I have the (completely unfundamented) hunch that the UKR will go somewhere/somehow through the flooded areas, now that RU moved many 1000s of soldiers away from there up north (Bakhmut) or East …and just to fugg (again) with Putin and his clown-troops.
A good thing of this flooding is - that it de-mined 100s of kilometers (mines are heavy as hell and will be deeply underground, deep enough not to be triggered…
pretty crazy video - spoilered
( Upclose go-pro footage of UKR troops cleaning out a RU trench and shooting 4 soldiers in close quarters - deep behind the front-line )
So defense in depth failed?
That real-life encounter wasn’t too far off a zombie flick: what were those Russian guys doing, lumbering towards the enemy without a weapon in hand? Drunk out of their minds?
The fourth guy was armed and alert, but ambush doesn’t give you a chance even then. Heavy stuff, for sure.
Appears to be so deep into Russian held territory that the Russians were completely off guard.
In pre-modern societies men were expected and conditioned to have their main weapon at an arms’ lenght at most, at all times, and never to venture after suspicious sounds etc. at without being armed.
Granted we aren’t living with those realities anymore, but being at and in a war brings us right into them, and stumbling forward in a trench without a weapon is simply surreal lack of awareness / procedure. But, as noted, even awareness didn’t save the last guy. He only had time to see something in the corner of his eye.
It would be helpful to mention who the “enemy” is from her perspective.
Lockheed’s support is crucial for Ukraine to maintain a new F-16 Air Force. I saw reports Ukrainian pilots are already training. I think Ukraine will get a few F-16’s by early 2024. It may take years before Ukraine’s air force is comparable to Poland and other NATO members.
Link Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 19, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War
I Googled Hanna Maliar, and she’s listed as Ukraine’s deputy defense minister. So it’s safe to assume that “enemy” = Russia.
BBC reporter travels with 68th Jaeger Brigade. I found the first person report of fighting very interesting. He describes a human aspect to these men. They’re not much different than us. They’ve been forced by circumstances to fight for Ukraine.
It sounded as if there was gunfire coming from someplace other than the GoPro wearer’s location, so one could assume that other Ukrainian forces were elsewhere in the trenches and that the four Russians shot were fleeing from them, not suspecting they were running into an ambush.
If you watch you can see the Ukrainians throwing grenades over the top of the trench into another part of the trench. This flushed out the soldiers who ran from the grenades right into an ambush. Or at least that’s how it looks to me.
It’s an established fact of warfare that fleeing exposes you to the risk of getting cut down without the ability to defend yourself.
But standing ground takes discipline these Russian “regulars” (likely conscripts) never had trained into them, so expect a lot of fleeing into ambushes or being shot in the back.
Many years ago I read a book that had a quote, paraphrasing: “The hardest thing to get right is being on the wrong end of an ambush.” Shock and confusion screws everything up, and even properly trained troops have problems.
These guys? Basically zero chance.
If you don’t want to click, it’s basically there in the headline. Russian soldiers are becoming ill with cholera. Also, ‘several’ Russian soldiers have died from the disease, according to the Ukrainian source.
The military group also said that the suspected cholera outbreak among Putin’s troops was “likely” due to the Russian soldiers drinking water “from open sources” because “there are difficulties with the delivery of bottled or simply purified water to the occupiers” as a result of ongoing flooding.
This… this is just so surreal, the incompetence and disarray in the Russian forces.
ETA: Disease ravaging armies is as old as warfare itself, of course, but shouldn’t a modern military be trained and equipped to counteract it? Even one as riddled with corruption and
Oh, yeh, right.
Ah, that’s pitiful.
How bad at logistics do you have to be that your troops die of diseases picked up by scrounging for their own unclean water?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia is using cholera as a weapon against Ukrainians. Russia starts by infecting their own troops and it will eventually spread.
The main way to get cholera is by eating/drinking, so I’d be surprised if this was some kind of n-th level chess move to spread cholera among Ukrainians. Unless the Ukrainians are in the habit of drinking open water tainted by the feces of Russian soldiers, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The Russians are failing at some really basic disease prevention.
Except that I’d credit the Ukrainians with enough competence, training, and gear to protect their own forces from cholera.
Civilians caught in the conflict zone, though, would be another story.