Other Post Ukrainian War Stories

[berkut76]

In the Trenches of the War in Ukraine, I See History Repeating Itself

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/07...ar-in-ukraine-i-see-history-repeating-itself/

 

[berkut76]

Many Ukrainians are outraged that your coverage of their country has created a grossly distorted picture of reality.

Many Ukrainians are outraged that you still do not write that Russia invaded or occupies Ukraine, instead writing about “rebel held territories”. Ukrainians are outraged that you paint Moscow’s unlawful interstate war on Ukraine as a “separatist uprising” that Moscow “backs” or “leads”. Ukrainians are outraged that you call Russian nationals fighting on Ukrainian soil, “Ukrainian separatists”. Ukrainians are outraged that when you write about Russia’s invasion, you ensure it is “balanced”, often giving at least equal airtime and consideration to Kremlin lies about Ukraine, as you do to Ukraine’s truthful side of the story.

Many Ukrainians are outraged that you wrote that “little green men” of “unknown origin” had invaded Crimea when it was abundantly clear these armed men were Russian soldiers. Ukrainians are outraged that you helped propagate the Kremlin lie that it was a civil uprising in Crimea against Ukrainian nationalists until Putin chose to admit that Moscow had occupied the peninsula. Only when the murderous war criminal admitted his crime did you bother to write the truth about it, without ever correcting your previous misinformation.

Many Ukrainians are outraged that you continue to help with Russia’s propaganda efforts about Ukraine. You write that Crimeans “voted” in a “referendum”, instead of writing about how the referendum was no referendum at all, and that many voters were “voting” at the barrel of a Kalashnikov. Ukrainians are outraged that you don’t cover Moscow’s ethnic cleansing efforts of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea. You don’t write about how Russia has eradicated Ukrainian language instruction in all of occupied Ukraine, about Moscow’s destruction of all Ukrainian language texts in Crimea, or about many hundreds of thousands of transplanted Russian nationals to Crimea, as part of Moscow’s illegal policy to completely change the ethnic make-up of the region.

https://www.stopfake.org/en/the-justifiable-outrage-of-western-reporting-on-ukraine/

 

[berkut76]

Ukraine Rebuilds Its Military Muscle to Repel a Russian Invasion

In the summer of 2014, with its hybrid war in shambles, Russia outright invaded Ukraine with thousands of its own troops. By then the war was no longer a hybrid conflict. It had metastasized into a mechanized, mobile war, comprising tanks, artillery, and rocket barrages.

The operative, Minsk II cease-fire—the war’s second, signed in February 2015—has effectively frozen the conflict along current geographical boundaries. In theory, by proscribing the use of certain heavy weapons, the cease-fire moderates the intensity of combat.

Yet, in reality, the war never ended. It’s become a long-range battle, marked by daily shelling and small arms gun battles. At some places, no man’s land can be several kilometers wide. At others, the Ukrainians and their enemies are close enough to shout insults at each other.


Ukraine, for its part, has about 60,000 troops deployed to the war zone, with tens of thousands more ready to rapidly defend its Sea of Azov and Black Sea coastlines.

Logistical challenges still dog Ukraine’s war effort and many Ukrainian troops wield Soviet-era, hand-me-down weapons and hardware. Civilian volunteers continue to make up for government shortfalls by delivering supplies to the front lines, including uniforms, food, water, and combat first-aid kits.

Still, Ukraine’s meteoric military renaissance has upheaved Eastern Europe’s pre-2014 balance of power. Today, Europe’s two largest standing land armies remain locked in a de facto state of war and countries across Eastern Europe are rapidly militarizing to defend against Russia.

