These days it has been five months since the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the former’s military invasion of the latter’s territory. The level of international engagement has indeed decreased, but the war continues to claim victims and shape the new world.
The human cost
The war cost the lives of tens of thousands of people, and the exact information about this is not at all clear. According to the UN, 3,381 civilians were killed, while the Ukrainian government estimates that the number is between ten thousand and 25 thousand people – according to the government in Kyiv, there are another three thousand dead Ukrainian soldiers.
The Russians report 1,351 dead soldiers and another 3,825 wounded. In Ukraine they claim to have killed 14 thousand Russian soldiers. The American Pentagon estimates the number of dead among the Red Army at about ten thousand soldiers.
Along with those who lost their lives, there are masses who became homeless and destitute. More than 9 million Ukrainians have left their homes since the Russian invasion. Almost 5 million crossed the border to Poland, a million and a half to Russia, a million to Hungary, 900 thousand to Romania, about half a million to Slovakia, half a million to Moldova, and about 20 thousand to Belarus. From there, many continued to other countries in Europe and the whole world, of which about 30 thousand went to Israel.
battle field
In recent weeks, the war in Ukraine has been centered in Lugansk and Donetsk – two districts in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. About half of the total number of people killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war have been killed in the region. Progress in Lugansk and Donetsk is critical for the Russians to be able to present significant successes in the war. If it takes control of these districts, Russia will be able to claim that it has achieved at least one of its goals in the war.
The war in Donbass started long before the invasion. In 2014, tensions reached their peak – after the fall of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, protests began throughout the country. In the Donbas region, a war broke out between separatists who support Russia and the Ukrainian army. In March 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
The separatist movements in eastern Ukraine took advantage of the Russian presence to take over more than a third of the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the Donbass. Since then, the clashes have not stopped. One of the goals with which Putin embarked on the operation last February is to “liberate” the Donbas region – according to Russia, genocide is being committed against pro-Russian residents in the region.
American intelligence officials estimate that Putin intends to annex all of Donbass. The districts of Lugansk and Donetsk are considered part of “Novorussia” – territories in southern Ukraine that were part of the Russian Empire. Experts in the West believe that Putin sees himself as the one who will revive the great Russian empire – this cannot exist without control over Lugansk and Donetsk.
The Donbas region is rich in steel and coal industries and throughout the 20th century was the beating heart of heavy industry in the Soviet Union. Western and European influence in the region is weaker relative to western Ukraine, and therefore it was fertile ground for Russian-directed separatist activity.
The elimination episode
Alongside the bloody war, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, continues to look behind his back. The president who took office only 3 years ago, and arrived completely outside the scope, knows that he has not yet had time to clean the stables of the corrupt government. Therefore, between battles, he finds himself tracking down those suspected of treason and deposing them.
Hundreds of investigations have already been opened against civil servants and Zelensky announced the removal of a number of senior officials of the Ukrainian intelligence service as part of his purge operation against officials who defected to the other side. Last week he fired two senior officials in his government because, according to him, they were not determined enough to seek out and locate traitors.
The ousted are the head of the Internal Security Agency, Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of the president. The second is Irina Venediktova, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Zelensky did not accuse either of them of treason, but hinted that the two “closed their eyes” when it came to traitors who were placed in sensitive positions.
These impeachments join the impeachment of the head of the General Division for Internal Security, the head of the security service branch in the Kherson region, the head of the Ukrainian security service in the Crimea, the member of parliament Alexey Kovalev, the commander of the border guard of Ukraine, and much more.
The intelligence service poses a unique problem for Ukraine, as many of its top officials studied the profession at KGB schools. According to Zelensky, more than 60 prosecutors and internal intelligence agents remain in territories occupied by the Russians, and they are cooperating with Moscow. According to him, the authorities have opened In 651 criminal investigations involving police officers, prosecutors and other security personnel.
More than 800 people, many of them civilians, are suspected of involvement in sabotage and reconnaissance operations for the Russians. They were arrested and transferred to the security services of Ukraine. Today, the law enforcement agencies operate 123 “counter-sabotage” teams, numbering about 1,500 people.