From Grozny to Aleppo to Ukraine, Russia meets resistance with greater firepower

by means of Jeremy BowenBBC news, Kyiv

graphic supply, Getty pictures picture caption,

buildings in Kharkiv in ruins after sustained Russian bombings

As I write this, the centre of Kyiv and a great deal of its suburbs are mostly untouched. Sirens and signals punctuate the day.

all and sundry here is aware of that might trade, very quickly. by the point you read this, it could have.

Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, has already felt one of the drive of the Russian way of battle. So have Mariupol and other cities in the east.

Russia solutions resistance with firepower. rather than send in men to battle from residence to apartment and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by means of heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.

Kharkiv and the other cities and cities have suffered grievous hurt, and as far as we be aware of many civilian casualties. The seat of Kharkiv's native executive changed into badly broken in a missile strike that turned into filmed. Russian President Vladimir Putin may be sending a message to Kyiv - seem to the east, because this might turn up to you.

The depressing conclusion I've drawn from different wars wherein I have seen Russians in motion is that it might get a whole lot worse.

'The floor became shaking'

up to now, Mr Putin has not given the order to inflict the sort of damage that Russian forces brought down on Grozny, when the Russian republic of Chechnya rebelled in the 1990s, and in Syria considering the fact that Mr Putin intervened in drive in 2015.

I coated the primary Chechen conflict when it begun within the winter of 1994-1995. simply as in Ukraine, the Russian army made critical defense force blunders in floor operations. Armoured columns were ambushed through Chechen rebels in narrow streets and destroyed. Many conscript troopers did not wish to battle and die.

earlier than the invasion of Ukraine, defense force analysts assessed that Russia's forces had been now plenty more skilled. possibly they are, but Russia's invasion has once once again been slowed with the aid of logistical bottlenecks, tactical mistakes and terrified teens who had now not been advised they were going to conflict - in addition to resistance as fierce as anything the Chechens provided in 1995.

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Chechnya declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and in 1994 Russian forces invaded. The bombing of Grozny turned into intense

picture source, Getty photographs photo caption,

within the 2d Chechen struggle from 1999-2000, Russian forces once again laid siege to Grozny, and intense combating lasted weeks

picture source, BBC/Jeremy Bowen graphic caption,

Jeremy Bowen (left) with colleagues Scott Hillier and Steve Lidgerwood suggested from Grozny in January 1995

In Chechnya, Russia's answer was to use its firepower. In a few weeks, artillery and air strikes reduced the centre of Grozny, a customary concrete and steel Soviet metropolis, to rubble. i used to be in Minutka square, a centre of Chechen resistance, on a day when it was hit by repeated air strikes. Civilians were in most cases in cellars, risking demise anytime they went out to find water or meals.

In Minutka square that day, Chechen combatants have been killed via cluster bombs, and buildings set on hearth. Twenty-4 hours later, the complete leading avenue of the city was hit by way of missile strikes and enveloped in smoke and flame. The floor become shaking where we were filming.

Overwhelmed from the air

probably the most devastated places I have seen in years of struggle reporting, aside from Grozny, had been in Syria. The connection is the harmful energy of the Russian armed forces.

Mr Putin's resolution to intervene in Syria saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad and took a large step towards his objective of restoring Russia as a global vigor. Two decisive victories over rebels in Syria, vitally crucial for the regime, have been delivered by the ruthless use of Russian firepower.

the primary was in Aleppo at the end of 2016. The eastern facet of the metropolis, which had been held through loads of insurrection factions throughout the war, fell after it become pulverised by shelling and air strikes. The Assad regime did not need any encouragement to shell Syrians, but the Russians brought a an awful lot improved stage of destructive power. Strategic bombers primarily based at domestic and in Iran delivered devastating strikes.

the method used in Syria changed into to encircle and besiege rebel-held areas, pound them from the air and from artillery batteries, and within the end exhaust the defenders and any civilians who had now not managed to escape. lots of them were killed.

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In a devastated road in Aleppo in January 2017

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In eastern Ghouta in Syria in June 2018, with BBC cameraman Nik Millard

When i was capable of pressure through japanese Aleppo a number of weeks after it fell, destruction went on for mile after mile. I could not see a building that changed into untouched. entire neighbourhoods had been left in ruins. Streets were blocked with mountain degrees of rubble.

I saw the equal tactics work in japanese Ghouta, a string of rebellion held cities and farmland on the fringe of the Syrian capital. Its capitulation in 2018 became the end of the combat for Damascus, that had looked firstly as if it may go the rebels' means. That modified after the united states determined in 2013 no longer to strike the Assad regime when it used chemical weapons in Douma, some of the area's cities. The long battle turned decisively within the regime's favour after Russia entered the warfare in 2015.

jap Ghouta's defenders dug an underground tunnel metropolis to get away the air strikes and shelling. however siege and overwhelming firepower wins battles. that is as a result of defenders get killed and exhausted, and civilians, despite the fact defiant, are subjected to such worry and distress that they welcome the respite that surrender brings.

In Kyiv, one of the vital huge questions on each person's minds is whether they will get the treatment meted out not most effective to Kharkiv, Mariupol and the rest, but also to Chechnya and Syria.

Will the sanctity of Orthodox shrines create the restraint that turned into absent in attacks on Muslims in Chechnya and Syria? Putin himself has written about Ukraine's significance in Russia's history. Will he be organized to spoil Ukraine to regain it? If sanctions and Ukrainian resistance threaten his regime's balance, will he take extra excessive measures?

The listing indicates that the Russian armed forces compensates for weaknesses in the capabilities of its floor forces by turning to the big guns. Ukrainians are praying in an effort to now not turn up right here.

graphic source, Getty photographs photograph caption,

Kharkiv residents instructed the BBC that attacks on civilian targets made them believe like they were residing in hell

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