Thus, the spectre of a much larger, far deadlier conflict waxes and wanes with the pace of combat in the Donbas.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/09...-military-muscle-to-repel-a-russian-invasion/

 

[BravoZulu]

Excellent stuff @berkut76 , thanks for posting information and updates like this

 

[berkut76]

Crimeans rally to help 24 Ukrainian POWs seized in Russia’s Azov Sea attack

As is always the case at the ‘court hearings’ in cases involving Crimean Tatar and other political prisoners, a large number of Crimeans also came to the Russian-controlled ‘court’ to show their support. Archbishop Kliment is seeking permission to visit the men though, with Russia’s antagonistic attitude to the Orthodox Church under the Kyiv Patriarchate, it is not clear whether this will be granted.
Three of the men – 18-year-old Andriy Eider, Andriy Artemenko and Vasyl Soroka – were badly wounded when Russian FSB border guards opened fire without provocation on 25 November and remain in a Kerch hospital. The ‘court hearing’ remanding them in custody appears to have been held without them, and with all three men having been deprived access to a lawyer.
The help did not stop there. Osman Pashayev, a Crimean Tatar journalist forced by the occupation regime from Crimea, almost accidently found that he had collected almost 325 thousand UAH for the imprisoned Ukrainians, as well as 100 dollars that somebody brought to his work in Kyiv.
Pashayev later wrote that he had been mistaken for the last five years in assuming that with rare exceptions, there was nobody remaining in occupied Crimea except the Crimean Tatars who still supported Ukraine. Of the 857 people who had written to him to donate money for the men, very many, he writes, had Slavonic (non-Crimean Tatar) names.

 

[berkut76]

After 4.5 Years of a Stalemated War, Ukraine Braces for a Full-On Russian Invasion

Shattered Status Quo
Russia invaded Ukraine four and a half years ago, and the two erstwhile Soviet allies have been at war—albeit a limited, geographically quarantined one—ever since.
More than 10,300 Ukrainians have so far died in the conflict and on average one Ukrainian soldier still dies in combat every three days. The conflict is Europe’s only ongoing land war.
Since a shaky cease-fire, known as Minsk II, quelled the fighting in February 2015, the physical effects of the war have remained more or less geographically quarantined along a 250-mile-long static and entrenched front line in Ukraine’s embattled southeastern Donbas region. For the most part, the war has been fought from trenches and without the concurrent use of air or maritime forces.
Sunday’s seaborne confrontation, however, shattered the status quo military stalemate between Russia and Ukraine.
For one, it adds a maritime front to the ongoing trench war. It also marks the first time in four and a half years of constant combat that Russia has openly admitted to firing on Ukrainians.
“In fact, what happened on Nov. 25 is an extraordinary event,” Poroshenko said Tuesday.
“For the first time in four and a half years of Russian aggression, officially, without tearing off chevrons, without ‘little green men,’ Russian troops in large numbers attacked the ships of the armed forces of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said.

Clear Threat
Since 2014, Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula has become a Russian military redoubt.
From October 2014 (eight months after Russia’s seizure of Crimea) to October 2018, the number of Russian troops in Crimea tripled, Poroshenko said on Tuesday, adding that Russia has also increased its stockpiles of armored personnel carriers, artillery systems, multiple-launch rocket systems, and has deployed more warplanes and ships to the peninsula.
“The buildup is still underway now,” Poroshenko said
“Crimea today continues to play the most important role in maintaining the country’s military security,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in June, the Russian news site TASS reported.
“In the peninsula there has been created a unique combined force and it is being strengthened steadily. Its advanced high-tech weapon systems will leave no chance for a potential enemy that may dare attack this indigenous Russian land,” Shoigu reportedly said.

