Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

psydude posted:

My money's on France, Germany, and Italy.

I'll wager France, Germany, and The Netherlands. Although Italy isn't a bad guess either.

Britain trying to block someone from joining a club they themselves crashed spectacularly out of would be in character for the current government.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2022 10:38

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:29

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Stultus Maximus posted:

At hostpital, lost fingblyat!

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 14:04

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

I spent my conscription in a 120mm mortar platoon, although ours were wheeled and towed behind small trucks.

I also spent a couple of full days pushing/pulling that piece of poo poo up and down sandy hills in "familiarization" in summer in full combat gear. The ammo boxes for live grenades were heavy as gently caress, contained only two shells, and were to be hand-delivered at a run from 300m away on live fire drills for safety reasons. By me.

What I'm saying is that the Finns may not be on Ukraine's side :ninja:

# ¿ Aug 16, 2022 16:54

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

So maybe don't post it if you are unsure of the content? I scrubbed through it and it's pretty undramatic.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2022 12:53

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Loezi posted:

I recently (within the last couple of years) read a public masters thesis re: cost effectiveness of different weapons systems against drones. One of the primary questions was whether something like a ZU-23-2 would make sense as an anti-drone system. Against even something as large as an Orlan-10 at 300 meters it's real bad, and you'd need hundreds of shots to be even remotely confident in getting one hit on a smaller a target. You really need a non-direct-hit system to increase the kill probability, but those systems are then more expensive. A manlad like an Igla might seem enticing, but also has surprisingly poo poo kill probability (approx 50-50, iirc) so you'd kinda want to use at least two per drone. Basically the math (at least using publicly available numbers and making a bunch of assumptions) turns real nasty for smaller drones at any meaningful distances, if you care in the least about cost effectiveness.

ETA: the conclusions were basically "in terms of cost effectiveness, use manpads if you expect to encounter on the scale of 10 drones, and something like a skyshield if you expect to encounter on the scale of a 100 drones. Don't bother with the ZUs".

Ukraine: A manlad like an Igla might seem enticing

# ¿ Oct 22, 2022 10:01

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

psydude posted:

There's this 60-something guy from Berlin who works at my company and is super into EDM. Turns out he was a club DJ in the Berlin music scene in the late 70s/early 80s when the prog-rock crowd first started experimenting with what would eventually become techno. Dude has a lot of wild stories, including some involving David Bowie and Iggy Pop during their Berlin years.

Also Kraftwerk and Die Toten Hosen.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2022 18:14

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Some very interesting excerpts from a Ukrainian soldier's diary going into training. It's paywalled, hence the quote.

The Economist posted:

�Learn to kill from a safe distance. And write a will�: the secret diary of a Ukrainian soldier (part 1)

By Anonymous (with Oliver Carroll)

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, Vladimir Putin turned life on its head for every Ukrainian � but none as much as for the soldiers themselves, including the many thousands who have joined Ukraine�s armed forces. First-time soldiers have come from every part of the country and every walk of life.

This is the diary of one of these soldiers from his month at a training camp. A man in his mid-30s, he had never seen himself as a fighter. Before the war he worked in the arts, had a taste for exotic cuisine and swanky clothes � often picked with the help of a stylist � and was averse to �taking orders or dumb-assed machismo�. But he felt compelled to enlist �to stop this hosed-up evil that�s invited itself into our homes�. He has since gone to the front line.

Day 0
Mum can�t stop crying. Any sign of emotion or tenderness and the tears start flowing. She cries when I hug Fiona, our dog. She cries when Dad hugs me. I tell myself I�ll visit them more often when the war is over. Mental note: take Dad on a trip to Portugal.

I was afraid our goodbyes would be too final, too fast, too brutal. I tell them that I�m going to be away for a while. That I�ll be studying. I try to find a way of doing it that�s less painful. I hug them in the car park outside the military registration office. Then I walk on, alone.

The army officers tell me there�s been a change of plan. I�m no longer headed to artillery school and am going to a different military academy in the mountains. They�ll fill me in on the details later. In the meantime, I should stock up on wet-wipes for cleaning up �down there�. There won�t always be showers where I�m heading.

We board a yellow bus for the overnight trip to our new base. A senior lieutenant breaks the news to us: �You�re joining the air assault forces, lads.� He cracks some joke about maroon berets. I register only a few words, and I couldn�t tell you the punch line. For the first time in four months I�m overtaken with fear.

Everyone I spoke to before I joined up told me I needed to avoid the assault units.

Day 1
The morning begins with a sludge of rice porridge, plastic cheese, carrots, sausage and an apple that has seen better decades. Good food is for when the war is over. In the meantime, I have other things to think about. First, I have to pick a specialisation: forward reconnaissance or assault forces � not a great choice. Reconnaissance sounds just a bit too scary, so I choose the assault forces like everyone else. I undergo a blitz-medical. �Are you ok, healthy?� they ask. Yeah, I�m fine. Really, I�m fine.

A soldier from another regiment asks what my specialisation will be. �Assault forces? You�re gonna DIE�

For the next 45 days, I�ll be sharing our dugout with two dozen others. Imagine a hole in the ground with high ceilings and boarded-up walls. Almost the entire space is taken up with bunk beds. The guy next to me snores, of course. It�s unbearable, so I go outside. I bump into another soldier from the neighbouring bunker. He�s being sent to his unit in a few days and has been drinking. He asks me what my specialisation will be. �Assault forces?� he says. �You�re gonna DIE.�

I�m told half of the first intake has already been killed in action.

Day 2
Team-building. The smoking facilities provided at the base aren�t well thought out: pallets dug into foliage, with just a shallow hole to protect you from shrapnel. We decide to do a better job. By the time we�re finished, our smoking hut is twice as deep, with a neat staircase, and covered with cut branches. We huddle together to see how many of us can fit. Soldiers coming back from the firing range are full of praise for the new construction. �It will be easier to collect the bodies when there�s incoming fire,� they say.

The course officer runs through what we�ll be learning in the next few weeks. It�s a mind-blowing programme, he says. We�ll get to handle weapons supplied by nato, we�ll be �run over� by tanks (hopefully the tracks will pass either side of us) and we�ll be training using lasers. We�re excited, like little kids. It�s a bit pathetic.

Dad went back to Granny�s village to retrace some of the walks we used to do together. He�s sent me photos of ravines and wheat fields. I can see how hard he�s finding it, but he�s trying not to show his feelings and upset me or Mum. I show him our bunker on WhatsApp. I try to reassure him by telling him all about the other guys. I say the food is OK and I�m sleeping alright. �I don�t know what to say,� he writes. �I don�t want to live like this.�

There�s good news about my cousin, who has made contact for the first time since being deployed in the Donbas. Dad tells me by text. �Lyosha called to say he�s alive, healthy, but that things are difficult out there,� I sense Dad is depressed. I�m not going to tell him about the assault forces.

Dinner is stewed meat and potato, bread and butter, plain biscuits and heavily sugared tea. I never thought a reasonably tasty hot meal could make me so happy.

Day 3
The unexpected news of the day is that our training has been cut from six weeks to four. They announce the change during the morning line-up. I won�t tell my folks.

Training doesn�t start well. I�m old enough to know motivation comes from inside, but the first instructor doesn�t waste any time in being truly awful. He doesn�t even bother to tell us what he�s teaching (military tactics, we eventually work out). We check if he�s in the timetable for the rest of the week. Fortunately not.

The next guy is a change to the schedule. He�s supposedly here to talk about ethics and leadership but he�s like a hyperactive pastor. We�re treated to a sermon about the virtues and faults of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the armed forces� commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, about the rules-based system of law and the real reasons for the Russia-Ukraine war. Christ.

Colonel Pepper, a short, red-faced man with a permanent smile, is in charge of firearms training. He marks his arrival with a thunderous boom, firing his words like bullets into the sky. The years of service have made him a bit deaf, he explains. He pulls a Makarov pistol out of his holster and unloads it. �This pistol has three safety levels built in,� he says. �First, the safety guard; second, finger not on the cock; and third, ready to fire.� He injures himself while reloading, and blood starts running down his finger. He pays no attention to it.

At night the boots are brought inside and the foot-smell of an entire airborne platoon wafts around the dugout

The colonel is very serious about wanting us to know he�s a very serious kind of guy. He calls Roman, a two-metre-tall trainee, to the front of the group. He demonstrates fighting pressure points. Judging by Roman�s reactions, not all of the points are painful. Pepper tries to break a few other trainees by shouting at them. I�m his last victim. He presses the palm of his bloodied hand against my nose. �It�s not sterile!� I say. He ignores me and presses his fingers into my chest.

Day 4
It�s baking! We were lucky that it was overcast the first few days, but now we�re going to burn.

The next day of training is better. The topography instructor is the best we�ve had so far. A focused officer who you really don�t want to mess around with. We learn how to work out where we are from local features. How to interpret contours and determine map co-ordinates. But half way through, the class is interrupted by an air-raid siren. We aren�t allowed to be inside so we complete the class under a tree. That has its uses: we learn how to determine where we are using the sun. So much information, so little time. Every day is a step closer to being at the front.

After lunch, we dismantle a vintage dshk heavy machinegun. The first of these things were produced in the 1930s, but they say it isn�t a bad piece of equipment. I find it hard to accept we�re still using weapons that require a hammer to dismantle. Some trainees are quick on the uptake and can do the job in no time. The more tender of us find it harder. At least one person breaks a finger.

I resolve to make sport part of my daily routine. It�s too hot to run before dinner, and not a great idea to do so with a full stomach, so that leaves the mornings. I�ll get up at 6am. Pull-ups, press-ups and planks in the evening. Intuition tells me the routine will save me.

My friends at home are asking how I feel. Honestly? Right at home.

