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| Russian captives (423rd Yampoli MRR* Unit 91791) |
Most of the outrage has been directed at the disregard shown by the Russian government and military towards the Ukrainian people, and it is difficult for outsiders in the west to accept this behaviour in the twenty-first century.
It is, unfortunately, nothing new. The 2008 Russo-Georgian war has much in common with the current situation in the Ukraine.
This war displaced a 192,000 people including both Ossetians and Georgians, and it has so much in common with the Ukrainian conflict, including a Russian push for access to warm water ports, Russian fear of a state on its periphery seeking NATO membership, and the protection of Russian speaking enclaves as justification for military intervention.
Prior to both the Russo-Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts, the Second Chechen War set a template of sorts, with the added complication of the involvement of Islamic militants. The Russian soldiers involved in these conflicts are as much victims of the wars as the unfortunate civilians caught up in them. Estimates of Russian casualties in Chechnya vary between 7500 (official Russian figures) and 14000 (Committee of Soldiers' Mothers).
It should be remembered that many of these soldiers are conscripts. As of 2021, all male citizens of the Russian federation aged 18–27 are subject to conscription for one year of active duty which may include operational service.
Soldiers returning from Chechnya have exhibited a disorder called CS (Chechnya Syndrome) which resembles the post Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan PTSD plaguing American and Australian returnees. All of this will no doubt be visited on Russian veterans of the Ukraine conflict when it is finally resolved.
Perhaps their situation may offer, in some perverse manner, a ray of hope towards the end of the conflict. How will the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers react to body bags being repatriated to Mother Russia in 2021?
Perhaps the deployment of mobile crematoriums with the units involved in the Ukrainian operation indicates that Putin is worried about backlash.
As a footnote to this tragedy in Europe is the support for the Russian action displayed by the far Right in the USA.
We live in strange times.
*Motorised Rifle Regiment
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