It’s now clear Putin aims to ‘save’ Ukraine by destroying it
IT is a phrase that has become among the most iconic in our political discourse. Most attribute its origins to journalist Peter Arnett’s famous Vietnam dispatch for the Associated Press that included the muchmisquoted quotation: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
While the original use of the quote is perhaps a little more complex, it still rings true today, especially in Ukraine where it would seem to underpin the contorted logic by which Russia goes about its war there.
In a rare “victory”, Russia on Friday claimed to have captured the city of Mariupol after a nearly three-month siege that reduced much of the strategic port city to a smoking ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.
The last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the city’s huge Azovstal steel plant, with its maze of underground tunnels and galleries constructed during the Soviet era, set about evacuating its dead after Kyiv ordered hundreds of its men to surrender to “save lives”. It was a moment the Kremlin has sought to bring about for some time, but one that didn’t arrive as hoped for on schedule for Russia’s recent May 9 Victory Day celebrations which commemorate the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War .
That, however, did not stop Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu milking the surrender at Azovstal for all it was worth and reporting to president Vladimir Putin on the “complete liberation” of the steel works and Mariupol as a whole.
Just what exactly Russia was liberating Mariupol from only those in the Kremlin can fathom. It wasn’t as if the Ukrainians asked them to come – far from it. Every inch of the way they fought the Russian invaders of their country who time and again justified their aggression that they were on a mission of “denazification”.
That among the defenders of Mariupol were members of the Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, some of whom had links to the far right, is a fact. For a time after its formation there were legitimate concerns over radicalism within the Azov ranks and the far-right elements were distrusted by much of the Ukrainian public as well as by senior figures in the government.
But more recently the ranks of the battalion were drawn from the regular Ukraine-wide pool of military and national guard recruits. The defenders of Mariupol comprised of Ukrainian marines, the border guard, the army, and territorial defence units.
This, however, will not stop Moscow from using what it sees as a propaganda gift to falsely label many of those who fought in Mariupol as “far-right terrorists” and create a counter-narrative to Ukraine’s allegations that many Russian soldiers are war criminals.
Indeed, the first trial of a Russian soldier accused of war crimes took place in Kyiv last week, during which Vadim Shysimarin, 21 pleaded guilty to shooting dead an unarmed Ukrainian civilian.
On many levels, Russia’s seizure of Mariupol stands as little more than a symbolic “victory” which many military analysts say offers more propaganda
Just what exactly Russia was liberating Mariupol from only those in the Kremlin can fathom. It wasn’t as if Ukrainians asked them to come – far from it
value that it does real strategic gain. It will certainly enable Russia to open the Mariupol port to allow supplies and equipment to flow into the city and on to Russian forces in the Donbas, which is now the main focus of Russia’s offensive.
But beyond that this is no battlefield game-changer for the Russians. “Although Putin will squeeze maximum domestic propaganda value out of the capture of Mariupol, it is a pyrrhic victory that comes at enormous cost,” says Robert Person, an associate professor of international relations at the US Military Academy at West Point. “The protracted fight for the city has drained Russia’s military of significant manpower, weapons, and equipment,” added Person, speaking to broadcaster RFE/RL last week. Now all eyes turn towards the Donbas region which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described as “hell” and “completely destroyed”.
There, villages and towns, one after the other, are being raised to the ground as Russia continues with its twisted mission to “save” Ukraine by destroying it.