Beyond Crimea, Russia has positioned about 77,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders capable of launching a rapid, conventional land invasion, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said in April. At that time, Poltorak said Russia had 19 battalion tactical groups near Ukraine’s borders.
On Tuesday, however, a Ukrainian defense spokesman said the number of Russian battalion tactical groups “capable of carrying out combat missions” in Ukrainian territory had risen to 25.
“Since 2013, the Russian Federation has been modernizing its entire airfield network along the Ukrainian border, upgrading the fleet of combat aircraft, and expanding the capabilities of army aviation,” said Vadym Skibitsky, a spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, during a Tuesday press conference in Kyiv.
“About 500 combat aircraft of tactical aviation and up to 340 helicopters of army aviation have currently been deployed along the border with Ukraine,” Skibitsky said.
Moreover, inside the two breakaway territories in the Donbas, there are currently about 3,000 Russian soldiers embedded within a larger force of about 34,000 pro-Russian separatists, and foreign mercenaries.
Ukraine, for its part, has about 60,000 troops deployed to the eastern war zone with tens of thousands more deployed to its southern coastal regions, ready to rapidly defend its coastlines on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

 

[berkut76]

280 combat trips to the combat zone for the older Ukrainian "volunteer", Ivan Danilevskiy

There was also a case when I was arrested by my own. At that time I was bringing bread to the soldiers of the legendary 93rd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was based under the Sands. I drive up to Pervomaisk, and here I am hampered at the checkpoint. They explain that the team did not let the volunteers pass due to active hostilities. But not in my rules to retreat. I turn around, which means I stop on the outskirts of the nearest village.Look: a man riding on a "Zhiguli". I stop him and, having offered several loaves of bread, please take me past the roadblock. He agreed. “If you had a bottle of vodka, I would have carried you to Donetsk,” he joked.
In general, I safely got to the guys, unloaded, and on the way back I decided not to disguise myself and went through the checkpoint. It was then that our fighters stopped me. “How did you get on the other side? What was he doing there? ”- interrogated. Caused the duty officer. It turned out to be the deputy commander of the battalion, Evgeny Likholit. Let's beg him: "I will bring artists from Poltava, they will give you such a concert that you will never forget." "Ulomal" commander. I called him his son then - he is a little younger than my Igor. And he kept his word - he brought a trio of Poltava bandura players to his unit. Zhenya became like my own. When last year he received 18 shrapnel wounds during a combat mission and was taken to intensive care, I visited him at the Kharkov Military Hospital. Now Eugene back in service.

 

[berkut76]

All of the Ukrainian combat losses of 2018. 133 brave men and women

Ukrainian Combat Losses of 2018

 

[berkut76]

La Stampa: Ukraine, the contested border

I can't read Italian, but the article boasts dozens of photos of Ukrainian troops. Black and white setup gives an eerie flashback to Balkan wars of the 1990s and the First World War.

 

[Bombardier]

La Stampa: Ukraine, the contested border

I can't read Italian, but the article boasts dozens of photos of Ukrainian troops. Black and white setup gives an eerie flashback to Balkan wars of the 1990s and the First World War.

Interesting photos

 

[berkut76]

Interesting photos

Even more here. Images from the southern front of the Donbas

 

[berkut76]

Defend the White Race”: American Extremists Being Co-Opted by Ukraine’s Far-Right

Background: The FBI on Azov’s Efforts to Train American Extremists
In October 2018, an FBI criminal complaint unsealed in connection with the arrest of members of the violent neo-Nazi group Rise Above Movement (RAM) pointed to said group’s contacts in Ukraine. Members of RAM who were charged in the U.S. in connection with violence at political rallies, including in Charlottesville, traveled to Ukraine in 2018 to meet key figures of the Azov movement.

Per the complaint, members of the Azov Regiment (the military branch of the larger Azov movement) “have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.” The complaint did not provide any corroboration to this claim. In response to the allegation, Olena Semenyaka, the international secretary of the National Corps mentioned in the complaint, dared U.S. law enforcement to “provide real evidence.” At the same, Semenyaka acknowledged contacts with the American white supremacist group and said that RAM members came to Ukraine “to learn our ways” and that they “showed interest in learning how to create youth forces in the ways Azov has.”

Azov’s U.S. Contact Was Member of “Terroristic National Socialist Organization”
Bellingcat has established that RAM members were not the only American extremists who communicated with Azov in order to boost the far-right effort in the United States.

