Posted on 03/07/2022 3:28:02 PM PST by Zhang Fei
With a white, closely trimmed beard and deep crevices around his mouth where dimples might once have been, Colonel Stetsenko cuts an unusual figure on the battlefield. He is 56 and had been retired from the military for a decade when he decided to re-enlist in 2020. By then, Ukrainian forces were already fighting a Kremlin-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Colonel Stetsenko felt he needed to do his part.
“I knew that many people who had already served were tired,” he said. “It is difficult to live for so long without their families, and we needed people to serve. So I went to the military recruiting center and signed a contract.”
Such dedication goes some way to explaining the fierce resistance displayed by Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, as Russian troops seem to be surrendering in large numbers. An acute knowledge of the Russian military gives the Ukrainian forces another advantage.
Colonel Stetsenko served with Russians as a young soldier in the Soviet military in the 1980s, when he was posted to the Far East. Now, soldiers based at some of the same Russian garrisons where he spent his youth are fighting against him.
“They are now my enemy,” he said. “And each one of them who comes here with arms, who comes here as an invader, I will do everything I can to ensure that he remains as fertilizer for our land.”
On Sunday evening, Colonel Stetsenko returned to the front line outside the city where the sounds of battle swelled once more as Russian troops regrouped for a counterattack. That has been the way of this war, nearly a week and a half in, a violent ebb and flow that has centered on a few key cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Impressive men.
Serbs lived and still live in Kosovo. Got any accolades for those who still don’t accept being cut out of their country by pious Nato
Avoid Paywalls using Brave Browser. Technical, but works. I have been getting around paywalls by searching MSN along with title. No more, as some articles are not uploaded there. NEW METHOD. Your welcome. 🙂
Inspect , then disable is way better.
I use Brave, so on the article.
1) Right Click Inspect
2) ... 3 vertical dots, click run command,
3) type java, then see disable java script, click on debugger
4) Hit Refresh paywall gone...
5) You can now read the whole article.
[Avoid Paywalls using Brave Browser. Technical, but works. I have been getting around paywalls by searching MSN along with title. No more, as some articles are not uploaded there. NEW METHOD. Your welcome. 🙂
Inspect , then disable is way better.
I use Brave, so on the article.
1) Right Click Inspect
2) ... 3 vertical dots, click run command,
3) type java, then see disable java script, click on debugger
4) Hit Refresh paywall gone...
5) You can now read the whole article.]
bookmark brave paywall trick
I love my propaganda in the morning...it smells like victory.
;-)
[These guys?]
Thanx!
The Chechens in Grozny held out for a long time before that city was leveled. The long term battle here is likely the same. The Ukies need to send a lot of Russian troops home in boxes or urns to undermine Tsar Putin’s support at home. It could happen.
“for now” is right. Russia is not trying yet. Russia will win. Just a mater of time.
[The Chechens in Grozny held out for a long time before that city was leveled. ]
From the New York Times? Take it with a grain (or maybe a ton) of salt...
The Russians have already had to invest several times more men and material in Ukraine than in Chechnya. Its a much bigger problem. At this point its looking like they will need even more men and material to finish the job through attrition, which will be costly.
It becomes a question of how much cost the Russians will bear. And that always was the obvious Ukrainian strategy, to make this business expensive.
Gerasimov was a senior military official who participated in the second Chechen war and was awarded a medal for “capturing Crimea.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-fighting-general-killed-b2030661.html
[“for now” is right. Russia is not trying yet. Russia will win. Just a mater of time.]
Russia withdrew from Afghanistan after 13,000 KIA at a time its population was 2x what it is today, fighting a bunch of Stone Age savages its troops had no problem massacring. Ukrainians are next door neighbors who look like them and talk like them. Russian morale must be abysmal. It’s like asking American troops to invade and burn Canadian cities to the ground. Hordes would desert and turn their weapons against the invaders. At current official Russian attrition rates, Russia hits 13,000 friendly dead in 6 months. Putin had better win by then.
All wars of attrition are contests of pain. How much pain can either side inflict, vs how much pain either side can bear. This is a highly variable balance and the outcomes are not obvious.
What is certain is that in order to win this the Russians are going to have to mobilize their reserves, which is much more pain for them, in order to come up with the manpower to make contiguous lines in order to hold territory. They cannot have planned for this eventuality as they would have called up a lot of reserves beforehand had they anticipated it, in order to avoid a stalemate.
As far as equipment goes it seems that the Russians have shot their bolt. They really don’t have much really new equipment in working order, and they have already fed a very large part of it into this operation, somewhere between 500-1000 tanks, for one thing. They don’t have that many T-90’s and T-80’s or even the latest T-72’s. Their reserves will be using pure un-upgraded Soviet-era stuff, those which can be made to work. We have already seen classic BMP-1’s there, probably in the hands of security forces or reservists. That will possibly suffice, but it means that many more casualties.
[Ukraine just killed Gen. Maj. Vitaly Gerassimov, chief of staff of the 41 Army. At Kharkiv.
Gerasimov was a senior military official who participated in the second Chechen war and was awarded a medal for “capturing Crimea.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-fighting-general-killed-b2030661.html]
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