How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

How long before he comes back with his squad and puts a whole mag into Mr red shoe?

[LongLeftFlank]

Apologies if this was uploaded before but extended RU side footage of a tank unit in action. M1 Tank Commander brought to life, interspersed with drone shots of the same tanks. Interesting though not tactically coherent.  They keep on the move constantly, while UA shells try to score hits. Like some kind of dance box-step.

More Donetsk ground level (noncombat) footage, from Butusov. For the scenario design files.

Dispatches from the Collapse.  'We are down to our last 3 [phosphorus] rockets'

 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Zeleban]

38 minutes ago, dan/california said:

How long before he comes back with his squad and puts a whole mag into Mr red shoe?

It will not happen. Russians are accustomed to violence, this is one way to control them. In the Russian army, as in the Soviet army, the concept of hazing is widespread (dedovshina in Google has many photos on this topic). Moreover, the guy who beats the soldier is a Chechen. The Russians are terribly afraid of the Chechens, which the Chechens enjoy using to humiliate the Russians (there are many photos of the humiliation of Russian soldiers by Chechens that are easily googled on request Чечня сила)

 

 

[Zeleban]

I heard a lot about skirmishes between Buryats and Chechens when sharing the loot, but I never heard of skirmishes between Russians and Chechens. If any disagreements arise, the Russians immediately retreat, confirming the superiority of the Chechens over themselves.

This is because the Russians do not have cohesion among themselves and any ethnic group will always dominate the Russians.

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

I heard a lot about skirmishes between Buryats and Chechens when sharing the loot, but I never heard of skirmishes between Russians and Chechens. If any disagreements arise, the Russians immediately retreat, confirming the superiority of the Chechens over themselves.

This is because the Russians do not have cohesion among themselves and any ethnic group will always dominate the Russians.

I have no doubt this is the way it usually works. But this is not the usual situation. First of all, a freezing trench with a foot of water in the bottom and 155 raining down is not a survivable situation, be it however so awful a conscript tour in peacetime usually is . Secondly the mobiks are being recruited and formed into units from individual cities/districts, and this might increase their internal cohesion. Third the mobik units seem to have no formal structure to speak of other than one or two uncaring/incompetent officers. These factors might not suffice to overcome the long history and practice you reference, but they certainly push the other way. Also, if I was the AFU i would try hit these Chechen blocking troops PGMs. With and extra rocket or two for any bleep holes in red sneakers.

[Battlefront.com]

I haven't seen this guy's updates for a couple of months. 

I don't remember him being so NEGATIVE about Ukraine's capabilities and general status on the battlefield.  The comments section points out numerous mistakes and mocks him for being wrong about predictions and ground conditions.  It seems he has switched over from mostly reporting to doing commentary.  I don't know when that happened, but I don't think I'll be seeing any more of his reports.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Maybe I missed someone posting this?  EU Parliament has formally voted in favor of declaring Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-lawmakers-declare-russia-state-sponsor-terrorism-2022-11-23/

As noted this doesn't have the same weight as the US making a similar declaration, therefore it is largely symbolic.  When the US put someone on its list there's a whole range of really powerful things that kick in immediately.  Too bad this declaration did not get made this year because I doubt it will have a chance of happening next year.

Steve

[Beleg85]

34 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I haven't seen this guy's updates for a couple of months. 

I don't remember him being so NEGATIVE about Ukraine's capabilities and general status on the battlefield.  The comments section points out numerous mistakes and mocks him for being wrong about predictions and ground conditions.  It seems he has switched over from mostly reporting to doing commentary.  I don't know when that happened, but I don't think I'll be seeing any more of his reports.

Steve

Oh, so he is still on the net? I remember this guy dooming during Severdonetsk cauldron, when people around (not on this board) were looming, trying to grap the situation and searched for any guidelines. When he put in one of his boxes "Norman Bg." and "Irish Legion" (no kidding) I unsubscribed him immediatelly. Another half-baked armchair general with bleak idea about Ukraine.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

I heard a lot about skirmishes between Buryats and Chechens when sharing the loot, but I never heard of skirmishes between Russians and Chechens. If any disagreements arise, the Russians immediately retreat, confirming the superiority of the Chechens over themselves.

