Reportedly, V. Putin has ordered his armed forces to organize “blocking detachments” whose mission is to prevent troops from retreating in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks—another telling symptom of the Russian Army’s ineptitude and demoralization. I’m not surprised that Putin is resorting to the methods of his role model. Back in May, I published an article detailing the role that the Stalinist NKVD played in the Soviet war effort in 1941-45: “The Tradition of Terror Continues.”
As the French proverb has it, the more things change, the more they stay the same.