Destruction of residential buildings. Civilian populations trapped in bombarded cities. Cut communications, lack of water and food… The same scenes of desolation are repeated in Ukraine, where the population, in the front line, is hit hard by the disastrous consequences of the Russian invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin on February 24.
At least 726 civilians, including around 50 children, have been killed in Ukraine and nearly 1,200 injured according to the UN count as of March 15. But the UN stresses that its balance sheets are probably much lower than the reality. The municipality of Mariupol affirms for its part that more than 2200 inhabitants perished in this only city, a besieged strategic port located on the Sea of Azov.
It was in Mariupol that a theater in which nearly a thousand people had taken refuge was destroyed on Wednesday March 16 by a bomb dropped from a Russian plane, said the Ukrainian authorities without being able to provide a human toll to this stage. The Russian Ministry of Defense for its part denied having bombed the theater, attributing the explosion to the ultranationalist Ukrainian battalion Azov.
Russia wants to make Mariupol “an example”, advances to L’Express Raphaël Pitti, humanitarian doctor and training manager at the Union of Relief and Medical Care Organizations (UOSSM), a French and international medical NGO which acts mainly with victims of the conflict in Syria and refugees.
“Civilians’ lives don’t matter to Putin”
According to Raphaël Pitti, who has witnessed the Syrian conflict for eleven years, Moscow applies the same modus operandi in Ukraine as in Syria in order to push the adversary to capitulate and the populations to flee: “There is no question for the Russians of fight step by step inside the cities. They are not in the logic of urban wars.” The strategy employed by the Russians consists of “surrounding the towns they want to take”, he explains, before “bombing them intensively in order to cut off supply modes”. Once the city is taken, the Russian forces then “bring out the population and carry out a sorting within it”.
The Russian bombardments affect hospitals in particular, such as the Mariupol pediatric hospital on March 10. It is a question of “terrorizing the population in a significant way”, decrypts Raphaël Pitti. “If you bombard a city and the hospitals are also destroyed at the same time, you put the population in a situation of terror because it is no longer possible to take care of the wounded.” The objective pursued by Vladimir Putin is also to undermine the morale of the Ukrainians, who “would go down a notch” in the face of so many atrocities, notes the humanitarian doctor.
With this strategy, Vladimir Putin, whose mental health questions many observers, displays his contempt for human life. The Russian president is now engaged in a total war whose populations are the first victims. “The lives of civilians do not count for him, only the objective counts”, deplores Raphaël Pitti, evoking the “software” of the head of the Kremlin, which is “that of the USSR” and not a “Western software”.
“Time will play against the Ukrainians, who will be exhausted”
If the Russian president employs the strategy of fear, Moscow nevertheless runs the risk of uniting the Ukrainian population against the Russian occupier. “Of course it’s scary, but it’s more rage that predominates. The people around me are not afraid of Russians but they hate them,” says Oleksii, a resident of Chernihiv interviewed this Thursday, March 17 by BFM TV. Raphaël Pitti is less optimistic: “Time will unfortunately play against the Ukrainians, who will be exhausted.” For the humanitarian doctor, beyond the resistance of the Ukrainians, if the “Westerners do not show a deep determination to help and save the Ukrainians”, then it will be very difficult for them to come out against Russia.
The Russian invasion is pushing the Ukrainian population into exile: since the start of the conflict, more than three million people have fled Ukraine, mostly to Poland, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR). More than two million have been displaced in the country, according to the UNHCR. Half of the refugees are children.
“Vladimir Putin will instrumentalize the Ukrainian populations in order to push them towards European countries. The goal is that we are overwhelmed by refugees and that this causes us problems”, advances Raphaël Pitti. Another way for the Russian president to deploy his strategy of fear, well beyond Ukraine.