Putin sends revenge squads into Crimea after destruction of warship
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Vladimir Putin has allegedly sent revenge squads into occupied Crimea to hunt for resistance fighters who may have given Ukraine the location of the now-destroyed Novocherkassk warship.
“The flywheel of repression is spinning,” Atesh, a pro-Kyiv Crimean Tatar guerrilla group, said.
It reported that Moscow-installed authorities had raided properties and confiscated residents’ smartphones as they searched for possible collaborators with the Ukrainian military in the recent missile attack on the vessel.
“It is reported that Putin is completely furious over the destruction of the Novocherkassk large landing ship,” Atesh said.
“An order was issued to punish the Crimean air defence forces. It is expected that many commanders will be removed and sent to the front to participate in assault groups,” the partisans added in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
The Novocherkassk was destroyed using a British-made Storm Shadow cruise missile fired from a Ukrainian supersonic Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet early on Tuesday.
Video footage of the attack showed a massive fireball illuminating the night skies over the port of Feodosiya, in south-eastern Crimea, where the vessel was docked.
It was reported by Ukraine’s air force that the ship had been destroyed along with 13 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones that were on board.
At least 52 men from the 77 believed to be serving on the Novocherkassk have been reported missing or injured, according to Russian outlet Astra.
But military analysts have speculated that as many as 100 people could have been killed in the attack.
‘Violation of the Geneva Convention’
Atesh’s report came as drone footage emerged of what appeared to be a Russian execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war near the front line in the partially-occupied south-eastern region of Zaporizhzhia.
The video, shot from a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle, appeared to show three men collapse to the ground, one after the other, and smoke billowing from weapons as they were discharged by Russian troops.
“The Russian army captured three Ukrainian defenders during a combat clash near the village of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia region,” Kyiv’s general prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“An hour later, in violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the occupiers shot them.”
Analysts at the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed the drone footage, adding that the Ukrainians had likely been captured in a tree line west of Verbove, which is just east of Robotyne.
“ISW previously reported observing drone footage of Russian servicemen using Ukrainian POWs as human shields near Robotyne on Dec 13,” the think tank added in its most recent battlefield update.
Russian forces have managed to claw back some of the territory between Robotyne and Verbove which Ukraine had liberated in its summer counter-offensive.
It is considered likely that Ukrainian forces withdrew to more fortified positions near Robotyne as part of their preparation for the winter months ahead.
“Recent Russian advances in western Zaporizhia Oblast nevertheless support ISW’s assessment that the current positional war in Ukraine is not a stable stalemate because the current balance can be tipped in either direction by decisions made in the West or in Russia, and limited Russian gains could become significant especially if the West cuts off military aid to Ukraine,” ISW wrote.