Day 6
We�ve been issued with a very basic kit: gun holdalls, helmets and tactical plate-carriers with ceramic plates. On the plus side, nothing is very heavy. On the minus side, it�s not a great fit. Most of my squad have their jackets hanging around their waist. Not exactly convincing warriors. I readjust things for them so that at least the plates cover the heart and vital organs.

Our international-law classes are unique. �International law is for countries that work nine to five, and have coffee breaks,� says the training officer, who struggles to speak in Ukrainian. �We may say we are so tolerant, but in life all of us are bullshitters.� There follows a monologue about how �America never sends cash just for the sake of it�. After the class, a few guys come up to me and ask what it was all about. �He might as well be in the Russian army,� one says.

We aren�t allowed outside after 10pm, so we make chit-chat in the dugout. Sanya, a smart, cheery fellow with a story for any situation, suggests we make memorial shot glasses out of our cartridge cases. The idea is that we all engrave our names on them, then swap with each other. After the war, we�ll meet up and return the glasses to their proper owners. I almost cry. I can tell I�m not the only one.

Day 7
I want to be on my own so I head out of the bunker for an early jog. Ukraine is so beautiful. I meet three blackbirds, a hare and a magpie on my rounds. After the run I take a shower and wash my clothes there too. There are washing machines inside the bunkers but our digs are humid and stale at the best of times.

Maybe I�m romanticising war. But the alternative is too frightening.

Day 8
The sun beats down unbearably and there�s nowhere to hide. We�re in full body armour, helmet and backpacks. Our training officer barks out the instructions for the first exercise of the day. We have to walk in a column along a ditch, falling and freezing whenever a car passes. Then we have to outflank our imaginary enemy by breaking through the groves.

Fall, freeze. Fall, freeze. Fall, freeze. I adore lying on the ground. The smell of warm clay and wild flowers consumes me. This is heaven, I think to myself, as I chew on the cereal bars I�ve stuffed into my combat trousers. Reality strikes as I get up and try to fight my way through the foliage. Tree branches hit my face. Thorns prick my hands. I use my helmet as a battering ram.

We got our weapons today. My rifle and pistol have been in storage since the 1950s. I wonder if the guy who filled my pistol with grease ever stopped to think about the circumstances in which it would be removed. I have to clean out all the grease from the deepest cracks, then I have to lubricate and polish the weapons until they gleam. It�s the first time I�ve ever cleaned a gun. It takes all evening until lights out.

A blond, chubby guy from my platoon � I still don�t remember all their names � is surprised by the lack of ceremony. �You�d have thought they would have told us how to take care of it,� he says. �But no, they�re like, take the loving thing and be off with you.�

Day 10
The stink of boots is especially strong in the morning. During the day the boots are either on people�s feet or drying outside the entrance. At night they�re brought inside and the foot-smell of an entire airborne platoon wafts around the dugout in the heavy, humid air. We sleep on bunks 30cm apart. My neighbour on the left has begun to snore uncontrollably. The snorers seem to have a deal: if one goes quiet, someone from the support group will automatically fill in the silence.

�You�d have thought they would have told us how to take care of the gun. But no, they�re like, take the loving thing and be off with you�

In the afternoon an instructor treats us to a lecture on how great the Soviet Union was. How cheap the petrol was. How happy people were. I can�t stand any of this bullshit. We still have to clean up the mess that dictatorship left us. We still suffer from the rot that permeates our state structures. The army. People�s brains. It makes me angry when some of the cadets here sing Soviet army songs. As far as I�m concerned, the Soviet military songbook is full of contempt for the value of human life.

I�m surprised when I realise most of my fellow trainee troops actually think the same.

Day 11
The skinny colonel teaching us how to survive a chemical attack tells us he is certain his lesson will come in handy during this war. Russia will not only use chemical weapons, he says, but tactical nuclear ones too. �People were saying on February 20th that there would be no war. And I kept telling my wife: trust me, there will be.� He tells us there is no point looking up survival statistics for a nuclear attack nearby. But we do have a chance of surviving if we are one and a half kilometres away. Reassuring.

We pull on the protective gear: green elephant suits. In a battle situation we will have to do it quickly, without breathing and with our eyes closed to prevent toxins entering the body. None of this is pleasant in the sweltering heat. The rubber gas masks drip with sweat from their last use. But the worst thing is putting on the gloves. The sweat of previous cadets drips down your fingers off the black, thick, moist rubber.

Day 12
We jump in trucks to head to another training range. Rainwater pours down onto us from the tarpaulin roof. The longer we ride, the more water ends up on our heads. We engineer a makeshift solution by stretching the cover and shoving our helmets into the holes. The new structure is held in place by the butt of a machinegun. We�re resourceful if nothing else.

The task today is to learn how to drive armoured infantry vehicles. I�ve been driving for years but this piece of hardware flummoxes me. Levers everywhere. A completely unclear gearbox system. It�s like being on the factory floor at a metal plant sometime in the 1940s. I try to remember the instructions about the manual parking brakes. (If you forget to turn them off, the engine will overheat and smoke.) The training officer says he prefers driving these monsters to cars. �Every time I get behind the wheel, the traffic makes me jittery. But if I�m in a tank or an apc, everyone gives way.�

On the way back from the range we count the number of people who wave at us from their cars as they pass us. A guy in his 20s, standing by a broken-down car, holds out cigarettes as we drive by. Another driver throws a couple of packs into the truck. When two kids catch sight of us, they salute us and start a march. An elderly lady crosses herself repeatedly.

Day 13
I woke up in the night feeling like I couldn�t breathe. The dugout was filled with a kind of fog � the breath of two dozen bodies, the dampness from being underground, the odours of badly washed socks, towels and T-shirts. My head was boiling, things were floating in my eyes. Then I realised � someone had shut the door of the dugout.

One of my squad, Bohdan, has some good news today. His girl is pregnant. �Scored a goal, gently caress me,� he says. But his excitement soon turns to fear. �They�re there. I�m�I don�t know where the gently caress I am.� He isn�t married and that has to change. He decides he�ll buy a ring with his next pay cheque and the two of them will get hitched in the nearest town. Bohdan sits down next to me. He scrolls down his messages to a photo of a petite, smiling girl with round cheeks and a snow-white face. Next to it is a photo of her pregnancy test and the socks his girlfriend�s mother has already bought the baby.

I catch my reflection in a mirror hanging in the hallway. Some bearded brute in uniform is looking back at me.

Day 14
We learned how to shoot today. My inner teenager squeals with excitement when I�m told to run and jump through thickets, work out a plan of movement, attack and defend. But I�m appalled when I�m told to fire at anything. The only thing that attracts me less than shooting is grenade-throwing. And guess what the training programme has lined up for us next?

Things start well: a training grenade explodes while our instructor is holding it. It�s an almost controlled explosion, so not a huge deal. But that�s enough for me to lose any confidence I had. My body pumps with adrenaline when it�s my turn to pick up a training grenade. I manage to hit the targets easily enough. But when it comes to handling a real grenade, I hurriedly throw the thing to get it as far away from me as possible. I�m miles off the target, but I feel relief, not embarrassment.

As long as you have two arms and two legs, you�re an ideal paratrooper

My mother has sent me a drawing my niece Vavara did for me, showing a bearded pensioner in military uniform. Too much hair, at least if the man in the picture is supposed to be me. The beard will take another year or so to get to that state. But Vavara has the sky right. The clouds are the same colour as those flying over my range. �I love you,� she wrote. �Glory to the Ukrainian army.�

Day 15
The truck is unbearably hot. The tarpaulin overhead has created a sauna of rubber and fine dust. Sweat streams down my arm and drips from my wrist to the floor. I do my best to find some positive way of looking at the heat. �Let the pain be,� as my yoga teacher used to say.

We�re on our way to the military hospital to get our chest X-rays. The doctor inspects me more thoroughly than I�m used to. �I don�t want our army to be full of cross-eyed cripples,� he says. But his professional approach is the exception rather than the rule in my training so far. As long as you have two arms and two legs, you�re an ideal paratrooper.

It comes as a relief that we are in and out of the hospital quickly. It�s a heavy kind of place and you can easily get emotional. Time slows down when the injured pass by on crutches. It�s quiet, eerie. I watch a fragile girl with straight black hair helping a short man in uniform who can barely move thanks to his battered legs. His face is covered with scars, his eyes are expressionless � they seem to be saying that a crippled man can only focus on getting from A to B. Then I realise: the man isn�t much older than I am.

Day 16
Assault course. We have to overcome an imaginary obstacle along wooden planks stretched on metal cables three metres above the ground. There�s another wire above to hold on to. We�re in our flak jackets and helmets. Some of us have bellies sticking out. Some are too short and struggle to reach the wire. Many are out of breath, red-faced and dripping with sweat.

I feel in my element. I give my comrades a hand up to the course, and when it�s time to go myself, I scuttle across with no problem. �You can see who climbed trees as a boy,� the instructor says. I try not to smile too much.

We practise parachuting � to the extent that you can in a country where flying is too dangerous. Instead, we make our tactical descent from trucks. The height is not the important thing: it�s being able to communicate clearly and to take up the proper positions. We lie down in the grass, remembering not to go near the back of the truck, where the helicopter rotor would be: none of us wants to be turned into imaginary mincemeat.

A combat officer gives some advice about taking defensive positions in the field. �Dig deeper,� he says. �That�s the way to keep your men alive.� We�re told to dig using anything we have: spades, knives, whatever. When our hands are tired, we should use our feet. �Trust me. It�s easier than looking parents in the eye when you have their son in a body bag.�

Day 17
We�re going to come into contact with some pretty nasty mines, the kind that have long been banned under international treaties. Almost certainly, one of us will be unlucky enough to run into something known as a �witch�, an anti-personnel mine that flies upwards before detonating at human height. No chance of surviving that. Even the lucky ones among us will have to deal with tripwires. In training, we do a bad job of protecting ourselves, blowing ourselves up left, right and centre. Our problem is that we walk like �ordinary civilians�, the instructor tells us.

