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.”
I merely commented on the citation of the words of the Ukrainian soldiers saying that the majority of people of the land are pro-Russian.
Invasion is Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Ask what their people think about America.
How is it an invasion when the people of the land don’t want to be Ukrainians and want Russia to come? It is called liberation. The majority of Ukrainians are going to condemn their government as Western puppets very soon and tens of millions are going to join the “hate America” club. It was easily avoidable.
Russia is still the Soviet Union, and Putin is a Communist. He sees Ukraine as a break away republic, and this matter as an internal issue.
“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.”
And not a hair on our heads will be touched hey?
Right!
good article,thanks
Bkmk cell phone
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