We Sleep Safely In Our Beds Because Rough Ukrainians Stand Ready to Inflict Violence

 

War is a brutal, bloody and very nasty business. It is about inflicting violence on others to terminate life, to inflict horrendous injuries and to gain control. It is the manifestation of humanity’s most base violent instincts and it is something that is never nice. There are rules of war and laws of war to try to control this, and restrain some of the worst behaviours, but it is not always possible. At times the conduct of total war for national survival requires difficult decisions to be made.

The report by Amnesty International into Ukrainian activity, alleging that the Ukrainian armed forces may have broken international law is a report so tone-deaf, and so utterly inappropriate to have produced right now, that you must wonder whether its staff are paid agents of the Russian regime. This is the only possible explanation as to why people thought it was a good idea to produce a report right now suggesting that the heroic armed forces of Ukraine, who have rightly won plaudits for their courage, bravery and resilience in fighting off the fascist Russian invaders, are somehow complicit in breaking international law.

The key allegations made are that according to non-expert investigators, who are not military professionals, on occasion in areas such as the Donbas and elsewhere, the Ukrainian military took cover in buildings without necessarily taking steps to evacuate locals (even when woods and military bases were nearby), operated from schools and hospitals, and carried out tactical military operations in a manner that is apparently a breach of international law.

There are times when it is possible to exercise reasonable control of targeting and military operations and ensure that conflict impacts on the fewest people possible, and ideally only the combatants. In a previous life the author had experience of targeting, and in being a ‘red card holder’ for target boards for strikes to be conducted on certain military operations with UK involvement. Without discussing any details, the one abiding memory of this time was the attention to detail and care taken to ensure that planned strikes conducted were done so appropriately, proportionately and in accordance with relevant legal codes.

This is possible when you are operating in a counter insurgency or peacekeeping operation where actual fighting is sporadic, you have the benefit of plentiful ISTAR feeds that can build a clear picture over time of the area, and you have a deep and intimate understanding of the battlespace. The ground you are operating on is unlikely to come under counterbattery fire, and you are generally not engaged in a fight for survival. In those circumstances, adherence to the rule of law is crucial – we cannot be expected to uphold international law and UN mandates if we do not do everything reasonably possible to follow the rules too.

The West has had over 30 years of operations like this – using highly accurate weapons to deliver precise effects in a highly coordinated way. We have had the luxury of time, space and knowing that we are not fighting for our national survival to ensure that when conducting military operations, we play by the rules. Ukraine does not have the luxury of ‘playing by the rules’ because it is in an existential fight for survival against one of the largest armed forces in the world. The world Amnesty exist in is great, but it does not reflect the reality and horrific nature of modern total war – it is a brutal, bloody place where the niceties that we value must take second place to the struggle for survival. The simple fact is that this report smacks of a very naïve and inexperienced individual without the deeper understanding of the nature of modern war assuming that this is just a game. Why can’t the Army just go and hide in their bases, or how dare they not use the woods?

The reason the Army isn’t in the bases is that the Russians know their locations, and if they find them they will be targeted for indiscriminate artillery fire or air strikes – killing Ukrainian troops and destroying materiel. Woods are actually not a great place to take shelter against artillery- if you want to understand how vile wood fighting is, read any account of the fighting in the Hurtgen forest in 1944, where many accounts focus on the ability of trees to be shredded and turned into lethal shards of wooden shrapnel. This is even before you consider how to get vehicles, munitions and logistics into these woods, which may well lack roads. In addition, decent drone capabilities may find it easy to capture the presence of troops or vehicles – again making them far easier to target.

It makes sense to use buildings for two reasons – firstly they are much more resilient and easier to take cover in, defend and fight from. You can conceal yourself there and inflict much pain and misery on the invaders as they try to take the ruins from you. The heroic stand of the Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol shows us how hard it can be to dislodge a committed defender from urban areas. The Russians are past masters of urban operations – having held firm in Stalingrad and Leningrad, and losing hundreds of thousands of troops during the siege of Berlin.  If you hold the buildings in a town, you hold the advantage and against an enemy like the Russians who are tired, at the end of an increasingly fraying logistics chain and reliant on ever smaller pools of manpower and modern munitions, taking a town is brutal and bloody.