On our smoking break, Vlad sits down next to us. He used to be an accountant. �Do the people who start wars ever calculate how much cruelty they create?� he asks. The answer, unfortunately, is yes they do. Much better than we can imagine. The people who took the decision to invade Ukraine don�t care how many Ukrainian accountants, pr guys and doctors have to retrain as airborne assault soldiers. �I can�t understand it,� says Vlad.

The most dangerous munitions are made from improvised devices. They can look like rusty toys that roll around under your feet. Like a rock in the middle of the field that someone sometime will feel the need to lift up. We have to learn how to find and avoid this poo poo � and how to teach others to do the same. As commanders, we�ll need to be able to draw up mine-clearance maps. I enjoy this type of task. These are important documents.

The training officer says he�s sure Ukrainian sappers will be in demand for some time to come. �Every year of war needs ten for de-mining,� he says.

Day 18
We�re asked to work through a plan to counter-attack and liberate the Russian-occupied south. In the real world, our boys are pressing there all the time, and it looks like something big will start soon. I�d like to be there when it happens. I want to push the bastards out of Kherson. I will drag them out of the Kinburn peninsula with my teeth. I used to spend summers there with my friends. Tents, morning swims, tasty food on an open fire. Stunning. Things are different now. The Russians have set fire to everything, people say, including the national park.

Your family gets $400,000 if you die and have all the correct paperwork

�The smart learn from their mistakes,� our instructor tells us, �while the wise learn from the mistakes of others.� We analyse the lessons from Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. The pace of our training is increasing. We are sent out to dig trenches immediately after the morning session. �When will we have time to rest?� we ask. �When you are dead,� comes the reply. Usually, our training officers don�t speak this way. Death is an extremely sensitive topic for everyone. They have fought, they have lost friends. But this is now our reality.

My friends on the front waste no time in adding me to messenger groups for soldiers. I get sober accounts of what they�re going through � and quite a bit of sensible advice. One of my friends used to bake the best chocolate brownies in Kyiv. Now he�s fighting in Kherson. �Don�t be a loving hero, whatever you do,� he wrote. �The less romance, the more likely you are to survive. Learn to kill from a safe distance. Don�t forget your helmet and flak jacket. Keep your distance from dickheads and motherfuckers. And write a will.�

A will? I�ve no idea how this even works. I left my credit card with my parents. My friends have the key to my flat. I�ll have to tell them how to log in to my bank account and how to split whatever is in there. �You also have to work out what to do with the 15 million,� read another message. Fifteen million hryvnia, or $400,000, is how much your family gets if you die and have all your paperwork in order.

Day 19
Today is the day we�ve been waiting for: getting �run over� by tanks. You jump forwards into a ditch, then �fire� into the tank�s sight glass to �blind� it. As the vehicle approaches you throw an anti-tank grenade at it. Then, at the last moment, you lie down in the ditch so it can pass over.

In real battle we won�t be throwing grenades at tanks. There are far less risky ways to engage them these days. A Javelin missile can destroy a tank from over two miles away. It�s also unlikely that a Russian tank driver would allow you to lie down between his tracks. But the point is less to re-enact battle than to make us frightened of enemy hardware. If you�re afraid of spiders, get in their cage.

I haven�t opened a proper book in weeks. My vocabulary is down to about 30 words, most of them military commands. I�m reading, but it�s not what you�d call literature. I want to survive and I want to keep the people under my command alive. So I take in anything I can get my hands on: combat manuals, technical documentation for military equipment and books on tactics. Just before bed, I take a look from the dugout. A full moon hovers over the barracks. An owl flies past, slowly, about a metre away from me. It sees me, but it doesn�t want to change direction. It�s a big, beautiful thing.

Day 21
The whole dugout has stuffy noses. We�ve all caught the virus, whatever it is. Most of us are weak and just want to sleep, but getting released from classes involves registering with the duty officer and reporting to the medics. The medics perform only two types of diagnostic procedures here: they either check your temperature or verify if you have all your limbs intact.

I�m sick of the kindergarten around me � the moaning, the lack of application. I can feel my aggression boiling. I want to be a good person, so I take a deep breath. It�s difficult for some of the guys, I tell myself. Some people are still processing what�s happening to them. Their brains are screaming hysterically: �Where the gently caress am I? What�s going to happen to me? Will I live or will I die?�

Part of the problem is the training itself. And the contrast. More than half the instructors are good at what they do. They care. I�d pay to be taught by them in peacetime. But there are also the stale, good-for-nothing, Soviet-brained officers, with their ridiculous love of military pomp. Sure, none of them is going out of his way to justify Stalin. They all speak Ukrainian and they hate Russians. But they are still �Soviet� people deep down: closed-minded, insecure, anti-human.

Day 22
I take in the strong smell of wormwood as we sit outside: relaxed, dreamy and talking about the American rockets that have been destroying Russian supply lines in Kherson. If only the whole war could be like this. Lying on the grass with good people, taking in the sunshine. If a missile had my name on it, I�d like this to be the way I go.

Today we pretend to be prisoners-of-war. I spend almost an hour with my hands tied behind my back, my mouth and hands taped. Hostage situations lend a different sense of time, and with your eyes covered it�s hard to get your bearings. I�m separated from my squad and I get thrown on the floor. They punch me in the liver, but not that hard. I�m waterboarded and they pretend to cut off my little finger. �Congratulations,� the instructor says at the end of the exercise. I struggle to see the point of it all.

I said some stupid things on the phone this evening. I was too outspoken. Too open. Too anxious. Did I ruin everything? Perhaps I did.

Day 23
Some of the training officers dismiss our tactical medicine classes. I don�t know why � they�re some of the best-organised sessions. It�s all about thinking under stress, minimising losses, reducing the number of injuries. Important, right? We sprint before every practical activity. The idea is to simulate a situation where the heartbeat and stress are increased. �The injured body is your workstation,� says the instructor. �You should be comfortable around it.� I go through the checklists on the model in front of me. I fix what I can see. I tighten a training tourniquet above the bruising. Hopefully I�ll never have to use one in real life.

My vocabulary is down to about 30 words, most of them military commands

Today they hung a sign that read �The last supper� above the door to the canteen. Very original. Given what they serve up, it�s probably a good thing. Awaiting us on the table is a soulless, overcooked rice dish. Food is just food here. Calories to consume. If you think about it that way you can just about make yourself eat it. They give you apples at lunchtime sometimes. And half a banana if you�re lucky.

Day 25
A serious, short, sunburned marine colonel is here to give us the lowdown on breaching water obstacles. As an afterthought, he offers tips on dealing with Russian assault forces. Their methods are already fairly clear, he says. First they send in their proxy forces, often conscripted from occupied territories in the Donbas. These poor buggers are cannon fodder. The regular units crawl in behind them, hoping to go unnoticed, trying to get up close while you�re busy dealing with the first wave. We�re told each squad (seven men) will be attacked by at least a platoon (21-plus). The Russian doctrine says you need a three-to-one ratio in any offensive. We�re warned that there will usually be many more than that.

The colonel tells us not to forget about health and nutrition. But he warns us that figs and nuts can cause cold feet. �You didn�t know?� he says. �They make your dick stand up, and that pulls the blanket up, leaving your feet to freeze.�

O-kay.

Day 27
Bohdan got married today. He shows everyone in the smoking dugout footage from the wedding. There�s a video of the bride, which she filmed herself with a selfie stick, and a video of Bohdan opening a bottle of bubbly. He bought a new pixel camouflage uniform for the day. He looks really happy, bless him. In the excitement, he loses a magazine full of rifle ammunition. We promise to help him look for it later.

First we have the task of liberating a fictional village that has been surrounded by fictional minefields. My squad carefully crosses a minefield, keeping the enemy busy under fire, while the other two squads take up positions on the flanks. I communicate in gestures. We�ve been warned that our radios won�t work in a real battle � the Russians can jam them easily. As we take our positions, we realise the third squad has a problem. A herd of cows are grazing where they should be starting out from. The farmers, who appear from nowhere, are friendly enough. �Glory to Ukraine,� they say. They joke about our failed operation, but ask if there is anything we need.

We return to our base in complete darkness. Vova suggests leaving our boots on overnight. �We�ll need to put them on tomorrow in any case,� he says. He�s a practical man, Vova. No silly suggestions.

Day 28
The head of the academy appears in the morning. The general, we call him, though he isn�t actually a general. He�s a mythical figure � we�d heard of him, but never seen him.

I tell myself I don�t want to take part in a circus. I try to slip away to sit on the grass and mind my own business. But the general sees me, and calls me over. He asks me what I think of the training. Did I understand everything? More or less, I say. I reel off what I know about assault checklists, fire cover, communication rules and defensive positions after battle. He says I�ve got a good military career ahead of me, that I�ll rise to become a battalion commander. Well, gently caress that, is what I say. There�s too much to learn and understand. I�ll leave the operational level to the professionals.

After a 10km run, I call home. It will be difficult for them to understand what comes next. I�ll be on the front lines within weeks. Perhaps even a few days. But I believe in what I�m doing. This isn�t a war that can be fought with military professionals alone. The thought I have is simple: Russian tanks at one point in March were less than 60km from my parents� home. You might need more arguments. That�s enough for me.

