Eurasia note #60 – Donbas Voting On Russian Union; Contact Line Steady

Missiles see greater use as autumnal quagmire approaches

Voting is underway as four regions consider accession to Russia.
Shelling continues along the Donbas line of contact; little movement or advantage.
Railway sabotage becomes more common; anarchist groups betray foreign ties.

Armenia raises Azerbaijan conflict on floor of the UN General Assembly.
Baku criticizes Nancy Pelosi for comments during visit to Yerevan.
Azeri troops mutilate women soldiers — but Azeris brutalized by own torture scandal.

(2,000 words or 10 minutes of your time.)

“For Russia, For the children of Donbas,” in Moscow, July 2022.

Tbilisi, Sep 23, 2022

Voting has begun in a referendum that will see Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR), as well as the territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia, decide upon accession to Russia. Votes will be cast over the next four days.

Citizens who’ve had to flee because of Ukraine’s counterattack, and who are residing within Russia, will also vote.

In the event that the regions become part of Russia, the matter of defence would be handled not by militia such as those of DPR and LPR but by Russian forces. That is a possible reason for president Vladimir Putin’s announcement of mandatory registration of about 300,000 reservists who would be called upon in the event of war.

The intervention in Ukraine is currently classified as a special military operation, a designation short of war.

Putin also reinforced warnings that nuclear weapons might be used “if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened.”

Combined with the reference to such weaponry, even if limited to battlefield or tactical, the presidential statement might be seen as trying to draw a line under the conflict: Russia mostly has what it originally wanted and if it becomes Russian territory it would logically send Russian troops to defend it.

As The Guardian reported: “It is no secret that Nato members (but not Nato itself) are providing military support to Ukraine but there is no existential threat to Russia; the goal, Biden said on Wednesday, was for the war to end ‘on terms we all signed up for, that you cannot seize a nation’s territory by choice’.”

However members of the interventionist tendency in Washington called for Russia to be declared a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Sen Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton gave the message that the U.S. will stand with Ukraine, even as Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a video link to the United Nations General Assembly, demanded Russia be punished as the proximate step.

That’s a big jump. NATO supporting Ukraine’s independence is one thing; supporting the attack of Russian territory or trying to topple president Vladimir Putin is quite another.

Speaking at the UN, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Russia but gave no hint of strategy – that would be handled by his deputy Victoria Nuland, who stood like Lamassu behind him.

China’s UN ambassador responded with a call for all parties to achieve a ceasefire.

Last Friday the US announced a further $600m of military aid to Ukraine, including more truck-launched, short-range Himars rockets. The retired generals of the U.S. network television circuit, mostly employed by the likes of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, were in studios advising the use of missiles with a 200-mile range to strike Crimea.

Railway saboteurs

In Belarus’ eastern city of Vitsebsk a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sabotaging (or planning to sabotage) part of the system that regulates trains, including those shipping arms and soldiers to Ukraine. The sentencing of Syarhey Kanavalau took place on Sep 16.

Russian self-described anarcho-communists have in the past month circulated an article detailing how activists are attacking the country’s networks, including loosening rail tracks and setting fire to cell towers. Calling themselves Боевая Организация Анархо-Коммунистов (БОАК or BOAK), they draw upon the history of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Russian civil war (1917-22).