In January 2016, the Azov movement’s podcast introduced listeners to Andrew, a “national socialist” guest from the U.S. Dialing in via Skype, Andrew answered questions about nationalism in the U.S. from the host and listeners, and asked his own about Azov.

“I get a lot of questions from American nationalists asking if there’s going to be a future for more foreign volunteers in Azov, or just in the Ukrainian military in general”, Andrew said (00:27:20 into the interview).

The Azov podcast that hosted Andrew was apparently launched in May 2014 under the name Radio Azov FM, meant to be a niche medium catering to a target audience of nationalists both in Ukraine and abroad. Various statements made by prominent Azov figures to the podcast appear to contradict Azov’s public statements regarding the movement’s ideology, political goals, and so on.

Over the years, the podcast featured interviews with far-right figures from Ukraine, Russia, Greece, Slovakia, Sweden, Canada and the U.S. The podcast and its formal head, Mikhail Oreshnikov, who is reportedly a Russian neo-Nazi (he relocated to Ukraine from Russia in 2014), were mentioned on the official site of the Azov Regiment’s Press Service. Radio Azov FM was rebranded into A-Radio in November 2015, apparently to work around blocking mechanisms on Russia’s VK.com social network. New shows are currently uploaded to VK.com and feature, for example, the National Corps’ official ideologue and spokesman Eduard Yurchenko.

We now know that the American interviewed on Azov’s podcast in early 2016 was Andrew Oneschuk, an imminent member of Atomwaffen Division. The Atomwaffen Division is a “terroristic national socialist organization” (per SPLC) linked to multiple murders in the United States. Andrew, who was 16 at the time of his appearance on Azov’s podcast, went on to join AWD several months later in 2016. He, along with another AWD member, was murdered in May 2017 in Tampa, Florida by Devon Arthurs, also a member of AWD. Law enforcement reportedly found explosive materials in the apartment the three shared.

Oneschuk’s alleged murderer reportedly told detectives the men he killed planned to blow up power lines near a major highway.

This podcast recording has not been previously reported on, and Oneschuk’s family has confirmed to Bellingcat that this is his voice on the recording.

According to a Rolling Stone report, Oneschuk attempted to travel to Ukraine to join Azov in early 2015, but was thwarted when his family intervened. “I’ve been following Azov and Ukrainian nationalism since the beginning of Maidan [the revolution in Ukraine that ousted corrupt pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych],” he said at one point during the interview with Azov’s podcast.

 

[berkut76]

Ukrainian Combat Losses February 2019

 

[Bombardier]

Thank you for honouring these brave men here @berkut76

Stand Easy soldiers, we will meet you at the Re-Org

 

[berkut76]

‘Harder for Me to Live Under the USSR Than to Be in the War’: Old Ukrainian Soldiers Remember Communism

Yet, for Ukraine’s older soldiers—specifically, those who can remember life in the Soviet Union—there is another, singular lesson to be gleaned from their current struggle, which may elude their younger comrades.

“It was harder for me to live under the USSR than to be in the war,” Ukrainian soldier Borys Melnyk, then 75 years old, explained to me during a March 2016 interview at a forward operating base in Ukraine

“I came here and felt like I had already lived a full life,” he added. “I was finally able to be myself here. But in the USSR I was always under pressure, and I was always in hiding. In war I can see my enemy and I can fight back. In war, at least I know who my enemy is.”

After nearly five years of war, Ukrainian troops remain hunkered down in trenches and ad hoc forts along a 250-mile-long front line in Ukraine’s embattled eastern Donbas region. There, they continue to fight against a combined force of pro-Russian separatists, foreign mercenaries, and Russian regulars.

n 2014, at the age of 73, Melnyk volunteered to go to war against what he saw as a Russian invasion of his homeland. For him, it was simply the latest chapter in Ukraine’s fight for freedom from Russia—a conflict spanning his whole life.

