Toomas Karmo: Open Letter to Platoon Commanders in the Russian Red Army Force Invading Ukraine

  Quality assessment: 

On the 5-point scale current in Estonia, and surely in nearby nations, and familiar to observers of the academic arrangements of the late, unlamented, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (applying the easy and lax standards Kmo deploys in his grubby imaginary "Aleksandr Stepanovitsh Popovi nimeline sangarliku raadio instituut" (the "Alexandr Stepanovitch Popov Institute of Heroic Radio") and his grubby imaginary "Nikolai Ivanovitsh Lobatshevski nimeline sotsalitsliku matemaatika instituut" (the "Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky Institute of Socialist Mathematics") - where, on the lax and easy grading philosophy of the twin Institutes, 1/5 is "epic fail", 2/5 is "failure not so disastrous as to be epic", 3/5 is "mediocre pass", 4/5 is "good", and 5/5 is "excellent"): 2/5. Justification: I worked in a public emergency on a task of limited scope, from a position of limited knowledge.  

Revision history:

UTC=20220228T955755Z/version 2.1.0: Kmo adjusted transparency-driven disclosure of personal contact particulars, paying closer attention to need for balancing transparency with security. Kmo then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 72 hours, as versions 2.1.1, 2.1.2, ... . . 

UTC=20220227T213003Z/version 2.0.0: Kmo took a firmer line, considering participation in the invasion unambiguously immoral. (In version 1.0.0, he had unwisely suggested that in some limited sense it might be moral to adhere to a solemn oath of military loyalty, taken in good faith at some past time. This is "Wehrmacht Honour", to be dismissed in the Ukraine of 2022 as it was dismissed at the Nürnberg trials in 1946.)  Kmo then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 72 hours, as versions 2.0.1, 2.0.2, ... . . 

UTC=20220227T203610Z/version 1.0.0: Kmo uploaded base version. He then planned to continue producing, in a way not documented here, minor tweaks, over the coming 72 hours, as versions 1.0.1, 1.0.2, ... . . 

I write in the interest of civic and military honour, as a private Estonian citizen and as a private Catholic Christian loyal to the Holy See. I assume personal responsibility for what I write, having consulted beforehand with nobody. Having, on the other hand, written my thoughts out, I am ready to take any necessary advice, correction, or rebuke from authorities in my Church and in my government, and additionally from within my circle of friends and colleagues. 

For the convenience of all parties, and in the interest of transparency, I display my contact particulars at the end of this letter. 

I respectfully request that sympathetic persons, for instance in Ukraine and Russia, repeatedly translate this letter into good Russian and repeatedly distribute it, both via social media (such as ВКонтакте) and as printed sheets, indicating that their particular translation is not my own, and retaining my own contact particulars, and if choosing to make any change in content (in substance) adding an appropriate entry to the revision log in the document header. In legal terms, this work is intended as a publication under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 

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What is an honourable course of action for those Red Army platoon commanders invading Ukraine who now consider their platoon to have been recruited into an unjust cause by Kremlin politicians? Of the various good options which exist for such a hypothetical platoon commander, not all are equally good. 

Some will argue that good in a weak sense is the option of remaining true to one's military oath. On this dark so-to-speak 1939-through-1945 "Wehrmacht honour" conception, one continues to fight with due diligence on the Kremlin side, as one promised when the oath was administered. For my part, however, I respectfully dissent from this assessment, holding with the 1946 Nürnberg tribunal (in which Russian judges participated) that unjust orders cannot be obeyed. 

In my own private view (I repeat my willingness to take rebuke from my government, from my Church, and from my friends and acquaintances), it is necessary to consider the military oath no longer binding. Many will agree with my anti-military assessment at least when pondering the case of such platoon commanders as joined the Ukraine invasion without initially grasping its immorality. Without myself being a soldier, I would conjecture that some aspects of military morality become clear to junior officers only in the field, at the hour when civilian anguish is first encountered. 

And in my own private view military disengagement is still more glaringly necessary for those platoon commanders who, on taking their oath months or years ago, either did not foresee being some day sent to invade the brother nation which is Ukraine or who are commanding men who did not foresee this contingency when they for their part took the oath. Officers are responsible for the moral welfare of their subordinates.  

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How should these disengaging platoon commanders proceed? Here are various good options, some better than others. 

Good, but in a limited way, is the option of quietly undermining the work of one's higher command, in some way that does not directly endanger any other personnel in the Red Army. It would be reckless to commit an act of outright sabotage, such as planting an improvised explosive device in the path of one's advancing comrades. A descent into recklessness can be avoided, however, by executing orders less than perfectly. A lieutenant or captain radios to the platoon, for instance, the order that forty fuel containers are to be made ready for an incoming Red Army convoy. Let the fuel be of proper quality, then, prepared just as the lieutenant or captain expects. Let there simply be not quite enough of it. In place of the required forty containers, let there be just thirty, or just twenty. Or let the containers be just partly filled, with spills allowed to occur at the spigot. 

Still better is a plan of surrender, provided one can secure the free and informed consent of one's men before acting. Suppose the platoon agrees, after some minutes of discussion, that the Russian invasion is a fratricidal injustice, bringing on the one hand suffering to Ukraine, and on the other hand dishonour to the Red Army. Now one is ready, as an officer, to surrender, with the informed cooperation of one's men. Here again two options exist - both of them good, and yet one better than the other. 

The less good option is to seek out some opportunity of surrendering to a numerically superior force, by deliberately leading the platoon into contact with some larger Ukrainian unit. 

The better option is to seek out some opportunity to surrender to a numerically inferior force, as when some nine-man Russian platoon turns itself over to a two-man Ukrainian patrol. 

Surrender to a numerically superior force can take on the morally ambiguous aspect of self-preservation. Surrender to a numerically inferior force, on the other hand, takes on the aspect of a moral declaration. Such a surrender indicates to all observers, through the language of military action, a loyalty to principles and to Russia's true long-term national interest. 

[Author contact particulars: Toomas Karmo; Toomas.Karmo@gmail.com; http://toomaskarmo.blogspot.com/; telephone 372-5864-6540; papermail Observatooriumi Street, Tõravere hamlet, Nõo Rural Municipality, Tartumaa County, Estonia 61602.]

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