This is our last Monday as trainees. Next Monday we�ll be real soldiers.■

These diaries have been edited and translated by Oliver Carroll, correspondent for The Economist in Ukraine.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2022 11:58

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

I've fired a lot of live 120mm mortar rounds at max load (? the most powder rings for biggest range), and my sinuses were cleared very well every time. Can't tell you the physics of it though.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2022 10:33

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Uh excuse me, I think you are overlooking the fact that if it looks good, it flies good. And all Mirages are stunning.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 10:38

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

JudgeJoeBrown posted:

All of your Mirage 2000 porn needs in one video.

https://youtu.be/HEe3xfWfkG8

I used to put this on when my kids were very young as sort of a calm screen saver for tired afternoons.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2023 12:18

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

mllaneza posted:

That's a pro-click, easily worth twenty minutes of your time.

Agree.

I also like that they took the time to talk about his battle buddy - that would have been me, but worse. Glad that guy got some props.

I wonder if they are going to pull him off the line to do a PR tour, Basilone-style. It would surprise me, but he must have a sizeable Russian bounty* on his head now.

*payout not guaranteed

# ¿ Mar 29, 2023 08:28

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

When my conscript company went to the grenade range, my lieutenant was the safety officer. Everything went well until Private Jensen's turn, when his grenade didn't go off - his throw was perfect otherwise, pulled the pin and everything.

The now very sweaty lieutenant had to belly crawl the 15 metres to the grenade with two lumps of explosive and wires to get ready to detonate the dud. When he was 2 metres from the grenade, Pvt Jensen poked his head around the barrier and yelled "BANG!" as loud as he could.

It was a story Pvt Jensen would entertain his mates with on his many, many, many weekend guard duties afterwards.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 08:27

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Quackles posted:

What happened to Pvt Jensen?

He got a series of Stern Talks from ascending ranks of angry/disappointed NCOs and officers, and spent most of the rest of his conscription on the base due to being suddenly and mysteriously assigned to a lot of weekend guard duties. On the other hand, he rarely had to pay for his own drinks when he did manage to get out on the town.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 12:50

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Serjeant Buzfuz posted:

Dumb question: why not just throw another grenade at that grenade to blow it up? Why send in a sweaty LT lol

You always to send in a sweaty LT, no matter the situation.

The explanation given to us was that even if grenade 2 would land exactly in the right place (and your aim might be slightly off when standing in the clear, 15m from an armed hand grenade), the explosion might push grenade 1 somewhere else without detonating it, or with a delayed detonation. That somewhere might be near/over/beside the barriers we were standing behind. Or it may disappear into the bushes, giving you a whole new and exciting range of UXO problems to solve.

Detonating two 200g charges simultaneously on either side of the grenade would be as close to 100% certainty of solving the problem on the first try as you could get.

e:fb.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 13:35

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Even though it is more than 20 years ago, I sometimes wake up with a sinking feeling after dreaming about being late and unprepared for formation.

On a field exercise, I had to take a leak while we were digging 2-man fox holes. I hung my rifle on a branch next to the hole and asked my digging buddy to watch it for me (which was fine). "OK", he says and digs on.

When I came back 2 minutes later, both my rifle and my "buddy" were gone. I look around and see one of our sergeants staring at me. I get that sinking feeling as he beelines for me.

"Did you leave your rifle unattended?"
"Uh no, I asked my buddy to watch it and he-"
"He came over with your rifle and told the LT that you had just walked away from it."
:what:

Luckily, the guys next to us had heard the exchange when I left the hole and backed me up that I had followed procedure.

However, this was the Army so I still had to do 30 burpees while yelling "I WILL NOT LEAVE MY WEAPON UNATTENDED".

Buddy, however, got to finish the fox holes by himself, and when we marched back to base, he had to lap the formation with his rifle over his head while yelling "I WILL NOT SNITCH ON MY MATES". All 3 kilometres.

He was known as Snitch for the remaining 7 months.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2023 12:51

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Happy page 666

Also, Slava Ukraini.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2023 12:08

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

A corvette played a small, but significant part in Danish foreign policy.

The deployment of the corvette Olfert Fischer (but only to enforce sanctions on Iraq) was the Danish contribution to the 1991 Gulf War. This was the first deployment of a Danish warship outsde Europe since colonial times, and marked a major shift in Danish foreign policy to a more "activist" stance. This eventually led to DK being one of the first to sign up for various iterations of Operation Useless Dirt, and even sustaining the largest per-capita loss of life in Afghanistan.

This was a pretty big deal back then, as since our disastrous war with Prussia in 1864, we had been neutral until 1949* and then a pretty bog-standard European NATO partner until 1991, sometimes seen as almost feckless. One of the more colourful Danish politicians even quipped in the early 70's that we could save a lot of money by defunding the military and putting up a telephone at the border. If you picked it up, it would say "We surrender!" in Russian.

So don't diss the humble corvette :denmark:

*There was a short period from 1940-45 under temporary management.

Mzuri fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Apr 17, 2023

# ¿ Apr 17, 2023 11:45

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

It�s Hip to have flair

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 08:49

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Some Ukrainian soldiers must take extraordinary measures to eject a deadly enemy from their trench:
https://i.imgur.com/TlBEr6p.mp4

It's a polecat or a ferret of some sort. It made my day.

E: The Ukraine Thread: Sounds of Death

Mzuri fucked around with this message at 14:01 on May 1, 2023

# ¿ May 1, 2023 13:52

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Or a worse, MORE competent person. The Pence scenario, if you will.

# ¿ May 2, 2023 17:27

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Highest compensation paid from my unit when I was in the :denmark:

Army as a conscript was when our heavy mortar section emplaced in a field at night and fired about eight practice layers from all four tubes.

We would have fired more, but the mink farmer from the other side of the hedgerow came running and stopped the show. Turns out highly strung weasels in cages do not take well to loud nightly noises next to them.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 08:10

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Tuna-Fish posted:

Suddenly the statements about how Finnish practice ranges are particularly appealing back from when Finland was about to join NATO make a lot more sense. We have a maneuver area with no civilians that's about the size of Lolland in Lapland.

That sounds awesome! We mainly just puttered around West Jutland and set up in fields and the like - usually after asking the farmer nicely. Sometimes we even got to sleep in their hay loft.

We did also go to a big maneuver area in Oksb�l a couple of times, but most of our fresh air activities and field exercises were on a mix of public and private land.

# ¿ May 11, 2023 13:20

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

bird food bathtub posted:

What's stopping Ukranian airframes from basing out of nearby countries? Distance? Diplomatic concerns? It would seem to be a pretty perfect solution. Go ahead Russia, attack a NATO air field because it has Ukranian jets there, see how that works out.

Yes. That is exactly what's stopping it.

# ¿ May 16, 2023 12:06

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

They have come a long way from this:

https://youtu.be/tJKFNPGS_XM

# ¿ May 27, 2023 12:46

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

1843 has a piece up about a sniper who has seen some poo poo

https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/06/22/a-ukrainian-sniper-called-lucky-dreams-of-vengeance

quote:

A Ukrainian sniper called Lucky dreams of vengeance

Despite a slow start to the counter-offensive, morale remains high

By Liz Cookman

At just 21, Lucky (pictured above) has already lost more friends than he can count. His phone is full of defunct numbers. �Many of my contacts are either dead or unreachable. Perhaps those ones are also dead,� he said, opening a can of Non Stop, a Ukrainian energy drink. His boyish looks belie his experience of war: since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Lucky has fought at Mariupol and Bakhmut, two of the conflict�s deadliest battles. In Mariupol he endured the siege of the Azovstal steel works. He�s been seriously injured twice and spent time as a prisoner-of-war.

We were sitting in a caf� in Kostyantynivka, a city on the front line in eastern Ukraine. It�s 17 miles (27km) from Bakhmut, which fell to Russian forces in May after nine months of fighting. The distant rumble of artillery hinted that another battle was under way: last week the Ukrainians claimed their soldiers had already broken through several defensive positions to the north of Bakhmut.

Sipping his drink, its sickly scent of lemon gummy-bears wafting through the air, Lucky joked that Non Stop ought to be the sponsor of this war: �Every battle in Mariupol was fought on this.� Lucky is a sniper with Ukraine�s Rapid Operational Response Unit (popularly known by its acronym, kord), a part of the Ukrainian police force that supports the army. Its remit is wide, from identifying Russian saboteurs and soldiers on reconnaissance missions to urban combat. One member of kord described its role to me: �When the regular army can�t do something, we do it.�

He was quick and controlled with his rifle, stalking through corridors with feline ease

Ukraine�s counter-offensive, believed to have started in early June, has been slow to make gains, but Lucky�s team has already helped to liberate Neskuchne, a village in Donetsk. When Ukrainian soldiers hoisted a blue-and-yellow flag over the ruins of a supermarket, Lucky and his colleagues were right behind them. Their job, as he put it, was to �clean up�. He described how they searched basements for any remaining Russian soldiers, detained the ones who surrendered and �fought with� those who refused to. They evacuated an elderly Ukrainian woman: the only villager left after more than a year of occupation.

While Lucky and his colleagues wait to hear where they will be sent next, they train for close-quarter fighting in abandoned buildings near Kostyantynivka. I wasn�t allowed to watch an official session, but Lucky simulated some of the exercises for me and a photographer. He was quick and controlled with his rifle, stalking through corridors with feline ease. Sewn onto his flak jacket was a badge with crossed rifles and an ace of spades, circled by the words: �From a place you will not see comes a sound you will not hear�.

Although Ukraine�s counter-offensive is still shrouded in mystery, it is widely believed that one of its main goals is to sever the land bridge between Russia and Crimea. That could involve liberating Mariupol and Berdyansk, cities in southern Ukraine which are currently occupied by Russian forces. Lucky is hoping for an order to push forward to Mariupol. He has unfinished business there.