“The separatists are the weapons of the Russians,” Melnyk told me. “They were turned by Russian propaganda against Ukraine. They are Russia’s weapons. They are the weapons, not the reasons. This is not only a war against the separatists, this is a war against Russia.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Melnyk’s two sons, both in their mid-20s, also volunteered to be soldiers and served in the regular army.

“We are a family of patriots,” Melnyk said proudly. “It’s in our blood.”

By the spring of 2016, the war was no longer an acute, existential crisis for Ukraine.

Following a February 2015 cease-fire, known as Minsk II, the conflict had, by that time, become a static, trench war stalemate, marked by daily exchanges of indirect weapons fire, as well as a steady trickle of casualties—both military and civilian.

Moreover, Ukraine’s regular army was by then on the rebound, rapidly regaining its strength and thereby lessening the country’s reliance on paramilitary outfits like Right Sector to hold the line. Thus, a different kind of battle loomed for many of Right Sector’s troops who’d fought in the war from its beginning.

They were preparing to return home.

 

[berkut76]

Google automated translation. Interview with the Russian "volunteer" who was captured by the Ukrainian forces back in 2016. Since Russia doesn't consider itself a side in this conflict, this captured Russian citizen was prosecuted by Ukraine under penal code articles for terrorist activity rather than be a POW. In short, he exhibits no remorse for his actions, and thinks that Putin is a wise leader, and he resigned to serving the full sentence in Ukrainian custody.

I'm NOT here

 

[berkut76]

Without Firing a Single Shot. How the the Ukrainian SWAT unit JAGUAR from Vinnitsa put down a pro-Russian rebellion in the city of Kharkiv in 15 mins.

Back in the Spring of 2014, the "cancer"of "Russian world" was spreading deeper and deeper into Ukraine. Ukraine had no functioning military (just 6,000 loyal and "combat ready" troops) and demoralized, ridden with Russian spies and assorted agents of influence security forces. Yet, one unit remained loyal to the state of Ukraine and literally changed the history of the country in one. The fall of Kharkiv, being the seat of its armored vehicles production and maintenance would have been fatal to Ukraine.

An automated transaltion is so-so:

“To be sure that Jaguar will perform the task, I decided to go to them personally, look into my eyes, ” recalls the current commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, and in 2014 the head of the Western Territorial Department of the NSU, to whom Jaguar reports, Yuri Aller . - At 2:00 am on April 7, after arriving in Kalinovka of the Vinnitsa region at the base of the regiment, I announced a general construction. There was not a minute to lose. The servicemen were nervous: on the eve, the prosecutor's office detained two fighters in the Gavrilyuk case. People were on the verge of default orders. I said: “Today at stake is whether Ukraine will exist or not.” Of course, recalled a military obligation, criminal liability. I talked with the commanders of units and fighters. And at 5:00, four companies of the Jaguar regiment - 200 people - got on buses. Yes, a little, but these are well-trained people. However, at the exit of our convoy blocked the relatives of servicemen. They also had a lot of emotions. People close to them carried out command orders on the Maidan, and now the servicemen are being tried for this. He promised them that I would bring back all those who left for the mission. It was not easy, but after an hour and a half I still brought the regiment to the route.

“Everybody went, from the commander of the unit and the deputies to sergeants and contract soldiers ... ” recalls Sergey Kryzhanovsky. - They took both special means (shields, batons) and small arms: machine guns, sniper rifles, machine guns, ammunition. Preparing for everything. Honestly, the mood of the guys was different. But we went.