The other reason to operate in buildings and the town is simple – to defend it and protect those who cannot, or will not, flee. War is not some elegant battle with clearly defined boundaries marked ‘civvies go away’ – it infests every part of an impacted nation. While the armed forces of Ukraine are trying to help move people, not everyone can or will go. This is their home, and if they leave it, they often have nowhere to go. When faced with risk, do you walk away and become a refugee and lose everything you’ve ever worked for, or do you hold on and hope for the best? The authors at Amnesty International do not live in the real world – they don’t seem to understand that for millions of Ukrainians facing imminent occupation, these aren’t ethical or legal choices that can be made in the cool comfort of an Islington trendy-vegan café, but must be made quickly, facing the decision to stay and risk their life, or go and risk loosing everything. To patronisingly suggest that they should have been moved to safety demonstrates an astounding level of ignorance and arrogance by Amnesty.

The reason the Ukrainians don’t want to retreat is because if they do then Russia can move in and occupy the town. This not only means that the Ukrainians will need to recapture it, either now or later, and in doing so incur unnecessary losses in trying to carry out urban operations against a dug in foe, but they will also be leaving people to Russian occupation.

Lets be really clear what the lived reality of Russian occupation is in 2022 – it means women from young girls to OAPS being beaten and repeatedly raped (including gang rape). It means torture for those captured. It means castration of POW’s and executions, both individual and mass executions. It means theft of belongings and looting of all you own.  It means the mass abduction of individuals, including children, being deported to Russian for a fate as yet unknown. The reality is that the Russian Army is acting a manner akin to a group of murderous brigands from the darkest periods of the Thirty Years War. Of course it makes sense for the Ukrainian Army to stand and hold buildings and fight to defend them at any price. If they don’t do this then their fellow citizens face horrific fates, uncertain futures and possible death. The authors at Amnesty International do not have to worry about whether they will abducted tonight and sent to a Russian gulag, or thrown into a prison cell and tortured. They know that they will not be raped or abducted by drunk power crazed soldiers and they know they can go home and it will still be there. The civilians in Ukraine have none of these assurances, and that is why Amnesty International have the wonderful ability to publish these accusations of law breaking, safely insulated from the real world that they so long ago departed.

There is a wider serious issue here that needs to be addressed. This is a information operations win for the Russian Government of the highest order. Famous for their quietly ignoring the truth, and for publishing all manner of conveniently made-up facts (does anyone remember all the 43 different narratives from the Skripal Poisoning?), the Russian information campaign will exploit this in every possible way. Russia excels at producing fantastical nonsense that muddies the water and exploits even the slightest chink of doubt in the West. They will seize on this as a chance to exploit it for their own ends and try to shape national and international opinion – likely framing it around how the Ukrainians are in clear violation of international law.

Let’s just ignore that Russia flagrantly broke international law by invading Ukraine in the first place shall we, or that their forces have committed a plethora of atrocities and war crimes – suddenly thanks to the useful idiots over at Amnesty International, Russia has evidence that it can use to say ‘what about the Ukrainians’? It is hard to underestimate the damage done by this report, which is a propaganda gift to the Putin regime and a slap in the face to the phenomenally brave members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It will take months to undo the damage done by this report, which even more insultingly was not done with the local Ukrainian group of Amnesty International support.

War is brutal, bloody and horrible. It cannot be contained or controlled in the manner of a wargame. The reality of the world we are in now is that as large scale operations and conflict return, and heavy artillery strikes, airstrikes and wider use of ‘dumb munitions’ proliferate as the ‘smart bombs’ run out, it will get far bloodier before it gets better. In the West we have become too used to both being able to comment on individual strikes, and in being objective in the way we analyse and criticise.

Amnesty International may think it is delivering objective analysis here, but what it is doing is driving a wedge between Ukraine and elements of the West. We do not have the luxury of always being objective when faced with tyrants like Putin who are threatening European security and global stability. While we need to ensure in the fullness of time that we learn from this, and see if more can be done to reduce risks to civilians where possible, we should also accept that there will be time for lecturing by useful idiots after the Ukrainians have claimed victory.

Some will lap this report up as confirming their deeply twisted views of the world (most likely those fully paid up members of the "The Cult of Corbynism" for whom the West can do no right and the Russians can do no wrong. But they would be wise to remember that here in Western Europe we sleep safely in our beds because rough Ukrainian men & women stand ready in the night to visit violence on those Russians who would do us harm. We must support them, not attack them for what they are doing, for if they fail the consequences for all of us are simply too horrific to imagine.