Lucky is not his real name � it�s his call sign, a military identifier, and was given to him by his colleagues when he joined the Mariupol branch of kord in late 2021 after attending police-training college in the city. He didn�t want me to use his real name and revealed few details about his past. He is from the Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine that contains the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, both now annexed to Russia, and has an older brother who is fighting on the front line. Why Lucky? Some people just are � as he was at the battle of Mariupol.

Soon after Russian tanks rolled over the border, Mariupol was subjected to a brutal siege. Whole neighbourhoods were reduced to burned-out shells, with residents targeted in attacks on shelters and hospitals. Lucky fought to defend Mariupol until Ukraine ordered its forces to surrender last May. He lost many friends, including his sniper partner; some were killed in front of him. (He�s not allowed to say exactly how many men died defending Mariupol.) Lucky reckons over 30,000 civilians were killed, substantially more than the official toll.

Injured by a grenade, he had to run the gauntlet past Russian snipers to get help � �luckily, they kind of sucked�

The first time he was injured was during a grenade attack. Suffering from a wound to his arm, he had to run the gauntlet past Russian snipers to get help � �Luckily, they kind of sucked.� His other narrow escape came after the city centre fell to Russian forces. The Ukrainians were pulling back to the Azovstal steel works, an enormous concrete-and-steel fortress with a network of underground bunkers: the perfect place for a last stand. As Lucky�s unit made its way to Azovstal, the car behind was hit with an anti-tank missile. The man sitting next to him took the brunt of the explosion and died shortly afterwards. Lucky escaped with cuts and bruises and made it to the factory.

For a month, he hunkered down at Azovstal with soldiers and civilians as heavy artillery and air strikes pummelled their hiding place. �Sometimes they dropped three-tonne bombs over a bunker and you could tell right away everyone had died,� he said. Food and water were in short supply and few expected to get out alive.

When the order came to surrender, Lucky, who was ready to keep fighting, felt disappointed and scared. �We knew how Russians treat prisoners-of-war,� he said. A commander from Mariupol�s Azov Battalion had received a photo from one of his men�s phones, showing the soldier dead with his eyes gouged out. The message underneath read: �You�re next�.

Lucky and some of the other captives were taken to a dilapidated building in Olenivka, a notorious prison in Donetsk. More than 600 people were kept in a room big enough for only a third of them. They slept on a concrete floor, were given just a small cup of water each day, and were forced to listen to the Russian national anthem frequently. The Russians made the Ukrainians �do their dirty work�, said Lucky, sending them to Mariupol and Azovstal to collect dead bodies.

Prisoners were beaten, tortured and killed. They cut one man�s veins and left him to bleed. Lucky lost 20kg but escaped the worst of the beatings. �I guess I was lucky,� he said. After four months he was released in a prisoner exchange (the terms of the release prevented him from giving any further details about the horrors he witnessed). Many of his fellow fighters are still locked up in Olenivka.

�We have to go back and win, any way we can,� he said. �I dream of vengeance�

After a few months of rehabilitation in Kyiv, Lucky returned to work in February. He was thrown right back into the thick of it: a tour of Bakhmut, which was experiencing its most intense period of fighting to date. Two of his eight-man unit were killed, while Lucky had another near-miss. He and his colleagues were on the third floor of a five-storey building when they spotted a Russian soldier in a window over a mile away. He showed me the picture they took with a night-vision camera, pointing out the soldier: a tiny white square against a dark cityscape. They shot at him and missed, only by a metre. Then a helicopter came after them. It fired at the floor above and they were able to run away.

Lucky can�t rest until Mariupol is liberated and thinks Ukrainian troops could reach the city this year. �We have to go back and win this chapter, any way we can,� he said. �I dream of vengeance.� The counter-offensive has so far failed to deliver the lightning gains seen during last summer�s push, when Ukrainian troops won back Kharkiv province. The Russian army had ample time to reinforce its defences before the operation started, while the Ukrainians appear to be moving tentatively to limit losses. Lucky isn�t allowed to say much about the counter-offensive, but there�s one thing he�s keen to stress: we�ve seen just a small fraction of what Ukraine�s forces are capable of.

His confidence is shared by other soldiers I met in the countryside around Kostyantynivka. Men from artillery and drone units lurk in thickets, biding their time before the order comes to return to Bakhmut. They�re itching to settle old scores: everyone has lost something or someone. �We spent a lot of time defending places�It�s really unpleasant to pull back,� a soldier called Oleksandr told me. As we spoke, the air was thick with sulphur from artillery fire. �We will take [Lysychansk, Severodonetsk and Bakhmut] back, and Crimea too, by the end of this year.�

There seems little doubt among these young men that the counter-offensive will be a success and that Ukraine will eventually triumph. They just want the West to send more weapons and ammunition. Lucky isn�t scared of what lies ahead, although he�s keen to avoid another stint in captivity. As long as he has bullets, he plans to keep shooting, even if he�s the last man standing. �Maybe I�ll kill them or maybe they�ll kill me, but there will be no surrender,� he said.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2023 09:28

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but here's a pretty good 15ish minutes on what the current war in Ukraine has to tell us about warfare now and in the near future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4cdr4xbaqw

# ¿ Jul 5, 2023 17:53

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Clark and Ding claim another victory with their flashlight :ssh:

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 20:56

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Murgos posted:

Unlike the 1905 trip I doubt they actually make it to their destination and just end up with vessels scattered across various ports along the route suffering from maintenance issues.

That said, if they do manage to sight the horn, South Africa has 4 reasonably modern frigates and 3 modern German submarines which is more than I think the Russian navy can handle.

And if they make landfall, they will get carjacked the second they hit major populated areas. Perhaps even before they get off the beach at Durban. Then watch them discover how well BMPs deal with the massive potholes they can't see at night because load shedding is in effect.

Make it inland and heavily armed Afrikaners will gleefully pull a remix of the commandoes, but with technical bakkies instead of horses.

"By fok, Petrus! The Russians have landed! Let's have a braai and then go moer them."

# ¿ Jul 19, 2023 08:31

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Here's a pretty good long read on the promotion of the Mosvka to submarine: https://www.economist.com/interactive/1843/2023/07/27/how-ukraines-virtually-non-existent-navy-sank-russias-flagship

It's probably paywalled, but I am sure there are ways for non-subscribers to access it. Has a dope wireframe scroll-through of the Mosvka as well.

Lots of wink-wink-nudge-nudge from the Ukrainian side on how they found her, and a guest appearance from a co-creater of Harpoon, among lots of other interesting stuff.

e: an excerpt:

quote:

Once the location of the�Moskva�had been confirmed on April 13th, Neizhpapa ordered two Neptune missiles to be fired at it. The technical expert showed me a video on his phone of what he claimed was the launch of the missiles that day. The launcher truck was parked in a thin line of trees with bare branches. At ignition, the cap of the launching tube, which looks like the lid of a rubbish bin, was dispelled from the barrel and crashed into a field of green spring wheat. A fiery roar and a trail of black smoke followed. Then the second missile was launched.

Silence reigned in Neizhpapa�s command centre. The Neptune, which is five metres long, flies at 900km per hour and is designed to skim ten metres above the surface of the sea in order to avoid detection. Neizhpapa watched the clock tick through the six minutes that it was supposed to take to reach the target. For a long time nothing seemed to happen. Then Russian radio channels erupted in chatter. It was apparent that smaller ships were hurrying towards the�Moskva. The radio traffic was garbled and panicked. Neizhpapa inferred that the ship had been hit.

It didn�t take long for news to spread. �People started calling me from all over Ukraine,� Neizhpapa said. �There was only one question: �Did it sink or not?� I said, �I can�t answer that!� Hours passed. I was constantly asked the same thing. I joked I wanted to get on a boat myself and go and look. I said, �Do you realise that this is a very big ship? Even if it was hit by both missiles, it wouldn�t sink immediately.��

Some hours later, satellites spotted a large red thermal image in the middle of the sea. Officials from nato phoned Neizhpapa, he recalled, �to say that they saw something burning beautifully�.

Mzuri fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 28, 2023

# ¿ Jul 28, 2023 09:04

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

bulletsponge13 posted:

Has anyone considered the bridge is just really stressed and started smoking to cope?

The bridge just can't catch a break. Smoking is the leading cause of explosions in Crimea and Russia, and it has first-hand, concrete evidence that explosions cause stress and more smoking.

It's a Kerch-22, really.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2023 08:09

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Tiny Timbs posted:

lol at the guy saying europeans invented racism

the asian form is next level powerful

Being born in Africa and raised in various African and Asian countries, I can confirm this.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2023 15:37

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Re: Ukraine droning technicals in Sudan, it makes perfect sense in the context of their excellent PR game. The CNN video linked earlier does an OK convincing job that the drones are Ukrainian-sourced at least, AND brings attention to the fact that Russia gets a not insignificant amount of money from doing Russian things in and with Sudan.

In other words, UKR is planting a big target on foreign abettors of Russia's war of aggression, starting with Sudan. Over the next couple of months, we will likely see an increased focus in the press and from various state departments in this aspect of the conflict.

I wonder what sort of cope cage you can fit on a HiLux.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 12:11

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

PurpleXVI posted:

I don't think a couple of drone strikes from Ukraine are going to turn the war around or convince the coup plotters to pack it up and stop, and everyone who could conceivably give a poo poo has already spoken out about how bad it is and started laying on the economic sanctions on the coup regime.

I'm not arguing that, and I don't think anyone else is - I hope not, anyway. I'm saying that it's a way for UKR to draw the attention of friendly governments and organisations to a possibly overlooked source of support, logistics and finance for Russia. And once they start looking closer at Sudan (accounting for the civil war and all), their attention may widen to include other, overlooked players.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2023 16:49

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

OddObserver posted:

They also donated more than 300 tanks.

