Russian invasion of Ukraine: – Sharp increase: “Hell for Putin”

Ukrainian dissidents were poisoned and shot, ammunition depots were blown to pieces and television broadcasts full of Russian propaganda stopped.

Behind enemy lines, guerrilla and partisan warfare in Ukraine increased sharply in intensity and scope.

Compared to July, the number of attacks against Russian occupying forces, especially in southern Ukraine, increased by about 300 percent, according to the US expert on Ukraine and Russia, Alexander Motel.

Watching guerrilla motel and Ukrainian partisan activities Defense and Security Online Magazine 19fortyfive.

strong increase

From July 6 to August 2, Motel recorded 33 cases of partisan and guerrilla warfare, an average of 1.18 per day, he is writing.

Then something happened.

From August 4 to 13, the Motel recorded a total of 34 cases of partisan and guerrilla warfare, which amounts to an average of 3.4 incidents each day.

Motel describes the attacks as “Putin’s hell,” and the trend appears to be continuing:

– You succeeded again

– I don’t think this is my offer, says retired Lieutenant-General Arne Bord Dahlhogue, former chief of the Defense Staff, to Dagbladet.

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Dalhaug places the explosions in the context of Ukraine’s desire to retake the strategically important city of Kherson, which is under Russian occupation.

– At the same time that regular Ukrainian forces are trying to launch an offensive against Kherson from the west, the partisans can help isolate Kherson from Crimea, which supplies Russian forces in southern Ukraine, says Dahlhog, who between 2016 and 2018 was a civilian observer for the organization Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine.

Dropping a visit to Norway after washing the dishes

Dalhaug believed that the goal was to isolate the Russian forces present at Kherson by making it impossible for supplies to reach, and to disrupt the Russians’ ability to defend themselves.

– If you have partisan activity behind the front line, the enemy will have to deploy forces to deal with it. This makes the Russians’ defense lines more vulnerable, says Dallhog.

Researcher, Ukraine and Russia expert and advisor to the Helsinki Committee, Arv Hansen, believes that there may be several reasons behind the recent intensification of attacks:

First, the occupied Ukrainians want to help the regular army and discourage the Russians before the Ukrainian forces attack. Second, the war has been going on for a long time. Autumn is coming soon and it’s important that the war doesn’t linger too far from winter, so maybe they have an extra motivation to fight now, Hansen says.

– smash the enemy

Both agree that Ukrainian guerrilla and guerrilla warfare can be decisive in Ukraine’s fight against Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Supporters can, among other things, contribute to the destruction of critical infrastructure and attack so-called “choke points,” says Dahlhog.

In the military context, a “choke point” is the point at which personnel or materials Should passes. If this point is disturbed, for example by an attack, this could in turn reduce your or your enemies’ ability to deploy troops and materials, and thus provide them, Dallhog explains.

In other words, the bottleneck.

Keeping track of these things can be very important. Although it doesn’t look amazing, it could help cut the Russians’ supply lines, says Dahlhog.

Russian TV shakes Norway

Partisan and guerrilla warfare also have an important psychological impact, notes Hansen, a researcher and consultant with the Helsinki Committee.

– It eliminates the enemy over time, he says.

The researcher clearly describes how the Russian soldiers Probably You can get it now:

Soldiers have been fighting for months or have recently been sent to the front without special training. So they are either tired or confused. In addition, ammunition depots, airfields, bridges and command posts located behind its lines have been bombed with high accuracy in the past two months. At the same time, they are waiting for a major Ukrainian attack, perhaps their nerves are already on edge. And when they are then met with repeated ambushes and assassinations, and seeing graffiti with the reminder that all the inhabitants want to be killed, morale is clearly waning.

– He was terrified

During the war, Hansen visited Ukraine several times in connection with his work on the Helsinki Committee. In May, he visited several villages north of Kyiv and met many residents who had been living under Russian occupation for more than a month.

The stories told by Hansen’s villagers emphasized the crippling psychological impact that guerrilla and partisan warfare can have on the enemy.

– They said that the Russians are terrified of the forest and would rather not be within sight of it. The reason is that the Ukrainian partisans were hiding in the forests and carried out small “hit-and-run” measures against the Russians. The advisor to the Helsinki Committee says that this negatively affected the work room of the occupiers.

Main area: – Critical stage

Historically, Ukraine has long experience in partisan and guerrilla warfare. During World War II, Ukrainian partisans fought stubbornly against the German occupation forces. In the years after the war, certain sections of the partisan movement turned their attention to Soviet sovereignty.

– There are many Ukrainians who compare the guerrilla wars of the past and use them to motivate the resistance struggle against the Putin regime today. In addition, we cannot exclude that the experiences gained by the Ukrainian revolutionaries 70-80 years ago were passed on to the generation that was now fighting behind enemy lines, says Hansen.