Welcome home, fellow Gator.

The Gator Nation's oldest and most active insider community
Join today!

War in Ukraine

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by PITBOSS, Jan 21, 2022.

  1. paulwilliams

    paulwilliams Recruit

    1
    0
    11
    May 24, 2022
    39213
    Do you think they do such awful things only because they have ordered?
    I also thought so, that the soldiers don't have any other options, only do what they are told. But the more I read about everything, the more I'm convinced that a lot of them ( not all ) do such horrible things because they want to. It's about the "power" they think that have, and the feeling of impunity
     
    • Agree Agree x 5
  2. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

    3,051
    939
    1,858
    Nov 24, 2021
    Buffalo NY
    That's why I want trials. I think the circumstances added up here. For others they could've been bragging, proud, etc about it. There's been enough evidence out there of Russian conscripts not even knowing what was going on, then being threatened by superiors or even shot.

    I just don't like to put kids under duress in the same category as older soldiers/officers carrying out multiple atrocities. One set deserves death, the other jail.
     
  3. studegator

    studegator GC Legend

    747
    239
    1,918
    Feb 24, 2008
    Former US soldier now fighting in Ukraine tells of days trapped in 'house of horror' - CNN

    Like many military veterans, Kevin says he had felt adrift since originally leaving the battlefield several years ago. He had a full-time job in the US, but quit when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put out a call for experienced foreign fighters at the beginning of the war. He arrived in western Ukraine, was driven to Kyiv, and was on the frontlines of the battle for the capital within a matter of hours.
    He joined Ukraine's International Legion, launched by the government in the first days of the war. The government pays him and his colleagues a modest salary of between $2,000 and $3,000 a month, though Kevin says they have spent far more than that buying equipment. The International Legion even got its own website, instructing would-be foreign recruits on everything from how to contact the Ukrainian embassy to what to pack.
    In those first weeks, the government struggled to weed out the pretenders and war tourists who were out of their depth. By March 6, they had received more than 20,000 applications, according to the foreign minister.
     
    • Informative Informative x 2
  4. PITBOSS

    PITBOSS GC Hall of Fame

    7,739
    812
    558
    Apr 13, 2007
    very insightful article
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  5. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

    31,536
    12,054
    3,693
    Aug 26, 2008
    • Like Like x 2
  6. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

    31,536
    12,054
    3,693
    Aug 26, 2008
    Interesting read. thanks for posting it

    pieces from the article that stuck out to me

    He and the other foreigners on his team were “shocked,” he says. “But the Ukrainian military was … calm, cool, collected. As they say, like, ‘This is normal, don’t worry about it.’”
    He is in awe of the Ukrainian soldiers’ efforts.“They are masters of terrain denial,” he says. “They know every inch of the area. They know the little alleyway that we can wait. They know how to get there. They know this is where we can hide. They know which building to go to. And they’ll tell you before we get there, hey, five houses over has a real nice basement. That’s where we should go.”
    ...................
    “It really comes down to good versus evil,” he says. “You’ll hear the Ukrainians call the Russians ‘Orcs.’ It’s because to them, it’s a symbol of good versus evil, like in Lord of the Rings – the light versus the dark,” he said.

    “The Russians, they know exactly what they’re doing. They have education. They have social media, news,” he says. “I never figured out why they were killing women and children. And it wasn’t by accident. It was murder. We found many people just at the end of the street who were bound together, shot, thrown on the side of the road, ran over by tanks. Just barbaric. For what reason?”
    ................
    Kevin says he feels like he’s aged five years in the past three months. He doesn’t know how to explain what he’s experiencing here to his friends back home. He doesn’t know if he wants to. But he knows that Ukraine “is where I should be,” and plans to stay in the country for the foreseeable future. “We’ve seen this play out time and time again in history. People ask me all the time, ‘Oh, this isn’t your fight.’ Or, ‘What are you doing over there?’ Yeah, but it wasn’t our fight many times in history. And then it was. It’s not your problem until it’s your problem.”
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Fistbump/Thanks! Fistbump/Thanks! x 1
  7. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

    3,051
    939
    1,858
    Nov 24, 2021
    Buffalo NY
  8. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

    3,051
    939
    1,858
    Nov 24, 2021
    Buffalo NY
    Go Denmark!