We were supposed to go along with the fighters of the special units of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but they did not arrive at the scene,” recalls Sergey Kryzhanovsky. - They should have come from the central and black entrances. In battle groups, side by side shoulder to shoulder - officers, sergeants, ensigns. General Allerov and our commanders are in the forefront. At 6:00, the team sounded: “To assault!” The plan was a success. Our buses drove up to the building, and the soldiers rushed into the room. The surprise attack was a complete surprise to the invaders. True, we noticed that they put up some "sentries" ... When they saw our fighters, the sentries ran into the room and tried to warn others about the danger, but did not have time. Everyone, without exception, was laid on the floor and held at gunpoint. They threw out invaders in twos, three, in groups, one by one. Most of them were on the first and second floors.Having heard the alarm, many thugs tried to hide or run upstairs. Although these sports, trained guys were armed with brass knuckles, clubs, objects like guns, explosives, they offered no resistance.At the slightest attempt to do this, our guys used hand-to-hand combat techniques, special equipment, handcuffed them ... Weapons were also ready. Shoot, fortunately, did not have to. They acted tough, but within the law.

The whole operation took about 15 minutes . The detainees were taken into the courtyard of the building and laid face down on the asphalt. There they were engaged in investigators and operatives of the local police, experts. Several of our fighters examined the upper floors of the room and detained the fugitives there. And then they climbed onto the roof, and our officer with several fighters dropped the Russian flag from the spire and solemnly unfurled the flag of Ukraine brought there. A sign that Kharkov was and remains Ukrainian!

 

[berkut76]

This time an automated translation is pretty decent.

"Silent" war: how defenders of the Avdeevsky industrial zone fight and what they hope for

some pints of this article has become moot already, since the Russian president Vladimir Putin has decided not to try a "softer" approach with the newly elected Ukrainian president, Volodymir Zelenskiy, but has escalated both rhetoric and actions. Because of these developments literally during the last couple of days, the current Ukrainian position is not expected to undergo any changes.

Not one step back
The Ukrainian army took control of the Avdeevka industrial zone in February 2016. Up to this point, the militants constantly bombarded the city itself. The number of civilian casualties was increasing day by day. Since then, the units that entrenched in the "promka", do not allow enemy artillery to come close. At the same time, the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway is well shot from this position.Delivering weapons and ammunition to the separatists has become much more difficult.

Every night there are consistent shelling. The advanced positions of the Ukrainian army and the militants of the so-called DPR are in direct view. They are literally separated by a hundred meters of "no one’s land." The enemy is not only clearly visible, but also audible. According to intelligence data, the Vostok battalion is on the other side, but Russian special forces periodically attempt to storm the industrial zone.

The exit of an elite unit to the position is not difficult to distinguish from the manner of fighting by ordinary terrorists. But none of their attacks succeeded.Despite serious losses in the past three years, the army team continue to hold a handful of collapsed buildings. They are explaining that while they are here, their families and other civilians are safe.

On the election night on the "promka" was also not very calm. From disturbing thoughts after the announcement of the preliminary results of the voting of the fighters distracted the enemy machine gunner. If the future of the Ukrainian army and the war in the Donbass after a change of power seems vague to them, then everything is very clear with the enemy.

“If that side stops firing, then we will not fire either.” But if they continue, then we will not sit and be silent, - says a fighter with a gray mustache with the call sign "Casper".

He leaves no hope of ending the war. He expects quick steps from the new government: the final political agreements or the command to go on the offensive. The soldier admits that he likes the second option personally. In war, he is already the third year, on the "promke" since December.

- So we went, won this Donetsk, Lugansk and returned the Crimea. Well, what to do? How can? For five years, there is no end to it. This option will suit me. Home wife and children are waiting - explains the man.

 

[berkut76]

After 4 Years of a Frozen Conflict, Ukrainians Slowly Retake Ground From Russian Forces

Intolerable’

At the cost of about 100 soldiers killed in action, Ukraine’s territorial gains over the past year are roughly equivalent to one-quarter the acreage of the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

These incremental advances aren’t enough to turn the conflict’s tide in Ukraine’s favor, but the moves could spur Russia to retaliate, some experts and officials warn. However, others argue the offensive operations are needed to boost Ukrainian troops’ morale, cut down on smuggling across the front lines, and help square the real-world battlefield map with the front-line geography laid down by the Minsk II negotiations more than four years ago.

