Ukrainian military intelligence reported on 17 August that Russia means abroad mercenaries with “stock numbers” applied to equipment or skin. According to HUR, this is intended to control, search for deserters and conceal losses. For Poland it is simply a signal: Moscow is besides conducting war by recruiting people from poorer countries.
Numbers alternatively of soldier dog tags
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, HUR Russia is to apply to abroad mercenaries a strategy of subsequent numbers applied to equipment or straight to the skin. How He Reportes The fresh Voice of Ukraine behind HUR, the markings are to be made with permanent dyes, including hen or jagua, and renewed after fade.
It's not a tiny thing from the military back. This is simply a image of an army that needs outsiders, but does not intend to treat them as soldiers with a name, household and right to identify. The number is convenient. A man can be entered in the records, moved to the front, and left in the grey box of losses after death. This is how a state speaks of dignity only erstwhile it serves it in propaganda.
Control, fear and conceal loss
HUR claims that the marking strategy is intended to strengthen control over foreigners fighting on the side of Russia. The Ukrainian website besides describes cases of Russian police checking foreigners for specified numbers. It's about uncovering deserters. This is an crucial item due to the fact that it shows that Moscow faces not only the request for recruitment, but besides the problem of keeping people in line.
According to the Ukrainian intelligence report, a simple designation besides allows to hide the real scale of losses among foreigners and avoid payments to families in Asia or Africa. These are the charges of the fighting party, so they require that designation. However, this does not change the wider meaning of the matter: Kremlin built a mechanics of war in which a foreigner may be a inexpensive assault force, and his household is to get silence alternatively of information.
Russian War Method
Russia has long tried to wage war in Ukraine at another's expense. It mobilizes its own periphery, uses prisoners, reaches for contracts, promises of earnings and people from countries that are only a resource for Moscow. Virtual Poland stated for HUR that the numbers are to facilitate control and conceal losses in Russia's war against Ukraine.
This mechanics must be read together with Russian propaganda aimed at neighbours and the West. We've already written that Russia plays Volyn to fight Warsaw and Kiev. Here the method is different, but the logic is the same: man, memory, household and fact are to give way to the interest of the empire.
What it means for Poland
For Poland, sobriety is most important. You must not look at the Russian army as a simple state structure, which simply leads a war according to known rules. It's a apparatus of violence, recruitment, pressure, and failure masking. If specified a country wins time, wins people and cheats its own society and alien families, the war can last longer and cost Europe more.
Poles pay for this war in many ways: border security, the price of arms, economical tension and the hazard of Russian diversion. erstwhile Ukraine is preparing for winter under force from air defence shortagesAny signal of Russian force mobilisation should be taken seriously. Not with fear. Realism.
The Empire knows no loyalty
The Russian practice described by HUR is simply a lesson for all who would inactive like to see a partner for a civilized game in Moscow. A state that according to Ukrainian intelligence numbered abroad mercenaries alternatively of providing them with a average recognition shows its own measurement of loyalty. It's useful. erstwhile a man ceases to be useful, he disappears in statistics.
The Polish answer cannot be sentimental. We request a strong army, resilience to misinformation and an east policy based on national interest. Ukraine's aid makes sense erstwhile it strengthens the safety of Poland and weakens Russia's imperial appetite. There's no area for illusion in this case. The Kremlin understands strength, cost and consequences.
Source: Virtual Poland, The fresh Voice of Ukraine, UNN.
Source: WP News
