Posted on 06/12/2022 2:42:40 PM PDT by Mount Athos
A big part of the problem in defending this part of Donbas, Ostap believes, is that the people who have stayed behind — the people who haven’t fled — don’t really believe they are part of Ukraine. In his view, the civilians who remain are all separatist sympathizers. He says they help the Russians navigate backcountry roads that aren’t on the maps.
He asserts there have been instances of local collaborators getting caught providing information about Ukrainian troop movements or locations. Indeed, Slovyansk fell to Russian separatists in 2014: The retaking of the city by the Ukrainian military later that summer was the first major battle in Donbas.
“Almost everyone here is pro-Russian. But you can’t arrest people just for that,” Mace says. In any case, the police and the SBU —Ukraine’s internal security service — were doing what they could. “The SBU even arrested a couple of people in our brigade,” he says.
(...)
“I nearly beat to death one of the men in my unit,” he confides. “We were in trenches on the front lines. He was using his cellphone.”
“The Russians tracked his signal and located our position. He called his mom for 15 minutes, then his wife for 15 minutes … and then his girlfriend for almost two hours. They bombarded us all night. That’s why I beat him.”
“We lost six men on our first patrol,” he says. “Six out of 10. They were all my friends.”
He breaks down and begins to cry.
Sasha eventually admits that he has been given leave to go to a hospital to seek therapy, for what soldiers a century ago would have called shell shock and what we now call PTSD. He has been given 10 days to recover from his battlefield trauma and return to his unit.
Sasha doesn’t want to return to combat. All he can think about are the soldiers who were killed on his first patrol.
“Those six men were my friends, they were my brothers, and I love them very much,” he says. “I can’t just leave them behind. I will always carry them with me.”
“What is in my heart is that I never wish to see Donbas again in the future. Nothing you do there makes any difference.”
Nazi Ukraine not Russia. NATO (Say US) and it’s EU Nazi Muppets are supporting the slow demise of the Ukraine.
Still repeating the lies, I see.
On the same level as WW1 “Huns bayoneting babies for fun!” propaganda.
Still works, [on the gullible].
“The Soros supporting EU is busy funding Russia’s war machine. Hundreds of millions of dollars every single day.”
Are you injecting the fentanyl yet, or still snorting it?
Naw, your a fudge packer like the rest of your bend over buddies on here.
Zackly. “Don’t worrry hon’. I found a free wi-fi network. We can talk for hours...” *Crunch*
The vile, disgusting Putinist celebrators filled the “keywords” with their true (vile) colors...
So sad what has happened here. I wish Mr. Robinson had taken a stand early on. Being on the right side of history is imperative. Too many here failed to do so.
Celebrating Russia and Putin’s attempt to exterminate Ukraine is the most despicable thing I’ve ever witnessed.
The name of the country is Ukraine, not “the” Ukraine which was/is a term of Russian/Soviet imperial conquest.
And Ukraine was a dream compared to America’s Democrat/Leftist run third world craphole cities.
LOL
Dear Ukraine soldiers: Thank you for dying for Hunter Biden’s whore and coke habit
It will always be known as THE Ukraine.
The recycled axis (Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and all) will continue to try to attack in both regions before NATO destroys it. If it launches nukes, it will be destroyed just the same.
I’m just sitting back here hoping all the FORMER (still) COMMUNISTS just MURDER THE HELL OUT OF EACH OTHER.
Got no dog in this hunt and don’t give a damn.
False equivalence.
Look at the last election held in Kherson. We know it was majority Russian, and we know it welcomed the Russian federation forces in without putting up much of a fight.
Russia picked a Rashist former journalist to be the civilian administrator. The same guy, two years earlier, got a thumping 1.8% of the popular vote.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out he’s an incompetent, corrupt leader who’s handing over emptied houses and the possessions in them to Russian settlers while the city ran empty of food and medical supplies.
There is growing partisan action... Led by Russian Ukrainians who think of him as a guy who single handedly betrayed the Russian people in what should’ve been a very civilised handover.
The idea that being a Russian leaning, Russian speaker in a predominantly Russified town automatically makes you a good and popular leader in a separatist area is demented. That’s like saying RINOs are popular in MAGA.
Russia actively seeks out the most corrupt people to run those towns, after years of those people bending over backwards to get rid of the corruption.
They didn’t agree to Russian control in order to swap pockets of Ukrainian corruption in city hall (without a hugh body count) for rampant Russian corruption, bloodbath and endemic thievery.
Russia deliberately imposed it on them.
And if it’d do that to a FRIENDLY city that practically let them in without firing a shot, what do you think Russian control looks like in areas that resisted?
So check your facts. 70% of the southern oblasts were of either Russian ethnic descent or spoke fluent Russian. No more than 5% of the southern oblasts would’ve voted for an administration like the one Kherson got.
And now, applying the Kosovo logic, what is the point for them to be a part of Ukraine?
What you are saying are the regular issues of the transitory administrations. It is going to get fixed sooner rather than later.
Yeah, you seem to be incredibly pro-forced fixing it with invasion and killing.
Good guys, you russians.
That’s your neocon projection.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1535895123212509184?t=k_DyNZxMC2i6J7GqSrEALQ&s=19
Camera footage from the Russia National Day in Kherson. I’ve seen more life at a family funeral. And a bigger crowd.
That’s in the town that bussed in hundreds of Russians for the victory parade in May. Look at that “crowd” today when the Russian media wasn’t around. No sense of victory, nobody’s rejoicing.
Some who arrived in May are staying but many have decamped to Crimea because it’s a basket case. Busloads of people are also heading north, into Ukrainian held territory.
Now that even ethnic Russians and imported Russian settlers don’t want to live under the occupation imposed on Kherson, the Kremlin installed administration is extremely vulnerable. If it becomes a line of into a street lamp pinatas,that won’t be due to Azov or the Uke arny - it’ll be furious ethnic Russians rebelling against the Kremlin’s appointees who have looted and ruined thrir city.
Your country, YOURS is the one invading, don’t try and deflect that
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