“Of course, there is a risk [of Russian escalation], in addition to more casualties of Ukrainian soldiers,” said Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Soviet fighter pilot who is now co-director of foreign relations and international security programs at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank.

“However, it is important to emphasize that even if these actions may be considered as cease-fire violations, [they] do not violate the agreed-upon separation line,” Melnyk said.

A key part of Ukraine’s strategy has been to occupy tracts of territory within no man’s land—colloquially known as the “gray zone” among troops.

At some places, opposing forces are separated by several kilometers of no man’s land, with each camp hunkering down in defensible positions that offer the best natural protection from shelling and sniper fire.

Outside the town of Novomykhailivka, Ukrainian dugouts were located at the edge of a wood line before a flat expanse of shrubland, which offered little cover or concealment. The combined Russian-separatist positions were on a far-off rise, unseen to the naked eye, the Ukrainian soldiers explained to this correspondent. Advancing into no man’s land at this location would be a dangerous endeavor, exposing the troops to indirect fire with scant protection.

Yet, despite the increased exposure to enemy fire, Ukrainian units have pressed forward into no man’s land at multiple locations over the past year, achieving “a tactical advantage at some spots,” said Melnyk, the former Soviet fighter pilot and think tank expert.

As the Ukrainians advance, the distance to their enemies has narrowed to within dozens of meters at some places—close enough to shout verbal insults to the other side.

“The positions of the parties are converging,” Morugin said, adding that the status quo of immobile, trench warfare is “psychologically intolerable” for Ukrainian troops.

“For five years, the army has grown tired of defensive actions,” Morugin said. “It’s psychologically important to release every meter of Ukrainian land, even if such attacks and counterattacks are associated with high losses.”

After 4 Years of a Frozen Conflict, Ukrainians Slowly Retake Ground From Russian Forces

 

[berkut76]

Somewhat awful "machine" translation of the long interview of the Ukrainian sniper who fired the first shot (killing a Chechen militant who at the time was tracking Ukrainian chopper with a Manpad) during the battle for Donetsk airport.

At the same time, we didn’t have any body armor or helmets. ... I was given the task of counting how many militants come on the roof of the new terminal, how many weapons they have and what kind.

And what were they armed with?”

- Russian weapons - this is only in the Russian army. For example, the Bumblebee flame throwers I then counted 10 pieces. In Ukraine, there are no flame throwers in service. When the militants carried out some kind of "pipe" on the roof, he reported this to the commander. He explained to me that this is the Igla portable anti-aircraft missile system. And from this "pipe" will try to shoot down our planes and helicopters.

- How long did this “positional” confrontation last?

- Until noon. The invaders appealed to our command with an ultimatum. The traitor-esbushnik Khodakovsky called on the mobile phone the commander of the joint DAP defense detachment and offered to meet to discuss the issue of handing over the airport to them. To hand over the WCT, of course, no one was going.

From the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we received an order to take time. We were waiting for reinforcements. And in the meantime, they installed two anti-aircraft installations: if necessary, they could “flash” through windows in the new terminal, which was all made of glass and metal. It was not possible to break through the rugged glass in this modern building with automatic bullets.

The commander of our collective detachment of the DAP defense put forward a counter condition for the militants: first, passengers and personnel must leave the airport, only after that we will begin withdrawing personnel and equipment. Supposedly let's start. It was impossible to fulfill this condition immediately without violating the airport’s work schedule: the last passenger civil flight departed at seven in the morning.

After the passenger flight departed, and the civilian personnel left the WCT, the militants set the ultimatum to our command: they were given an hour to leave the terminal. The terrorists were told that otherwise we would free the airport with all the forces and means at our disposal. We won the time and waited for reinforcements.

To confirm the seriousness of our intentions, at ten o'clock in the morning, attack aircraft of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out a demonstration flight over the airport, and helicopters with special forces troops began to land.


The first engagement at Donetsk Airport