This is because the Russians do not have cohesion among themselves and any ethnic group will always dominate the Russians.

Another interesting aspect (taken from Wolski interview) is that reportedly Russians are trying to set up military courts over mobiks who rebell, accusing them against their own military law of desertion and punishing with death sentence. He didn't provided any sources but there were rumours already circling for some time that half-formal punishments by shooting/fragging/being send into minefield indeed do happen. It would be logical, given how undisciplined mobiks can be.

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

It will not happen. Russians are accustomed to violence, this is one way to control them. In the Russian army, as in the Soviet army, the concept of hazing is widespread (dedovshina in Google has many photos on this topic). Moreover, the guy who beats the soldier is a Chechen. The Russians are terribly afraid of the Chechens, which the Chechens enjoy using to humiliate the Russians (there are many photos of the humiliation of Russian soldiers by Chechens that are easily googled on request Чечня сила)

 

 

Not denying your main point that dedovshina is ubiquitous in Russian culture, but.... shaving cream? I've seen worse done at fraternity pledge weeks.

The war crimes discussion has kind of been done to death here [/dark humour], but nonverbal signals of submission, including physical prostration and extreme passivity and being cursed out by your captors once they have take custody of you (basically as baggage), are an *extremely* important part of a surrender being accepted on the battlefield.  I'd argue they are essential.

Nobody marches out with bands playing any more and huffily stacks their arms.

Just go to the zoo and watch any troop of primates, and it will look extremely familiar.

Or watch an average speeder greeting the cop (and they are on watch for drivers who fail to signal submission -- not apologising for cops here, but if you fail to make the necessary signs you are taking a huge risk).

And if that process of signaling submission and acceptance of custody is interrupted, for whatever reason, it can be pretty damned difficult to resume.

That's why the culpable party for this incident is the Russian cowboy (assuming coup de grace shots did not subsequently take place, which is murder).

[Kinophile]

  

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Oh my that is one deep question.  Been thinking about it and its not a crazy hypothesis but I am still not sure it stands up.

Military Dimension

First off there have historically been militaries that have done horrendous things we would label as war crimes and they demonstrated high levels of discipline and cohesion.  Most are pre-modern era but the Japanese Army in China in the 30s springs to mind.  Brutal actions from the worst parts of humanity but still highly disciplined and highly cohesive.

For most militaries whose way of way leans this way they have applied structure to their chaos.  Looting, rape and civilian murder we planned phases of an operation, normally as an incentive or to allow the boys to “let off steam”. Once they got it out of their systems, order was re-established and discipline re-exerted. The primary reason for this is to keep primacy of collective interests over individual interests.  

Recall that whole macro - micro discussion and orientation?  It centres on the idea that organic micro-social structures are in tension with macro social structures.  Well micro orientation can be a good or bad thing to military organization - eg the home fires.  However it can also be toxic - individual survival calculus and interests driven by other pressures.  So looting, rape and recreational murder can quickly spiral out of control and erode the larger military’s ability to sustain structure….unless it is regulated within it.

Does the Russian military do this?  Very hard to tell.  There appears to be some evidence of systemic brutality, no doubt; however, there is a lot of “ad hoc” looking activity as well.  Troops abandoning fighting vehicles but hanging onto the washing machines is not a sign of structured brutality - more poor discipline and lack of leadership even in commission of war crimes.

So what?  Well unless the RA can structure this sort of violence the corrosive effects is going to add up.  Soldiers getting drunk, looting, raping and murdering is not a good thing if it occurs out of the control of the military hierarchy - crazy but true.  It is a matter of time that soldiers who are living like this create sub-tribes and quickly fall apart as cohesive units.  The question remains how much is under control and how much is just poor discipline and control?  Very hard to tell from evidence we can see.

Social Dimension

War is a lot more than an extension of policy.  It is an extension of the people who wage it on deep social - cultural, cognitive and conative - levels.  So if a military is adopting a way of war that includes warcrimes in a systemic way, there is normally a level of social norms that support this.  Here the evidence is a lot less definitive - I am sure someone will come along shortly and tell us that all Russians eat babies while clog dancing on puppies but internally they are pretty middle of the road as far as violent crime:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/violent-crime-rates-by-country

These numbers do not speak to a society that, internally at least, is accepting of high levels of violence.  Now this is only one indication and I am willing to bet Japanese crime rate in the 30s we’re very low - it was an orderly society.  Did Japanese society endorse brutality for “others” outside of Japan - history suggests “yes”.

