russian military is 'professionally corrupt and morally bankrupt'
According to Ryan, should the reports of Russian war crimes prove true, it would provide a good insight into the structure of the Russian army.
"These incidents would suggest that the reforms undertaken in the Russian army over the past few decades have failed to produce a modern, effective and ethical military institution," the analyst said.
Rather, the steps taken by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov would have shaped an organization that is "professionally corrupt and morally bankrupt."
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The military leadership of Russia: President Vladimir Putin (centre) together with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during a parade in Moscow.
© OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP
Ex-general sees problems in Russian military - Putin's army an "armed group of thugs"
All the reforms would have done was "to give comparatively new equipment to an institution stuck in ancient ways of thinking about warfare."
Ryan also sees the behavior of the Russian army as having a strong effect on the further course of the war.
"An army that explicitly or implicitly tolerates such behavior will never be able to fight as an effective and cohesive force," predicts the ex-general.
Ryan adds, “An army that operates with an 'anything goes' ethos is not an army.
It's no better than an armed group of thugs."
The statements of the Australian expert also coincide with the assessments of the US historian and Yale professor Timothy Snyder.
In his personal blog last week, he wondered about the poorly developed strategy of the Russian armed forces in southern Ukraine.
"I must state that Russia was by and large unable to take advantage of the comparatively favorable terrain in south-eastern Ukraine in May and June." There, Moscow has been slow to make progress, although Ukrainian forces have not yet been equipped with Western weapons systems were.
The Ukraine War in Pictures - Destruction, Resistance and Hope
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Putin's rhetoric as trigger for brutality of the soldiers?
dehumanization of Ukrainians
Ryan clearly sees the rhetoric of President Vladimir Putin leading up to the war as the trigger for the war crimes and acts of violence by Russian forces.
He had repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine was not a real country and should be viewed historically as part of the Soviet Union.
In doing so, the President is serving a process of dehumanization that runs through the entire command structure.
On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced that he would appoint a team of independent experts to investigate the attack on the Donetsk prison.
An independent investigation into the war crimes in Ukraine would be the first step in a lengthy process of holding those responsible accountable.
(fd)
