Grave captivity

Why does Russia excuse all and any abuse of Ukrainians? Yulia Latynina on the murder of 53 Azov fighters in Olenivka and video of soldier’s execution

On 29 July, 53 people were killed and dozens were injured in “DPR”’s prisoners of war camp located in the village of Olenivka, near Donetsk, where Ukrainian soldiers were being held. Usually, when prisoners die in concentration camps, they die due to being tortured or shot.

But in this case, according to Russia, something entirely different happened. Allegedly, Ukraine killed its own captive soldiers. By using a high-precision missile launched from HIMARS.

First, this evil Ukraine shelled itself back in Kharkiv. Then, it tried to wipe itself out of existence in Mariupol. Later, it used a Romanian driver, who was dissolved in acid, to get two Kalibr cruise missiles and destroyed the warehouses in Odesa, just one day after the grain agreement had been signed (all of these are actual versions of events, according to Russian propaganda). And now, these terrifying Nazis eliminated their own captured soldiers — all to make peaceful Russia look bad.

Even now, while we do not know much about the tragedy, the Russian version of events seems highly improbable. The thing is that the US has knowledge of any HIMARS target with an accuracy of up to one metre. Russia’s military even previously explained the success of HIMARS by saying that Ukrainians receive all targets from the States, and that Americans were the ones pressing the button.

And even though that explanation is not entirely correct, it is, in fact, true that the most important thing for the use of HIMARS is Big Data. So, Maxar satellites, rigorous processing of information, and indeed, complete transparency with the US on who, where, and how uses HIMARS.

With the existence of Big Data, it is genuinely impossible to confuse a camp where your own soldiers are being tortured with a bridge or a warehouse.

Russian propaganda also does not have a convincing version of the reason Ukraine’s Armed Forces would need to kill their own captured soldiers.

There could be three reasons for the events that occurred in Olenivka.

The first one: the Russian government trying to cover up its crimes. Yesterday, a video appeared on the web: in it, a soldier with the “Z” symbol on his uniform castrates a Ukrainian POW, while making fun of the soldier and laughing. The Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group Rusich released a comment afterwards: “Russia is conducting a ‘sacred war’, and the person that cut off the balls of the tied up prisoner had ‘valid reasons’ for doing so.”

Let us imagine: one of these sacred war (in Arab called “jihad”) fighters interrogated POWs in Olenivka, and then their commanding officers started to wonder: how do we hide the lack of genitalia during the next prisoner exchange? Not all torture can be survived, and not all consequences of torture can be hidden.

“DPR militants used to do that all the time in 2014,” says Roman Svitan, a former Ukrainian military pilot; he himself was tortured and survived only by miracle. “They then tied the person they had tortured to an anti-tank mine and blew them up.”

The second, less likely reason: let us imagine that, after yesterday, a POW was included in the list of killed soldiers, but in reality, they are still alive. Now, you can do anything to that person, while telling them: you are officially dead. If you do not collaborate — well, you are already dead. We should not discount this version when it comes to the country that prints fake newspapers for the Azov regiment fighters just to break their spirits.

And the third reason — murder of hostages.

When do terrorists kill hostages? When their demands have not been met. How do you kill them? You kill them and then blame it on HIMARS.

Of course, in theory, there can a fourth version of events: Russian special forces conducted a flawless special operation, brought trucks seemingly filled with ammunition to Olenivka, made American satellites believe that an ammunition warehouse was in that precise location — just so HIMARS would strike and then, a surprise, it was Ukrainian prisoners all along!

This way, they would even manage to compromise HIMARS, which is the Russian government’s biggest desire, and make relatives of the Azov fighters turn against the Ukrainian authorities. But the problem is that everyone knew about the Olenivka concentration camp. The hit was not made upon an unknown location, it is not like they wanted to hit a warehouse but instead blew up the camp.

If Russia wants to deny these obvious allegations, it should return the bodies of killed prisoners and allow independent experts to inspect the site of the explosion. If it does do that, I doubt that the signs of injuries will correspond to those announced by Russia and that explosive residue will match that of HIMARS. If Russia does not return the bodies — we all know what that means.

The Russian army is using a terror strategy in Ukraine. Usually, during modern wars, this strategy is used by irregular units: paramilitary, fanatics, terrorists.

A situation, in which an army of a civilised state acts the way Russian soldiers acted in Bucha and Mariupol, is without precedent.

Such a state is no longer considered civilised by any definition, it is now a mediaeval state; if Russian citizens think this will not affect them, they are wrong. Hannibal will not stop eating human flesh after that first bite. Imagine a situation, in which an American is filmed cutting off the genitalia of a Vietnamese soldier during the war. That American would be sentenced to 20 years. And in Russia? There already was a video of a Russian cutting off a Syrian’s head — and nothing happened.

This strategy is not accidental. During the first phase, in Bucha and Mariupol, the strategy and filtration camps were used to crush the spirit of Ukrainians.

Now the goal of the strategy has changed — they want to make Ukrainians more cruel. So that when a Ukrainian soldier sees the killed POWs in Olenivka and hears that, actually, he was the one to kill them, the soldier will go crazy, and then Russian TV will be able to say: “You see? They want all Russians to die! This is an existential threat! These Nazis want us all exterminated!”

And this strategy, of course, partly pays off. Hatred is a feeling that is rarely not reciprocated. They wish to turn Ukrainians into copies of themselves and destroy a nation, by hook or by crook.

Everything going on at the front-lines has long since gone beyond informational and psychological warfare.

Unfortunately, Nevzorov (Russian ex-deputy, now famous vlogger known for his anti-Putin stance — translator’s note) is right: Russia is being ruled by a cult. This cult has a creed. According to it, first of all, all Ukrainians are Nazis, secondly, everyone saying that Russia is eliminating Ukrainians is a slanderer and supporter of America, thirdly, everyone who does not believe in the first and second statements is an enemy of the Russian state.

This is no longer psychological warfare, this is a faith. A faith all neglected and poor people and quasi-Haniballs can practise. A person like that would like nothing more than to believe that they are cutting off someone’s balls in the name of a sacred war, and not just because they are a criminal, marginal, and a sadist.

When you do horrible things, you have to justify doing them with “traditional values”, because there is nothing else to justify them with.

Unfortunately, a major part of the human need to have faith is based on the need to project their own chthonic instincts on a certain essence — be that God, nation, or state. “It’s not me cutting off people’s balls. It’s the essence giving me an order.”

The one good piece of news is that a cult uses this strategy only when it no longer believes in winning. When a cult hopes to triumph, it promises that its leader will arrive with an army of angels from the sky and strike everyone with Iskanders, Poseidons, and lightning. But when a cult begins to lose, that is when tales about the entire world being against the peaceful entity and needing to rally around the leader start being told.

This text expresses the author’s personal views.