Free Republic

The Ukrainian military has labored, for years, to root out far-right extremists in its ranks. The latest clash between the extremists and the defense ministry in Kyiv couldn’t have come at a worse time—or in a worse place. After weeks of drama, the defense ministry redeployed and shook up the staffing within the army’s 67th Mechanized Brigade this weekend. The brigade was holding the most vulnerable district in the most vulnerable city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast: the canal district of Chasiv Yar. Now the 67th Brigade—what’s left of it—has redeployed to the Ukrainian rear, and a brigade of Ukrainian...

The Ukrainian army has deployed some of its best brigades to eastern Ukraine, including the 92nd and 93rd Mechanized Brigades and the 1st Presidential Brigade. But these elite Ukrainian formations might not be the biggest killer of Russian troops in the east. Under-trained, under-supplied and ambivalently led, Russians in the region are freezing to death by the dozen. Shocking videos that have circulated online in recent weeks tell a tragic story. The videos, shot by the Ukrainian brigades’ hovering drones, depict Russians in the late stages of hypothermia, so cold and sick that they barely react when the drones drop...