There are striking similarities between Russia’s military tactics in Syria and Ukraine. One can notice five distinct structural parallels between the two Russia’s wars, aside terms, goals and scale of the campaigns, which are different.
According to Hanna Notte, senior researcher at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, the first similarity is a successive or phased war.
The second is the tactics of encircling cities, carrying out sieges and bombings, and then creating “humanitarian corridors.”
The third parallel is the issue of foreign militants. The final two parallels bring us back to the issue of misinformation about the use of “living shields” by the enemy. Russia has often accused terrorists in Syria of using civilians as human shields. Now the same is being said about the Azov Battalion in Mariupol. It also uses misinformation that the other side is staging so-called chemical attacks under someone else’s flag.
The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom reported that Russia used the same tactics in Mariupol as in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016. The Russian command is concerned about how long it will take to capture Mariupol. Ukraine’s resistance put Russian forces to the test and dispersed people and equipment, slowing Russia’s advance elsewhere.
The similarities in human rights are obvious to Amnesty International: the blockade of Mariupol and the destruction of the Syrian city of Aleppo both show that Russia-led troops are prepared to use ruthless tactics against civilians. In 2016, during the almost six-month siege of Aleppo, Russian troops attacked factories and water supply stations, cut off the city from supplies, leaving 250,000 people in a humanitarian catastrophe. A similar thing is happening in Mariupol now: the Russian occupiers have surrounded the city, cut it off from communications and do not allow humanitarian aid.
Speakers:
- Oleksandr Korenkov, International Research Center of Security Problems
- Volodymyr Solovyan, analyst at New geopolitics Research Network.
UKRAINE IN FLAMES project is created by Ukraine Crisis Media Center, Ukrainian Catholic University’s analitical center and NGO “Euroatlantic Course”. We are aiming at searching a loud support for Ukraine in the war started by Russia on the 24th of February 2022.
If you want to support Ukraine against Russian aggression, check the link with recommendations by Ukraine Crisis Media Center – https://uacrisis.org/en/help-ukraine.
NGO Euroatlantic Course collects donations to support Ukrainian Army and civilians – https://eac.org.ua/en/main-page/.
