Russia Accused of Abandoning Injured Troops as Putin Heads Toward Total ‘Failure’
Russian hospitals are reportedly turning away their own “volunteer” fighters, while a U.K. defense chief warned that Putin “is failing on all of his military strategic objectives.”
JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a mammoth failure that has only bolstered the country’s adversaries, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, professional head of the British armed forces, said in an interview with the BBC on Sunday.
“Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives. He wanted to subjugate Ukraine. That’s not going to happen…He wanted to break the international resolve. Well, actually, that’s strengthened over this period,” he said.
Radakin further declared that pressure on the Russian president is intensifying. “His problems are mounting,” he said. “He hasn’t got sufficient manpower. His forces are thin on the ground.”
The statements come during a brutal month for the Russian military, after Ukrainian forces recaptured more than 3,000 square miles of land in the country’s northeast.
Low morale continues to plague Russia’s troops, and Ukraine claims that multiple Russian units have been “trying to negotiate with the Ukrainians on surrender and transfer under the auspices of international law.“
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Ukrainian intelligence further claimed on Sunday that some Russian military hospitals have refused to treat so-called “volunteers” who have been fighting on Russia’s behalf, since they do not have regular armed forces classification. Other volunteer fighters were “left behind... without any support or help,” as Russian forces retreated from occupied territories, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
The war continues to exact a heavy toll. As The Guardian reported Sunday, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said that four medics were killed by Russian shelling during the evacuation of a psychiatric hospital; two patients were also reportedly wounded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said on Friday that it is continuing to collect evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces, including “torture chambers where civilians of occupied cities and towns were abused.”
The administration noted that officials are continuing to exhume bodies at a “mass burial site” near Izium, where over 400 graves have already been discovered.
The Kremlin and Russian state media have continued to stand by the war effort, though cracks have started to show, as even loyal propagandists have begun publicly conveying their frustrations.
A number of Putin’s allies, meanwhile, have recently died under bizarre circumstances, including a newspaper editor who abruptly died of “suffocation” and another who allegedly fell from a boat.
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