So What?  Well if the RA is acting outside accepted Russian societal norms then it is clear it’s soldiers are on a very slippery slope away from their own people. This speaks to carcinogenic effects of internal military tribal societies that are alienated from both their own military and people - that is not good and clear evidence of structural failure.

If Russian soldiers are acting aligned with Russian accepted social norms towards war, then war crimes may very well have less of a corrosive effect from a societal point of view.

Now there have been all sorts of social media sound bites of Russian phone calls etc but these are not a real social study of Russian culture and its tolerance of brutality in war.  So in the end the question is too big to answer here.

I suspect that war crimes are eroding the RA to some extent.  Largely because there appears to be a lot less structure and organization in execution and more ad hoc bottom up chaos in the entire RA structure.  I do not think we are even capable of objectively assessing Russian society at this point, so we can put that aside.  

Finally as to RA collapse.  I argue that is is happening in front of us right now.  It has been collapsing since at least this summer broadly and suffered local collapses since the end of March. The evidence is pretty damning and continues to grow steadily.  RA fighting capability has eroded significantly as a result, to the point most found the Kherson withdrawal somewhat surprising.  The effects of war crimes and their role in that collapse is an excellent question but I suspect we will not really know for some time.

A key aspect might well be the ethnic nature of the victims. The violent armies you mention all functioned within a coherent narrative of Subjugation Of The Other, by right of the ethnic superiority of the perpetrators. Within that framework what would be considered violent, heinous crimes back home (mass rape, murder of civilians, bayoneting of babies, etc) was inherently not a crime in the warzone as the acts were committed against Others, who were by definition less human than the home nationality. Horrific acts of ultraviolence against them was thus at most a misdemeanor, on par with a traffic violation back home in punishment and opprobrium. 

Russian military war crimes are not war crimes within the Russian social and official narrative because the violent acts are committed against an Other ethnicity, Ukrainians, who are subhuman and are themselves instinctively and helplessly violent. It's like beating a savage dog, not a human being. 

So using war crimes as a metric against Russian Army unit cohesion is difficult without the social context of the wider narrative of who is Other (khohols), what is allowable against them (pretty much anything) and what the punishments are (negligible). How can there be a war crime against Ukrainians if non-military violence against any Ukrainian is not a crime? If beating my neighbour to a pulp is ok with everyone I know, spoken of approvingly every day on TV and dismissed by the local policeman as no more than naughtiness, then raping his daughters is not that big a deal, right? 

To us the  entire invasion is a crime but if it is not, if the wholesale institutional murder and violence against a clearly different ethnic group is not considered a criminal act within the Russian social narrative then how can there be any war crimes? How can there be a crime if the victim deserves it by their very existence? Adolf would be proud.

I'm not inclined to think of war crimes as degrading the cohesion of the RUA, because Russian society as a whole considers violence against Ukrainians acceptable in ways that against Russians would be utterly unacceptable. The notion of Ukrainian Otherness permeates Russian social structures from top to bottom, with the Russian army being nothing but the organized, sanctioned and overt expression of "defensive" violence against that "offensive" concept.

Part of the RUS Army's reason for existence is defending against Outsiders, against Others, so force cohesion is not affected by violence against Others in any shape or form. It's part of what the Russian army is, not even its "Way of War", but it's very nature as an expression of a fascist government. War crimes against Ukrainians are a function of that nature, that ideology, not a corrosion of the military force.

Violence against Ukrainians as the Other is the purpose of the Russian Army.

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Kinophile

[FancyCat]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Does the Russian military do this?  Very hard to tell.  There appears to be some evidence of systemic brutality, no doubt; however, there is a lot of “ad hoc” looking activity as well.  Troops abandoning fighting vehicles but hanging onto the washing machines is not a sign of structured brutality - more poor discipline and lack of leadership even in commission of war ccrime

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/11/22/russian-colonel-placed-under-house-arrest-for-washing-machine-bribe-a79464

A few days ago, a report came from Russian opposition media stating that a Colonel was arrested for threatening a bad inspection for a military conscription office unless they bribed him with a washing machine.

