ZHYTOMYR, Ukraine (AP) — Cemetery workers prepared the next hole shortly after burying a veteran colonel killed in the Russian uprising. Inevitably, given how quickly Ukrainian troops died on the front lines, the empty grave won’t stay that long.
Colonel Alexander Makhachek is survived by his widow Elena and daughters Elena and Miroslava-Alexandra. In the first 100 days of the war, his tomb was the 40th to be excavated at a military cemetery in Zhytomyr, 90 miles (140 kilometers) west of the capital, Kiev.
He was killed on May 30 in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, where there was conflict. Recently, in the funeral charter in the newly excavated grave of Vyacheslav Dvornitsky, it is stated that he died on May 27. Other graves also show soldiers killed in a few days – on May 10, 9, 7 and 5. just a cemetery in only one of the cities, towns and villages of Ukraine where soldiers are buried.
Ukraine now loses between 60 and 100 soldiers in combat every day, President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week. By contrast, in 1968, when the Vietnam War was at its deadliest for American troops, less than 50 American soldiers died on average every day.
Among those who paid tribute at the funeral of 49-year-old Makhachek on Friday was the Chief of General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Viktor Muzhenko. Makhachek warned that losses could rise.
“It was one of the critical moments of the war, but not the climax,” Muzhenko told The Associated Press. “This is the most important conflict in Europe since the Second World War. This explains why the losses were so great. To reduce casualties, Ukraine now needs a less powerful weapon than Russia, and here even more. This will allow Ukraine to respond in the same way.
Russia’s artillery concentration was responsible for most of the losses in the eastern regions, which Moscow had focused on since its initial invasion on February 24, when it failed to capture Kiev.
A priest holds a funeral for Sergei Trokan, a Ukrainian soldier who died during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the garrison church of Saints Peter and Paul in Lviv, June 3, 2022. (Photo: YURI DYACHISHIN/ AFP via Getty Images)
Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, described Russia’s approach as “an approach to medieval attrition” and called Ukraine’s supply of promised supplies to destroy and destroy the batteries of the Americans, British and Russia. Until then, he said they would destroy Russia’s batteries. , “the losses will continue.”
“This battlefield is more deadly than we’ve been used to for 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we don’t have such numbers,” he told the AP in a phone call.
“This attrition level will include commanders, sergeants,” he added. “They carried the weight of the weak because they were weaker, they were constantly moving, trying to do something.”
Colonel Ruslan Shutov, who attended the funeral of his 30-year-old friend, said that military engineer Mahachek was in charge of the minefield and other defense units.
“When filming began, he and the group hid in a bunker. There were four people in his group and he told them to hide in a bunker. He was hiding from others. Unfortunately, a cannonball hit the bunker where he was hiding. ”
The mourners attended the funeral of Yuri Sergeyev, who died in the Russian occupation in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 4, 2022. Neither the Ukrainian government nor its Western allies gave final figures on Ukrainian casualties, but President Zelenskiy said in an interview earlier this week that between 60 and 100 Ukrainian soldiers a day were killed in intense fighting in the Donbas. (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Before the war, Ukraine had about 250,000 men and women in uniform, and another 100,000 were in the process of being added. The government did not say how many people were killed in more than 14 weeks of fighting.
No one knows how many Ukrainian civilians were killed or how many militants were killed on one side. It is almost impossible to verify the statements of state officials about victims, who sometimes increase or downplay their numbers for public relations purposes.
Western analysts estimate higher casualties for Russia’s military, in the thousands. However, as casualties in Ukraine mount, the hard math of the war requires Ukraine to find a replacement. It has a workforce of 43 million people.
“The challenge is to recruit, train and send them to the front lines,” said retired US Marine Colonel Mark Kanchian, senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“If war is going to be a long-term struggle of attrition, you have to build systems to get backups,” he said. “This is a difficult moment for any army in war.”
Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffin of 21-year-old Roman Tkachenko, who died in the Russian occupation near Kharkiv on June 4, 2022, in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Ukrainian General Muzhenko said that Zelensky’s acceptance of heavy losses would further boost Ukraine’s morale and more weapons in the West would help turn the tide.
“The more the Ukrainians learn from the front, the greater their desire to fight,” he said. “Yes, the losses are huge. Only with the help of our allies can we reduce them, reduce them, and continue successful offensives. It will require a powerful weapon.”
A photo taken on June 2, 2022 shows people walking amid destroyed Russian military equipment on display in downtown Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to win the 100th day of the Russian invasion on June 3, when Russian troops stormed the eastern Donbass region. (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Yuri Karmanov joined this report from Lvov.
Source: Breitbart
