North Charlotte Today

Washington — On March 29, Congressman Jeff Jackson asked General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the stalled Russian offensive on Bakhmut status and to discuss Vladimir Putin's war crimes.

You can view the full exchange here.

Rep. Jackson: Chairman Milley, with respect to Bakhmut which you mentioned earlier, it appears that Russia is still unable to accomplish core strategic objectives. It is frankly remarkable to me that Bakhmut still stands and is still owned by the Ukrainians. Do you share the perspective that the failure of Russia, after going all out to capture this town, is indicative of the fact that the Ukrainians are still facing the same deeply incompetent military that they were facing last year, or is this a special brand of incompetence that we are seeing with respect to this particular military effort?   

Gen. Milley: I think the Russians are struggling in a big way with command and control, logistics, sustainment, basic tactical doctrine, but also training– these forces are very undertrained; they are essentially doing frontal assaults in a machine gun position, etc. and they’re getting slaughtered, the Russian troops are. Ukrainians are doing a very effective area defense that is proven to be very costly to the Russians. For about the last 20, 21 days the Russians have not made any progress whatsoever, in and around Bakhmut. 

So it's a slaughterfest for the Russians. They are getting hammered in the vicinity of Bakhmut and the Urkainians have fought very, very well. That's also true across the entire frontline trace, from Crimea all the way down to Kherson. The Ukrainians have fought a remarkable defensive fight and the Russians have not achieved their strategic objectives.

[...]

Rep. Jackson: With respect to Putin, seems to me, seems to a lot of folks, very clear that he is a war criminal. Lots of evidence for this, and yet there are plenty of people in this country who still don’t see it that way, who see Putin as basically a national leader pursuing national interests. If you could speak to those folks and give us your sense on his status as a war criminal, that would be appreciated. 

Gen. Milley: I think the war itself is illegal. It undermines one of the first principles that were established after World War II, that underwrites the so-called rules-based international order, that is part of the United Nations for example. Which is: wars of aggression, which are unprovoked, not in the cause of defense, where large countries then use their military force to attack smaller countries, not in defense of their own nation. And Ukraine presented no military threat whatsoever to Russia, and yet, he lined up 170,000, 200,000 troops, multiple divisions, multiple axes of events, and he conducted a major-league war of aggression. A war of aggression, in and of itself, is a war crime.

And then, of course, you have the actual war crimes in many of the cities and towns. When you bomb and shell civilian cities, when you bomb and shell civilian infrastructure, when you are killing kids and women and children, all of that is war crimes. Their units, their unit commanders, all the way up the chain are committing war crimes, the Russian forces are. It's a tragic unfolding of events, but it's true. There’s a lot of war crimes being committed by the Russian forces in Ukraine.

Original source can be found here.