It is just one example, so who knows if it's isolated or not, but why is a Colonel in the Russian military asking for a washing machine? Why not just money? Why is a senior officer who is in command of several hundred men at least not more incorruptible? 

If we recall the frequent reports of corruption in the Russian military, it is corrosive as hell, impacting every rank from the very top to the very bottom. Russian conscripts, contract soldiers engage in corruption, stealing from each other, we have reports of mid and senior level personnel stealing from the pay of the enlisted, doing false reports that allow them to skim off profits or hide their backs.

Something that struck me was the reports from Belarus when Russian soldiers were bringing back their loot, here is a report on that,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/18/russia-atrocities-ukraine-soldiers/

Again, data is scarce but it indicates organized looting, coordinated, involving large numbers of personnel, who are then allowed to proceed so far as to ship the loot back home to places like Siberia. In some instances the loot gets disappeared en route even.

We are acting like the enlisted may not care about the war but surely the officers do? I would argue it is also hard to tell if that is true, the plentiful reports of actions like stealing of supplies, falsified reports, stealing of pay do not indicate regard for the war or their fellow soldiers or even fellow officers but only for attaining as much loot as possible. 

Pre-war, reports of officers using the enlisted akin to indentured labor, we should perhaps review with more accepting of it's truthfulness. Looting in prior warfare fell along the same lines, give your cut to your boss and he will let it slide. How do we know the Russian officers aren't asking their enlisted for their cut? How do we know the more senior officers arent asking the same of the junior officers?

As for the APCs being abandoned vs washing machines, you can't sell the APC to pay off your superior, but you can certainly do so with the washing machines, and once your superior covers for you, the money he gets can be used to bribe the next senior officer and so on.

As for acceptance of war crimes and corruption and brutality, it is notable the Wagner group is gaining numbers, equipment, and does so with publicity and without hiding the conscription of men from prisons or the brutal statements issued by Prigozhin. There isn't much stopping Wagner from gaining except from the viewpoint of new groups to compete for the money. 

[FancyCat]

22 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

  A key aspect might well be the ethnic nature of the victims.

Extremely good point that we have missed in the discussion of war crimes and whether they are systemic or ad hoc and degrading of the Russian military.

Certainly on the civilian side, actions like the forced seizure and displacement of Ukrainian civilians and kids, the erasure of Ukrainian language in occupied territories, the violence enacted against Ukrainian nationalism, do indicate that war crimes occurring against the population will be accepted by the civilian population, who are primed to think: end of the day, they are Russians who betrayed Russia and are adopting western degeneracy and so Russia needs to stamp it out, to protect Russia and save Ukraine.

On public television, pundits openly say that bombing civilian infrastructure of Ukraine to force them to freeze to death is just punishment for fighting Russia. That obviously does not sound like a society that will be repelled by war crimes being done in Ukraine.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Another interesting aspect (taken from Wolski interview) is that reportedly Russians are trying to set up military courts over mobiks who rebell, accusing them against their own military law of desertion and punishing with death sentence. He didn't provided any sources but there were rumours already circling for some time that half-formal punishments by shooting/fragging/being send into minefield indeed do happen. It would be logical, given how undisciplined mobiks can be.

For sure there's been plenty of evidence of disobedient Mobiks being illegally held in improvised detention centers in Luhansk.  I've seen first hand accounts in Russian media as well as pictures taken by the guards.  Or in one case the prisoners themselves because the morons didn't take their phones away.  They are severely mistreated and have no access to legal council because, according to the Russian state, they are at the front instead of some dark rat infested basement.

Steve

[Taranis]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I haven't seen this guy's updates for a couple of months. 

I don't remember him being so NEGATIVE about Ukraine's capabilities and general status on the battlefield.  The comments section points out numerous mistakes and mocks him for being wrong about predictions and ground conditions.  It seems he has switched over from mostly reporting to doing commentary.  I don't know when that happened, but I don't think I'll be seeing any more of his reports.