And are housing, feeding, schooling, and providing access to jobs for the about 3 million Ukrainians who have arrived since the war started.

Some of that is aided by NGOs, bit still. Poland is doing their part.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 08:13

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Part 3 of The Secret Diary of a Ukrainian Soldier is up on The Economist.

I cleaned it up a little, but there may still be some artifacts from the copy-paste:

The Economist posted:

https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/09/06/the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-on-the-counter-offensive
Sep 6th 2023

This is the third part of a diary written by a Ukrainian paratrooper. When war broke out in 2022, he was a civilian.�He volunteered to fight and,�after�cursory training, found himself on the front lines, in charge of a platoon of equally unprepared men. He made new friends but lost comrades in chaotic early�battles in Donbas, a region in the east of the country. This instalment begins in August 2022, as our diarist was recuperating in the forests of the north of the country, waiting to begin a secret new operation.

Day 67. August 29th 2022
Never in my life have I slept so deeply. When I wake, I inhale the scent of pine needles. Everything that went before feels like a dream: the shelling; the shooting; the dead; the base in Dnipro; scoffing four pieces of cake; the drive through the night across marshlands; the sight of new artillery pieces lining the roads going east. Clickety click. Someone is tapping on the window of the truck. It�s Raccoon, my company commander, who has come to wake us up. I last saw him yesterday lunchtime. It feels like a month ago.
Raccoon asks us to remove our unit�s insignia. If anyone asks us, we are members of a territorial defence battalion from the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine. �The First Somali battalion�, we joke, taking off any badges that might identify us as assault forces. It�s not that difficult a legend for me to absorb. I am from Cherkasy and the idea of being a professional paratrooper still feels pretty weird.
There are a number of units dispersed in the pine forest. This is the place where we are massing our forces before the battle begins. If the enemy spots us, God forbid, it�s better that we aren�t all in one place. I know this isn�t the time to relax, but I can�t help it. The warm sun of late summer has melted away my circumspection. My fellow soldiers too are resting on the ground. With their little camps scattered among the trees, they look like overgrown boy scouts.
We haven�t been taught what we should be doing during the waiting phase. I try not to get worked up with thoughts of a bloody apocalypse. I dig a foxhole. It�s a quick and easy job. I remember what they told us during our training: the ideal depth of any trench depends on the density of the soil. If you dig too deeply into soft ground, and a shell lands nearby, you will be buried alive.
The whole world seems to be talking about�a counter-offensive in the Kherson region�in the south of the country. We�re right at the other end of the front line. I�ve no idea what I�m meant to be doing. So I keep digging.

Day 68. August 30th 2022
I sleep like a log for the second night in a row. The soft sandy floor of my foxhole is better than any mattress. I congratulate myself for getting the size right, too: I can stretch my legs fully and there is still room for a rucksack and an assault rifle.
The armoured vehicles are supposed to be arriving today. For weeks, Raccoon has been telling me that we are to get British Spartans, armoured personnel carriers with tracks, and�bmps, Soviet-made amphibious fighting vehicles. I�ve yet to see either outside a training range, and I can�t believe I�m about to take charge of one of them. I�m not a real soldier, after all.
The vehicles begin to appear. First comes the�bmp�I�m to take command of. You can hear it from the other side of the forest. As it roars up alongside us, a filthy, soot-covered hatch opens on the top, and a no less grubby chap, with red hair and beard, emerges from it. He looks shattered and stumbles as he dismounts from the vehicle. The two seem made for each other. Soon afterwards a column of Spartans emerges. They maintain a perfectly even distance from each other. Compared with my�bmp, these are small, nimble things � the Mini Cooper of armoured personnel carriers. A tank follows behind the Spartans. It�s the first time I�ve seen so much armour in one place.
�Pay attention to the combat order.� Our battalion leader has called together his company commanders for a presentation about what is to come next. He�s laid twigs, stones and bricks on the forest floor. Ukrainian troops are the bricks. Hazel branches indicate the paths we will clear through our minefields. And a little bit farther away are the paths we will clear through the Russian minefields. We were given instructions like this when we were training. But never in my life did I think someone would actually explain a battle order with such props.
According to the plan, we are to manoeuvre through the minefields once the main strike group has passed through. All being well, that first group would capture a Russian-controlled village and engage the enemy on the outskirts of Balakleya, a large town with a barracks. Our task is to blockade Balakleya from the north. If the first strike group fails to gain a foothold, we will have to defend against the Russian counter-attack. The operation�s end point is Izium, a crucial hub 40km away, and one that the Russians fought months of bloody battles to capture. Everyone understands it�s an �impossible� ask. The commanders aren�t being honest with us, I think to myself.
We spend two hours�watching drone footage�of the terrain that lies ahead of us. The Russians have deep trenches that look like those I saw in textbooks. There doesn�t seem to be a soul in sight. There�s either not too many of them, or they are really disciplined, and hide whenever they hear the buzz of our drones.

Day 69. August 31st 2022
We receive an order to paint white crosses on our vehicles. We make them as big as we can and daub them on all sides. You don�t want someone to have to put on glasses in order to decide whether to shoot at you or not. When we are done, we look like some medieval order of knights. Unfortunately the Russians appear to be expecting our crusade. Social-media channels are filled with reports about an accumulation of tanks in our sector.
I don�t know what lies ahead, or how to prepare myself for it. I find myself carving words into the magazines for my rifle. These are the names of those who helped me along the way: friends and colleagues; the staff at the gym where I train and at the restaurant I once worked in. They�ve all been sending money and badly needed equipment for my soldiers. The pick-up truck we�ve been driving was also a present from my friends.
Our battalion�s machinegunners join us in the evening. Another group has been sent over from territorial-defence units. Quite a few of them seem to have been drinking and their behaviour is unruly. But they have been assigned to my company for the operation. I�m going to have to take responsibility for them whether I like it or not.
Are we ready? Our commanders apparently think so. Formally speaking we have everything we need: the correct number of men, the equipment, the guns and the combat order. But wars are never fought on paper.

Day 70. September 1st 2022
Another of the Soviet�bmps arrives in the middle of the night. It makes a noisy entrance, running into a pine tree and chopping it down with its sharp prow. Were it not for the hysterical screams, I might have had another full night�s sleep. The falling tree really spooked a hardened reconnaissance officer going by the�nom de guerre�of Hightower. To be fair, it almost fell on his head.
Hightower was meant to be a reinforcement. On paper, he is an experienced soldier who could assist our young commander if we had problems with discipline. But he doesn�t feel like much of a backup. I would not be surprised if the real reason he was transferred to us was that his previous colleagues had grown tired of his endless chatter. His moniker �inspired by Moses Hightower, the taciturn comic hero of the Police Academy films � must be ironic.
We get a delivery of a box of grenades. �Take as many as you like, boys,� we are told. One thing I�ve discovered is that juggling them is a perfect way to deal with the endless waiting. Three at a time is easy enough. It�s when you add a fourth that things become difficult. I can�t stop wondering why we are still hanging around in the forest. We�ve already got the combat order. The Russians know we are up to something. It�s surely time to move.

Day 71. September 2nd 2022
My guys are itching to go. Every time they open their mouths they seem to ask: �So when is it?� There is nothing worse than bored soldiers. We officers have to be careful to keep them occupied with training exercises. The rumour is that we are waiting for ammunition for the new M777 howitzers to arrive. Some of us have taken to using military slang for these British guns � the �three axes�. We all understand we are showing off to look more experienced than we actually are. None of us has actually seen these things in real life.
During the night, the Russians fire cluster munitions near our positions in the forest. I hear a loud whistle from my dug-out. Pieces of sharp metal pierce the nearby trees� � you can tell this by their characteristic racket. �Can you take us in?� shout Odessa and Farmer, two of my guys who had until that point been sleeping under a canvas tent. They had teased me for digging such a large foxhole. Now it doesn�t seem such a bad idea to them.

Day 72. September 3rd 2022
Pryshyb is a small village which has the misfortune of falling right on the demarcation line between the two sides. Most of its residents have left. The only visitors are Russian mortars, which explode at regular intervals in the middle of the abandoned gardens or vegetable plots. And, for one day only, a small group of novice Ukrainian soldiers.
The three of us � me, Panda and Navigator � have been sent here to conduct drone reconnaissance. We need to see if there has been any change in the Russian positions since the videos shot a few days ago. If the Russians spot us, we will know about it pretty quickly. We hide our car under the cover of an overgrown apple tree that bears small, sour fruit in abundance.
Once we�ve completed our mission, we pass by another village on our way back through the forest. There are still a few functioning shops here, so we stop to stock up on Snickers and Coke. An old man queuing in one of them asks me when the war will end. I struggle to answer. The shopkeeper seems to sense my befuddlement. �Soon! Not long now,� she says. �These guys know what they are doing. The Russians will be gone in no time.� The locals insist I skip to the front of the queue. A woman opens the door for me. Kids outside shout �Glory to Ukraine!� I feel awkward. This feels like a propaganda movie. We give the youngsters some chocolate as we leave.

Day 73. September 4th 2022
I�ve got used to the forest. It feels like I�m reliving my childhood. There is a huge lake nearby. The lads are allowed to swim there if they are accompanied by an officer. I�m not keen on swimming, but I agree to supervise so they can enjoy themselves. They jump and bomb into the water from a long wooden platform.
We decide to turn my foxhole into a fully fledged dugout. It�s now three times the size, and a whole shovel-width deeper. We cover the new digs with pine logs and dry leaves. From a distance, you�d be hard-pressed to guess anyone could be living here. To make things even more comfortable, we line the walls with plastic and lay down camping mattresses and sleeping bags.
My new neighbours take no time in settling in. Farmer, who, appropriately enough, used to be a farmer in central Ukraine, has a wife and son waiting for him back home. Odessa, a school teacher from Odessa, fell in love with another school teacher when doing military training. He�s always talking about her, and planning the rest of their life together. He wonders whether she will ever agree to move to Odessa. I light a candle in the dugout. Things are cosy. I feel at home.

