Posted on 03/03/2022 6:25:53 AM PST by grundle
KHARKIV, Ukraine — In a downtown government office building, men and women in military fatigues carried rocket-propelled grenades through hallways lined with ornate white crown molding. Others had AK-47s with loaded clips slung over the shoulders. Sandbags rested along windows as protection in case of potential blasts. A public bus pulled up to the building. There were hundreds of boxes of bullets inside.
This was the scene of the makeshift headquarters of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday morning, right around the time artillery strikes from the Russian military hit the area for a third straight day. Even as the smell of sulfur wafted through the streets, more than 100 people waited in line to join the civilian reserve force.
Anyone between 18 and 60 can join.
It’s the sort of civilian insurgency that Ukraine is counting on to help fend off a Russian military that has significantly more manpower and firepower. President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted Thursday, “We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.”
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky said in a video message that volunteers in Kyiv alone were given more than 25,000 automatic rifles, about 10 million bullets, and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers.
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Propaganda dominates in this war as it always has in prior wars. Social media and the internet are full of these pictures of civilians taking arms and swearing to fight against all odds. Yet precious little is seen or known about just how and where regular Ukrainian armed forces are engaged. It would appear that they must be somewhat effective because for the most part the Russians have not yet achieved their objectives and have resorted to indiscriminate shelling and bombing. Extremely difficult to get a true sense what is really happening.
Propaganda is usually the promotion or lies and delusions to motivate a population or to rally support from the outside. Sometimes it works. However if one side or the other has the overwhelming advantage and willingness to press on regardless of casualties, then defeat, death and destruction inevitably comes and propaganda becomes the basis of mythical legends.
Lets hope it is soon.
No Zelensky is in Ukraine, not just inspiring Ukraine, but inspiring the world.
Putin is in Moscow dishonoring and destroying the Russian state by stupidity.
Most Russian soldiers aren’t seasoned. They are conscripts doing their one-year service.
Russia does have a few units of “regulars”, volunteer professionals. How many and which ones are the “pros” is unclear.
Ukraine was not a serious country. They have known at least since Putin went into Georgia, took Crimea, etc, who and what they lived next to.
A serious country would have issued weapons to a citizen militia ten years ago and trained them all this time. Their military would have trained to fight as insurgents and to assist the militia, with hardened fighting positions prepared in depth between the Russian border and their major cities.
This is like watching people evacuating their homes that they built in a floodplain, or their beach houses in the face of a Cat 5 hurricane. It’s sad. But in Aristotelian terms, it’s not a tragedy, it’s just pathetic.
seasoned Russian soldiers.
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Which season did they fight in? Afghan was 40 years ago. Georgia was mercenary Wagner Group. Chechnya was 20 years ago. Which war did they acquire their seasoning in?
“We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country.”
Our various levels of government would be confiscating guns under similar circumstances.
Yes, I’m praying for it.
How long do you think it takes to learn how to fire a rifle? We’re not talking about long range sniping here.
From what I've see of ruskey dead, they could use a little salze, pfeffer und a bay leaf while they roast in their BMPs.
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