Steve

Some time ago, on the topic, we debated on the usefulness of his videos. I indicated that I still looked at them because that made it possible to leave our echo chamber, to have certain economic aspects which I did not know and multiplying sources. However, I find that over time his videos are less and less interesting, more and more erroneous. Now, it's been about 1 month since I unsubscribed from this channel and I'm doing very well.

Now if I had to recommend something of quality to watch and which offers a good summary (without being too optimistic), it would be the videos of Reporting from Ukraine and Denys Davydov. Watching War in Ukraine is now A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Taranis

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, FancyCat said:

It is just one example, so who knows if it's isolated or not, but why is a Colonel in the Russian military asking for a washing machine? Why not just money? Why is a senior officer who is in command of several hundred men at least not more incorruptible? 

Two possible reasons.  First, it is probably nearly impossible to get a washing machine in Russia these days thanks to sanctions.  And if you can, it's probably way more money than the mobiks could cobble together.  The second reason is it's not traceable.  This is why corrupt cops often go for bribes that involve fancy watches, cars, boats, and other things.  Cash is nice, but cash can cause trouble.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Some time ago, on the topic, we debated on the usefulness of his videos. I indicated that I still looked at them because that made it possible to leave our echo chamber, to have certain economic aspects which I did not know and multiplying sources. However, I find that over time his videos are less and less interesting, more and more erroneous. Now, it's been about 1 month since I unsubscribed from this channel and I'm doing very well.

Now if I had to recommend something of quality to watch and which offers a good summary (without being too optimistic), it would be the videos of Reporting from Ukraine and Denys Davydov. Watching War in Ukraine is now A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

Thanks for the confirmation.  As I said, it's been about 2 months since I checked in witih him and I was surprised how badly he drifted from what he started out doing.  Fully 2/3rds of the time was spent talking about the "strategic picture" and I skipped it because I didn't find it interesting.  Probably wasn't even very accurate.  Then when I got to the combat stuff I found him to have a serious attitude problem.  He said, flat out, that senior Ukrainian command doesn't know what it's doing (even though it just completed two major successful campaigns, including one for the history books!).  In the Bakhmut area he prattled on about how Ukrainians were being killed off in large numbers for nothing before he finally got around to mentioning, as an afterthought, that Wagnerites are dying in huge numbers.  Then he trailed off without trying to put the two in perspective.  He then did the same around Donetsk and stopped there.  No mention of what's going on around Kherson at all.

I wonder if someone he knew and cared about was killed at the front under circumstances he thinks were wasteful.  He sounds bitter at a very personal level.

Definitely not a good use of time looking at his videos any more.

Steve

[Taranis]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for the confirmation.  As I said, it's been about 2 months since I checked in witih him and I was surprised how badly he drifted from what he started out doing.  Fully 2/3rds of the time was spent talking about the "strategic picture" and I skipped it because I didn't find it interesting.  Probably wasn't even very accurate.  Then when I got to the combat stuff I found him to have a serious attitude problem.  He said, flat out, that senior Ukrainian command doesn't know what it's doing (even though it just completed two major successful campaigns, including one for the history books!).  In the Bakhmut area he prattled on about how Ukrainians were being killed off in large numbers for nothing before he finally got around to mentioning, as an afterthought, that Wagnerites are dying in huge numbers.  Then he trailed off without trying to put the two in perspective.  He then did the same around Donetsk and stopped there.  No mention of what's going on around Kherson at all.

I wonder if someone he knew and cared about was killed at the front under circumstances he thinks were wasteful.  He sounds bitter at a very personal level.

Definitely not a good use of time looking at his videos any more.

Steve

Exactly. He has always been very critical of the Ukrainian command and politicians. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian losses are very probably heavy, everyone suspects it, but he exaggerates things a lot. He takes certain elements of Russian propaganda a little too much as truth. He's been wrong a lot of times in the past on things like HIMARS attacks on ammunition depots etc, but now he's just gone into a fungus delirium I believe. If we listened to him, Ukraine would have already collapsed 5 times in the past 2 months. He is never so critical with the Russians. Ukrainian successes are minimized or even hidden and small local Russian successes are directly cited. Perhaps his logic/strategy is to seek provocation from listeners and thus pass himself off as someone neutral and therefore more reliable... In any case, it has become pathetic and that's a shame.