Day 74. September 5th 2022
We are woken in the middle of the night. The operation is beginning. It�s time to jump onto the armoured vehicles and �Go, go, go�. We wrap blue tape around our arms. This is supposed to distinguish between friend and foe. It is still a bit abstract to me. I�ve never yet had to make a call to shoot or not to shoot based on the colour of the tape on someone�s sleeves. It�s also the first time I�ve ridden an armoured vehicle in convoy. Not to mention in the pitch dark.
The tank is the first to leave, shortly followed by the tracked infantry vehicles and all the Spartans. My�bmp�is at the end of the column of armoured vehicles. Immediately behind me are the wheeled vehicles: cars and an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a truck. My job is to keep proper distance from the heavy armour in front, while checking on the wheeled vehicles behind. One of them is sure to break down or get stuck in the sandy soil of the forest road.
We join another military column at a rendezvous point on our way. Suddenly, it has become extremely difficult to determine where my guys are � everyone now looks the same. It�s a miracle we don�t lose anyone. Judging by the growing din of artillery, we�re close to the point where we are supposed to break through their lines.
We grope around for a place to sleep until the morning, or the order to move arrives. We find a narrow gully set a few metres off from the road. I sleep in a makeshift tent that I�ve made from a poncho. I could dig a foxhole, but decide it�s best to get as much sleep as I can. I hope that Russian artillery won�t find me in the meantime. When dawn breaks, I see that the forest ahead of us has been burned to the ground, leaving an opening.
Raccoon is still asleep, snoozing with his back leaning against a tree. I decide to inspect the combat groups in his place. At each stop, the groups of soldiers offer me food. I have breakfast with each one of them. Coffee and chocolate; fresh, cooked pasta. Contractor�s group is playing gypsy music out of a Bluetooth speaker. One of his soldiers � a round-faced, chubby guy � is dancing on top of an armoured personnel carrier (apc) to keep warm. Another is rummaging through an infantry vehicle trying to find something among the clutter. Our battalion feels like a travelling circus.

Day 75. September 6th 2022
The combat order says it is here that we will have to cross Russian minefields near Pryshyb. My company is part of the battalion reserve, so we aren�t in the first wave. I don�t know if that group has managed to blast a passage through the minefields for us. I�m only a platoon commander, after all. No one tells me about the big picture.
While we wait I try to prise open the door of an abandoned wooden house. I sense the place hasn�t been lived in for some time � certainly since long before the invasion. I can feel the house crumbling as I push on the door. The flimsy construction just can�t stand it. I push harder with increasing desperation. But the door, which is reinforced with a layer of metal, won�t give despite all my efforts. If I can�t break into a wooden hut, I ask myself, what hope do I have against Russian defences?
There is no time to brood. My company commander Raccoon is radioing me to hurry and he sounds increasingly frustrated. There is news. The plan has changed. �You�re going on alone now,� he says. It turns out that the first wave has broken through Russian lines and penetrated deeper than anyone expected. The Russians are fleeing. I recall the lessons of military training: when the enemy is running, you chase after them. We have to step on the gas, and fast.
Now I�m in charge of my own group. I have several combat teams operating on Spartans, two grenade-launcher crews, one anti-tank crew armed with Javelin missiles and a tank. That�s right, folks: my own tank.
Commanders assure us everything will be made safe ahead of us. There is, after all, a well-worked algorithm here. A mine roller goes first. When it hits mines, it stops, and a mine-clearing vehicle called the�zmiy-gorynych�� named after a magic dragon in Slavic folklore � steps up. The dragon throws out a hose of explosives, and clears a lane up ahead. �If you stay in the corridor, it�s safe to drive� � or so they tell us repeatedly. If I�m honest, the mantras don�t do much to calm someone about to cross a minefield for the very first time.
The battalion commander has arrived to take us through the minefields himself. This turn of events suggests to me that things are going well. He surely wouldn�t take the risk otherwise? Still, the picture ahead is terrifying. Our path to the other side is narrow � just ruts that our colleagues have dug into the weedy fields. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of anti-tank mines either side of them. One careless move and we will turn into cans of sardines in tomato sauce.
It�s already dark by the time we enter Yakovenkove, a village that is our target destination. The outermost house is in flames. I can see a petrified man in his 60s, leading an equally petrified cow out of the yard. If it wasn�t for him, the animal would surely have been burned alive. We find out that this large house served as the Russian headquarters. When they fled, they set the building on fire, leaving a web of tripwires.
Our evening sweep doesn�t last long. After checking the first few houses, the futility of the task becomes clear. First, the darkness means that it is much more likely we will blow ourselves up on tripwires than catch any remnants of the enemy. Second, we understand that the offensive has, if anything, gone�too�well. We aren�t the only Ukrainian unit here. Artillery men and scouts from neighbouring battalions, all driven forward by the good news, are hiding under every bush. We don�t want to shoot our own guys in pursuit of Russian stragglers.
We set up positions for the night in the far end of the village. As we look for a place to sleep, we frighten an old lady, one of the few remaining residents. She can�t understand who we are, or why we are asking permission to let our soldiers sleep in her barn. We�ll have to apologise to her tomorrow, I think to myself.

Day 76. September 7th 2022
I wake up after a night of sleeping on a hard floor. I can tell the owners of the house I�m sleeping in had plenty of time to leave. The carpets are rolled up and stacked neatly; the windows are covered; the clothes they didn�t need for the journey are wrapped neatly in a jacket. The war damage � a mine blew a small crater in the yard, damaging the minibus parked outside � obviously came later.
�Boss, erm, the owners have arrived,� says Misha, a short infantryman aged 45 or so. His naive and earnest nature make him an unlikely soldier. �Will you talk to them?� I feel shame as I remember we entered someone�s home at night without their permission. I might be the commander of an airborne platoon, but I am completely in the wrong here. I feel like a boy caught stealing apples from a neighbour�s garden.
I recall the lessons of military training: when the enemy is running, you chase after them
Blushing, I prepare to deliver words of apology to the two women standing with their hands on their hips at the gate. The older one is wearing a brown jumper, the younger one red. �We�erm�needed somewhere to sleep,� I mutter. They don�t let me end my sentence, and instead pull me towards them, embrace me and start crying. �Boys, boys! What took you so long?� I�m numb. Nothing prepared me for this. I don�t know what to say or how to react. The women insist they cook dinner for us. But it�s against the rules to accept food from the civilian population. Yes, we are on home soil. Yes, it�s obvious that these people are on our side. But rules are rules.
The mobile networks are down, and we have no access to the internet. For the time being we have no news, just rumours. And what are those rumours saying? They say the first battalion broke through lines so speedily that they drove over Russian trenches without even noticing them. They say terrified Russian soldiers stayed in their pits until the next wave of attackers captured them.
I decide to break the rules and allow the boys to accept dinner from the ladies of the village.

Day 77. September 8th 2022
Misha clearly is not a man designed for war, but now at least he has a purpose. We�re putting him in charge of our domestic arrangements. One thing I�ve found is that as soon as you give a soldier a particular area of responsibility, he becomes a new man. Misha takes great care in keeping the house spotless. He reminds everyone of the importance of regular meals. He makes sure that the food is hot and there is enough for everyone. He glows with pride from the praise and the feeling he is needed.
The boys decide to cook borscht tonight. For whatever reason, they want to have it with mayonnaise. Some might describe this as a war crime: sour cream is, as is well established, the only acceptable condiment. But Snake nonetheless has resolved to head down to the local shop to buy it. About 30 minutes later he comes back with a machinegun, a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, ammunition and delighted cries of �There�s loads more!� He�s forgotten the mayonnaise.
There are indeed plenty more treasures where the machinegun came from. The Russians left behind another two machineguns, five rocket-propelled grenade launchers, half a dozen hand-held flamethrowers and under-barrel grenade launchers for Kalashnikovs. There are loads of Soviet-made helmets and Russian bulletproof vests. The Russians appear to have dropped everything heavy when they scarpered on foot.
Why didn�t he tell me he was from here? I�d have brought him to his son�s birthday party personally � on an APC
I find clues about the Russians in a notebook that my opposite number � a platoon commander from the so-called Luhansk People�s Republic � has left behind. You can see the commander was a responsible kind of guy. His notebook resembles that of a classroom swot. The entries are neat and colour-coded. This platoon was mobilised in the Luhansk region about six months ago. Ever since they have been training and patrolling, first at home and later here in the Kharkiv region. Every one of these moments is recorded meticulously.
We sweep the treelines and cast our eyes around. Scorched fields. The remains of metal bed frames and burned equipment. The evidence of retreat and escape. Later in the evening, I return to the large house that had been the local Russian headquarters. The yard is being swept by an elderly couple, their daughter and a young boy. They say that the owner of the home has asked them to clean up after the Russians, even though the place is still full of tripwires and unidentified boxes of equipment.
The child keeps his distance from us, and barely says a word. He follows the adults while clutching a dog in his arms. �He gets frightened whenever he sees a soldier,� explains the old man. The boy started wetting the bed because of the fear. The gossip in the village is that his mother was raped. I choose not to listen to the rumours. Even if they are true, it strikes me that gossip makes things worse.
My guys test the Russian bulletproof vests. They report that the plates actually withstand the bullets and cannot be easily penetrated. I�ve attached one of the under-barrel grenade launchers to my rifle. My already clunky Kalashnikov is now even heavier. But it looks epic.

