The inevitability of bombing and calls for ‘total liquidation’ of Ukraine
Sometimes people think of August as a quiet time of year. In the history of Russia, as well as of the Soviet Union, August has instead been a time of dramatic events. The attempted military coup in Moscow in 1991, the start of the Second Chechen war in 1999. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 (known as the war in South Ossetia). We recently recalled the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its far-reaching consequences. It was signed in August 1939 in Moscow. We could go on.
This August has been dramatic in several ways, too. First – on the battlefield. The Kremlin ramped up the ferocity of Russia’s bombing campaign across Ukraine with drones, heavy glide bombs and cruise missiles. Some of the heaviest bombing since February 2022 took place in recent weeks. These indiscriminate attacks intensively target residential areas and civil infrastructure, like electricity networks and power stations, to spread terror and destruction.
Ukrainian pushback
The second is the Ukrainian advance into the Kursk region in Russia, currently referred to as the Kursk problem in Russia. The Kremlin’s disinformation loyalists protect Putin from domestic criticism, while Russian mil-bloggers blame the operation’s commanders and corrupt officials. August saw Ukraine pushing its defence against Russian attacks further in distance by aiming drone strikes at legitimate military targets as far up as the Murmansk region.
Tougher tone
The third tumultuous event took place in the information space, where Moscow’s spin and storification of its own actions has steadily hardened. We have tracked and analysed this development in several articles, for instance in the Joy of bombing (October 2022) and the Necessity of bombing (June 2024).
The initial disinformation campaign styled Russia’s war as a three-day blitz to take out key military targets with surgical precision, as well as aiming to eliminate a Ukrainian political leadership the Kremlin had branded ‘neo-Nazi’. Then, as frustration built up in Moscow over the absence of victory and setbacks on important fronts, the Kremlin’s narratives developed and hardened. What initially appeared as almost joyful and proud ‘infotainment’ footage, quickly became a stubborn insistence on bombing ‘necessary military resources’ – a Kremlin excuse for targeting entire Ukrainian cities and towns because, ostensibly, ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ were hiding there.
Image from TV Russia 1, “60 Minutes”
A war of annihilation
It is firmly stated by leading Russian voices that the war is holy, against not only Ukraine but also the West, and a matter of the survival of the Russian state, as Kremlin pundits have suggested for some time. The wanton destruction in Ukraine of infrastructure, power stations, dams, harbours, grain storage facilities etc. is clearly intended to break the spirit of Ukrainians and bring civil life to a standstill especially during the coming winter.
By summer 2024, the war had moved further into a campaign of annihilation of all that is Ukrainian; the Ukrainian state, culture, identity, and anything which defines it as a nation or state.
Now, supposedly, ‘the only solution is the total liquidation of Ukraine’.
This blunt assessment is not ours. It is the key message in leading, Russian state-controlled outlets, like the main TV channels, or the RT-Sputnik network, reaching global audiences and indicating the political direction.
It expands on Putin’s erroneous claim from July 2021 that Ukraine is an artificial creation. But there is a considerable distance from Putin’s semi-philosophical, yet ridiculous, concept that Ukraine should in theory not exist, to loud and clear calls for the liquidation of all that is Ukrainian. A precise quote from Sputnik illuminates this imperialist, revisionist position.
“Стратегически может быть достигнуто одно – единственное решение, связанное с Украиной, это полная ее ликвидация как самостоятельной структуры”
Our translation into English:
“Strategically, one thing can be achieved – the only solution related to Ukraine is its complete liquidation as an independent entity”
The words came from the Russian parliamentary deputy, political advisor Anatoly Wasserman. He may not be the most prominent speaker, but his words and similar calls by others are condoned and promoted. Having less prominent speakers push the boundaries of mainstream communication and perceptions is a Kremlin tactic we have already documented.
Don’t be deceived.