Also, his videos are very long now which is even more of a waste of time. I know that Steve already knows this site well, but if you have little time and want a good almost daily military summary, you have to go to militaryland.net

Combining the two channels from my previous post plus militaryland will take you about 20-25 minutes a day and you'll get a really good (IMHO) look at what's going on as the War in Ukraine videos take you have for about 48 minutes and it's just sh*t.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Taranis

[NamEndedAllen]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Maybe I missed someone posting this?  EU Parliament has formally voted in favor of declaring Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/european-lawmakers-declare-russia-state-sponsor-terrorism-2022-11-23/

As noted this doesn't have the same weight as the US making a similar declaration, therefore it is largely symbolic.  When the US put someone on its list there's a whole range of really powerful things that kick in immediately.  Too bad this declaration did not get made this year because I doubt it will have a chance of happening next year.

Steve

Steve, it’s good that this happened. I posted a couple links on the prelim vote back on page gazillion-fifty-eight. It was described as “a non legislative resolution”. Unlike the USA they don’t have a legal basiis for this characterization, unlike the sanctions already passed. But it certainly underscores their assessment of what Russia *is*.

 

[NamEndedAllen]

15 minutes ago, Taranis said:

Exactly. He has always been very critical of the Ukrainian command and politicians. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian losses are very probably heavy, everyone suspects it, but he exaggerates things a lot. He takes certain elements of Russian propaganda a little too much as truth. He's been wrong a lot of times in the past on things like HIMARS attacks on ammunition depots etc, but now he's just gone into a fungus delirium I believe. If we listened to him, Ukraine would have already collapsed 5 times in the past 2 months. He is never so critical with the Russians. Ukrainian successes are minimized or even hidden and small local Russian successes are directly cited. Perhaps his logic/strategy is to seek provocation from listeners and thus pass himself off as someone neutral and therefore more reliable... In any case, it has become pathetic and that's a shame.

Also, his videos are very long now which is even more of a waste of time. I know that Steve already knows this site well, but if you have little time and want a good almost daily military summary, you have to go to militaryland.net

Combining the two channels from my previous post plus militaryland will take you about 20-25 minutes a day and you'll get a really good (IMHO) look at what's going on as the War in Ukraine videos take you have for about 48 minutes and it's just sh*t.

Taranis, thanks for the advice about militaryland.net. Those maps are excellent.

[Taranis]

4 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Taranis, thanks for the advice about militaryland.net. Those maps are excellent.

You're welcome. As a father of 3, I know what it's like to have limited time . On this site, there is also the interesting possibility when one chooses "Invasion Maps" to choose a sector of the front and to see at a glance the evolution from day to day.

[Taranis]

"

"Russian military vehicles on display in the center of kyiv on November 23, 2022. Public lighting is switched off in order to save energy. RAFAEL YAGHOBZADEH FOR “LE MONDE”"

[Taranis]

"Ukrainian soldiers in Kherson, November 23. BERNAT ARMANGUE / AP"
* Buggy ! (with SPG-9?)

[Huba]

Notice the blue and yellow folders on the table in front of Putin

 

 

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Steve, it’s good that this happened. I posted a couple links on the prelim vote back on page gazillion-fifty-eight. It was described as “a non legislative resolution”. Unlike the USA they don’t have a legal basiis for this characterization, unlike the sanctions already passed. But it certainly underscores their assessment of what Russia *is*.

 

It is symbolic in two ways because even if there was a legal basis for this characterization, the EU parliament doesn't have the same roll as national parliaments. The real power less with the European commission and Council of ministers. The parliament had had its powers increased over the last years and it can block bills and such but don't imagine it as something like the US Congress.

Even so, the move is a good thing.

[CAZmaj]

...

“Please imagine how Ukrainians understand negotiations,” former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko told the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday. “You are sitting in your own house, the killer comes to your house and kills your wife, rapes your daughter, takes the second floor, then opens the door to the second floor and says, ‘OK come here. Let’s have a negotiation.’ What would be your reaction?”

...