Day 79. September 10th 2022
We wake to the realisation that gophers have eaten much of our food. These hyperactive rodent bastards jump from branch to branch, and gnaw through packets of biscuits and packets of dry rations. They�d robbed us before daybreak.
There is quite a bit of commotion on the radios this morning. Another part of our company tried to approach Savyntsi, the village that is next on our hit-list, and saw a car driving through it with a white cross. Our troops have already taken it without a fight, it seems. The only danger facing us there are the mines scattered on the streets.
From there we move on quickly across the fields towards our next target village, Vesele. We can finally breathe a bit more freely. Not so our Spartan�apcs. On the way, sunflowers get stuck in their radiators and they begin to lose power. We are overtaken by a Soviet-made infantry vehicle.
The locals who remained in the village happily open up their neighbours� houses so that my soldiers can rest. We know we are headed for Izium in the morning so it�s important they are fresh. Everyone wants to tell us something. About how the Russians built two checkpoints: one manned with Ossetians from the Caucasus and another with soldiers from occupied Donetsk. They tell us how the Ossetian commander would mock the Donetsk fighters: he beat them and made them shout �Donetsk is a shithole.�
I ask everyone to go home to sleep. Tomorrow is an early start. But two of the local men don�t want to leave my boys in peace. They continue chatting in the yard of the house where we are staying.
�Relax, these are our guys,� says one of them.
�Yeah, we�re back home. In Ukraine,� replies the other
.�No, no, what I�m saying is one of the guys really is local. He�s from Savyntsi. We�ve known each other since we were kids.
�I wonder what it�s like to find yourself on an operation to surround the village you lived in your entire life. Where, perhaps, your wife and son are living right now. Where it might even be your son�s birthday. I find myself getting angry with my soldier. Why didn�t he tell me he was from here? I�d have brought him to his son�s birthday party personally � on an�apc.

Day 80. September 11th 2022
Our convoy flies down the beautiful highway towards Izium. I feel elated. It�s easy to breathe. There�s a light drizzle. The air is fresh. We pass tank crews resting on the sides of the road. They wave to us. They did the hard work. Our job is now to sweep up any Russians left. As we approach Izium, I see two Russian corpses still lying across the road. We call them �sheep�. I�ve got nothing but contempt for the people who came to invade my country. They aren�t people to me anymore. Just bodies.
A tall stele with the inscription �Izium� marks the entrance to town. My heart wants to jump out of my chest. I feel triumphant. I might not have fired a single shot yet, but it feels like my victory. I grin when I see my reflection in a mirror. My face is covered in the soot that the�apc�in front had sprayed onto me.
Across the way, an old woman is riding a bicycle. She gazes towards the soldiers gathered around the stele. But she isn�t looking where she needs to be looking � by her wheels, which is where anti-personnel mines are lurking. A jumping mine can tear your foot off if you step on it. In slow motion, we catch sight of the woman, tottering towards the mines. We shout at her. She doesn�t hear us. When the mine explodes, the old woman falls over the handlebars of the bicycle. We help her to her feet. Thankfully, she isn�t seriously injured, just a little frightened.
Every time, I ask for residents� permission to enter their houses. I explain that I will do so only with their say-so. Although it would be hard to refuse a filthy, soot-covered bloke armed from head to toe. I can see the residents are tense and don�t understand what is happening. They have been cut off from the world beyond the village for months. They do not immediately realise who we are. The colour of our armbands means nothing to them. I don�t think they expected to see Ukrainian troops here so soon.
Izium means raisin in Russian � and it�s not hard to understand why the town got its name. The grapes are everywhere. There are giant, green ones with a sweet taste. And small, sour bunches. Picking one at a time, I eat kilos of the stuff.
�A tank! Tank!� All around me, soldiers grab their weapons and jump to join the hunt of a Russian tank. It�s the first time I see everyone running towards a tank, rather than away from it. It turns out that the vehicle is not, in fact, a tank, but an armoured vehicle. A disoriented Russian soldier had tried to escape from a nearby hideout, but instead headed straight for our sector. He didn�t get far.
The guys up ahead have run into a Russian sniper. Some fucker is shooting from a tower in the industrial estate. Our guys return machinegun fire. One shot from a grenade launcher and suddenly the shooting stops. When we reach the sniper�s position, we see a Russian uniform thrown onto the floor. It seems he managed to flee, disguised as a civilian.
We discover a ton of abandoned equipment at the far corner of our sector. There�s a completely intact tank, covered with explosives that the Russians never got around to detonating. More loot is waiting at what had been a repair point. We claim two extra amphibious tracked vehicles, two brand new anti-aircraft guns still in their packages and a rare�apc�configured as a comms vehicle. The rest of our haul goes to other units.

Day 81. September 12th 2022
We�ve set up in a house recently abandoned by the Russians. A Russian tricolour hangs at the entrance. I think about keeping it as a trophy, but by the time I�ve returned from setting up our monitoring posts, my soldiers have already ripped it off the wall and burned it.
The Russians left piles of documents behind. There are A4 forms stamped �secret�. One contains a list of soldiers injured in artillery battles. Another, dated the next day, contains handwritten refusenik statements. Each member of the unit � the platoon commander, his deputies and the lowliest privates � has written that they refuse to take part in the �special military operation�. Everyone has come up with their own reason: because they have not been granted leave; because they are ill; because they are tired or in bad psychological condition.
We also find a pile of letters written by Russian schoolchildren. They offer support and motivational stories for �this not very good predicament�. Even kids are afraid to use the word �war�.
Astonishingly stupid propaganda litters the fancy house that Russian commanders used as their headquarters. There are cheap anti-Semitic caricatures of President Volodymyr Zelensky � as either a rabbi, the devil or an American puppet. Joe Biden is also a target for their teenage minds. A stand outside the building explains that �Russia never attacks anyone�. And even if it ever did, it was �forced to do so�. It feels absurd to be reading this in ransacked Izium, 160km from the Russian border.

Day 84. September 15th 2022
Getting a mobile signal in Izium isn�t easy. The only place where it�s possible to speak is at the top of Mount Kremenets, which overlooks the town. If you are lucky, and a�4g�connection somehow dribbles through, you can make the call. But do not dare move. Half a metre to the left or right and you will lose reception. At any moment you can find dozens of locals at the top of the hill, in varying degrees of frozen frustration.
The residents soon get wind that the military has a secret communications weapon: Starlink, a satellite-powered internet service. I don�t think it�s a great idea to have locals surrounding your headquarters with dozens of phones. It�s against the rules for a start. But how can you deny people who have spent so many months without hearing from their loved ones?

Day 85. September 16th 2022
The full extent of Russian atrocities in Izium is beginning to be revealed. The world�s press has already published photos from the mass grave at the entrance to the town. There are several hundred people buried under the sandy soil there. Many of them will have been Ukrainian sympathisers. We don�t talk about it much. We just ask each other: �You saw it?� And we silently nod.
Over the last few days, we�ve heard stories of rape and torture. Of people who have disappeared. Of a disabled man whose adapted car was stolen and who was shot dead when he tried to retrieve it.
The testimonies of those we meet near our positions is shocking enough. One man would not let his son out, fearing he would be detained by Russian soldiers looking for people with pro-Ukrainian sympathy. So his 16-year-old never left the confines of their small yard for five and a half months. Another neighbour, known for pro-Ukrainian sympathies, was taken away by Russian soldiers one day. He was never seen again.

Day 87. September 17th 2022
Everyone�s focus is now on Lyman, the next major town 48km down the road. Every hour we check for updates from there and the nearby urban conglomeration of Lysychansk/Sievierodonetsk. The Russians have gathered a huge force if our information is correct. But if our guys can manage to advance around them, there is a chance of trapping them. In my heart of hearts, I want them to keep running. I want the next few days of our raid to be free and easy. For it to be like it has been in the Kharkiv region. No losses and no direct clashes. But a gnawing feeling in my gut tells me the party might be coming to an end.
Everyone believes our next departure is tonight. The rear guard are already here in Izium. We won�t be staying here for long, that�s for sure.�■

This diary has been edited and translated by�Oliver Carroll, a foreign correspondent for�The Economist

Main take away is that mayo on borscht is a war crime. The Geneva Convention says Sour Cream or GTFO.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2023 11:37

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Look at Tank Buffalo Bill over here :jerkbag:

*T-62 staring forlornly up at forums poster gay picnic defence from an old shell crater*
GDP: "It puts the turret in the basket or it gets the drone again!"
*DJI drone peeks over crater rim, makes whirring noises*

# ¿ Oct 22, 2023 11:41

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

We did a number of live fire exercises with our 120mm mortars. Only once did a live round fail to exit the tube and the crew (all four of them conscripts) had to unhook the tube from the base plate and gently tip it, so the live - possibly armed - HE round would slide out into the waiting open hands of the one who drew the short straw. So much sweat.

They were of course guided by our lieutenant and a weapons mech from a nice, safe distance.

So yeah, QA is nice.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2023 08:49

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Saukkis posted:

I think that's a wrong way to do it. IIRC, during my days in the FDF a sergeant in our brigade got demoted after firing a mortar from the hip.

The correct way is to use a special hook that is lowered to the tube to grab the grenade and it is then pulled out using strings by the side of the tube.

That sergeant didn't want to bother with the hassle and detached the tube from the base plate and support and tried to slide the grenade by himself. He ended up smacking the bottom of the tube in the ground and this ended triggering the grenade and launched it at way too shallow of an angle and flew far beyond the target zone.

This owns, tbh.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2023 12:45

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

M_Gargantua posted:

Got promoted to Knee

# ¿ Oct 30, 2023 14:06

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:29

Mzuri: Jun 5, 2004; Who's the boss?
Dudes is lost.
Don't think coz I'm iced out,
I'm cooled off.

Putin only has to hang on until Trump gets reelected.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2023 19:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat

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