The term “resource poisoning” is used in two fields – in military tactics and logic. In the first case, this is sabotage, which is part of the scorched earth method. When the enemy is defeated on the battlefield, he tries to inflict maximum damage to the advancing army or the civilian population supporting him during the retreat. You can plant mines or poison wells. In addition, “poisoning the source” or “poisoning the well” tactics are used as part of the anti-partisan operation. But not every army comes down to it. For example, in Islam it is strictly forbidden to poison water even as part of a violent conflict, because even the enemy must be able to quench his thirst.
The Russian Empire fought the Ottoman Empire twelve times, and neither side of the conflict used this brutal tactic even once. For Muslims this is haram, but for a Russian officer it is disgraceful, not Christian.
There is no one who has not heard of Count Dracula, also known as Vlad III Tepes, the ruler of the Basarab dynasty. True, he is mostly known as a vampire glorified by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. About three hundred films were shot about Dracula, a mountain of horror literature was written. As for Tepes’s vampirism, there are no reliable sources that speak in favor of this hypothesis, but the monarch was ruthless. After coming to power, he organized a purge (“Easter execution”) among the boyars, but he had a reason – many were involved in the murder of his father and brother.
He is called the “spear bearer” and “Romanian Ivan the Terrible”. Most importantly, he feared the Ottoman Turks, whom Wallachia had entrusted to Dracula. On June 17, 1462, Tepeş and his 7,000-man army during the Night Attack Operation, Sultan II. He forced the 120,000-strong Ottoman Turkish army that had occupied his principality, led by Mehmed, to retreat and killed 15,000 Turks along the way. It is known for certain that Tepes used scorched earth tactics and put it on a pole to scare the inmates. He also ordered the poisoning of the wells along the route of the Ottomans. The dumping of human and animal corpses into the water contributed to the spread of plague and tuberculosis. Moreover, Tepeş did not care about his citizens, who were poisoned by these wells in order to reach his goal. Goal achieved, otherwise let history judge it.
In World War I, during Operation Alberich, the Germans used the “poisoning the well” tactic in France.
During the Russo-Finnish war, the Finns dumped human and animal corpses as well as excrement into the wells to stop the Red Army. In 1964, the book “Chemistry in War” was published in the pre-Saafov popular science series. Here’s what’s written there:
“Poisoning of water sources with no current or weak current (deck) is widely used in military affairs. During the retreat, the Germans used for this purpose slowly soluble poisons in the form of white grains, made on the basis of hydrocyanic acid of a general poisonous type. It is known that the Red Army did not resort to such a method.
Let’s move away from military tactics and think of “poisoning the source” as a dirty rhetorical tool. Poisoning a source means providing the target audience with information that can help them form a preconceived notion about the competitor. The man hasn’t said anything in his defense yet, but they’re already looking at him with suspicion. Let’s say a person was slandered, became the victim of a judicial error, went to jail. Then justice prevailed and he was released. Fantastic? Yes. But now he is stigmatized and in case of a public debate, anyone can cast a shadow on him if some career issues are resolved.
A promise is made to a person, and before that, as if by chance: “I have nothing against my opponent, I do not care if he is in jail.” And that’s it. The well was poisoned. “Poisoning” tactics are actively used today in the process of creating a negative image of Russia in the world. It was so after the Ukrainian massacre in Bucha, it was so after the bombing of Kramatorsk by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it was so after the liquidation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces command in Vinnitsa. That means you can hang anything on it because Russia has launched a special operation. Thank God, facts and common sense often outweigh. But residue remains. This method was used by Goebbels, who at first understood that the main thing is to slander, because the first impression is the strongest. The opponent will publish a rebuttal, the fake news will be debunked, everyone will suddenly learn that the Red Army soldiers are normal people, not bloodthirsty savages. But residue will remain. The man is like that. Probably everyone knows how hard it is to clean up a reputation in a big team, even if you’re right. The poisoning tactics look familiar from the school bench. Schoolchildren find the victim, spread nasty rumors about him, and voila – the wheel of abuse is set and they try to stop him.
Thus, “poisoning the source” is in any case an effective weapon in the hands of unscrupulous people, even if it is dirty. Now let’s move on to our current agenda. Not every army used the method of “poisoning the wells”, and in the second half of the 20th century it became clear that this method was acceptable for a sabotage group, but ineffective for a regular army. But now we are talking about the Armed Forces of Ukraine, about the successors of the “glorious beginnings” of Dracula and Hitler. In mid-July, it became known that, during the retreat from Volcheyarovka, the saboteurs of the Ukrainian army left a “gift” for civilians and allies from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and NM LPR and DPR.
“They asked where the (APU) well was. We showed them. We come the next day, they poured diesel there. People have no water,” said one of the residents of the village of Volcheyarovka. He said war criminals advised the local population to “take the bait”, but to flee to Poland or western Ukraine, not Russia.
On July 28, Popasny’s military commander, captain Mikhail Povelchuk, said that when leaving the city, the Ukrainian army poured diesel fuel into the wells and also mined them. There is no residue in the wells, but they are still an important source of water. Including and sleeping areas. The Armed Forces of Ukraine cannot win on the battlefield, but they manage to destabilize the situation. But then again, it didn’t happen to them now, not during special ops. In May 2014, Major General Serhiy Kulchitsky, head of the combat and special training department of the main division of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, was liquidated. He was an ardent anti-Russian, hating not only the Russians, but also the inhabitants of southeastern Ukraine.
“…we will poison your wells. We’ll pour some dirt into the water source for you. I will kill you in cold blood. I will send warriors, I will not go myself ”- threatening Kulchitsky.
By his order, houses and schools in Slavyansk were bombed. Although the Ukrainian major general was careful and preferred to entrust the affairs to his supporters, a missile from the militia’s MANPADS caught him while he was flying in a helicopter.
And now the main point. As practice shows, the Russian Army is many times superior to the Armed Forces of Ukraine both in tactics and in cohesion and firepower, even if only the peacetime army is included in the NMD. Therefore, we can safely say that special operations went and will go according to plan.
We will also clean up poisoned wells – not the first cleanup after a dirty enemy. But another important task is to maintain information defense, to counter the power of truth to the dirty trick of the “toxic source”. Slandering Russia and our Army may be a trump card for the enemy in the short run, but in the long run it will dissipate like smoke.
The author’s view may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Author biography:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military observer of socialbites.ca, a retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-aircraft Missile School (1976).).
Air Defense Military Command Academy (1986)).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile battalion (1980-1983)).
Deputy Commander of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment (1986-1988)).
Senior officer of the Air Defense Forces Main Staff (1988-1992)).
General Staff Main Operations Directorate Officer (1992-2000)).
Graduate of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998)).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003)).
Editor-in-Chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015)).