     
    • Like Like x 4
  9. oragator1

    oragator1 Premium Member

    22,984
    5,632
    3,488
    Apr 3, 2007
    mid you ever saw the first jack teacher movie, he summed it up well. Said there were 4 reasons people joined the military.
    Patriotism.
    Family history of doing so
    Need a career
    But the fourth group are the people who want to kill someone or somebody. Every army has them, just a question of whether they are policed enough while serving.

    then add to that how armies purposely dehumanize the enemy in order to make it easier to kill, some hit heads that want to avenge their dead comrades, peer pressure once it starts etc…and you get massacres like that.
     
    • Winner Winner x 1
    • Informative Informative x 1
  10. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

    31,536
    12,054
    3,693
    Aug 26, 2008
    More importantly is it will deny Russia offshore missile launching platforms. Russian subs could disable ships without sinking them and enforce a defacto blockade but subs cant offer missile platforms
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. uftaipan

    uftaipan GC Hall of Fame

    8,930
    2,103
    1,483
    May 31, 2007
    Fresno, CA
    Why can’t they? Ours can. They can do that very well indeed for decades now.
     
    • Winner Winner x 1
  12. gatorfan5220

    gatorfan5220 VIP Member

    7,642
    250
    353
    Apr 3, 2007
    Any updates on the battlefront?

    Is Ukraine pushing Russian back or is there a lot of smallish back and forth going on?

    Hard to get news.
     
  13. chemgator

    chemgator GC Hall of Fame

    13,558
    1,905
    1,318
    Apr 3, 2007
    Putin's men are apparently starting to talk about his successor.

    Putin’s Own Men Are Already Discussing Who Will Replace Him

     
    • Optimistic Optimistic x 2
  14. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

    31,536
    12,054
    3,693
    Aug 26, 2008
    Smaller, multiple tube, precision guided missiles were being launched from ships. Are you saying the subs can deploy the same missile launching systems the ship does?
     
  15. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

    31,536
    12,054
    3,693
    Aug 26, 2008
    Last edited: May 25, 2022
    • Like Like x 2
  16. oragator1

    oragator1 Premium Member

    22,984
    5,632
    3,488
    Apr 3, 2007
  17. studegator

    studegator GC Legend

    747
    239
    1,918
    Feb 24, 2008
    • Agree Agree x 1
  18. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

    3,051
    939
    1,858
    Nov 24, 2021
    Buffalo NY
    Cnn live

    "Kramatorsk mayor urges residents not to return following Russian strikes
    From CNN's Maria Kostenko

    Oleksandr Honcharenko, the mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, urged residents Wednesday not to return following a Russian airstrike overnight.

    "An anxious night in Kramatorsk," he wrote in a statement on Facebook. "An air strike on residential areas and the private sector. No casualties. Friends, I understand how hard it is for you outside your hometown. But the enemy is getting closer. The danger is not somewhere out there, but here - nearby! It's too early to go back, no matter how hard it is for you."

    Kramatorsk saw a deadly missile strike on a railway station in early April, killing at least 50 civilians, including five children, who were evacuating the fighting in the country's east."
     
  19. gogator7444

    gogator7444 GC Hall of Fame

    3,051
    939
    1,858
    Nov 24, 2021
    Buffalo NY
    Cnn live

    "Zelensky says he can only talk with Putin once the Russian President steps out of his "bubble" of "alternative reality"

    From CNN’s Sophie Jeong in Hong Kong

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he can only talk with Vladimir Putin once the Russian President returns to the "real world."

    “Once the President is prepared to leave his bubble of this alternative reality into the real world and talk to us, understand that a lot of people are being killed, including civilians, perhaps then, will he understand that we should start talking and should put the end to this war that he launched, his country is waging against us,” Zelensky said via videoconference at a breakfast event moderated by Fareed Zakaria in Davos.
    This is not the first time world leaders have accused Putin of being out of touch with reality when it comes to his motives for the war in Ukraine.
    .....

    Speaking to Zakaria on Wednesday, Zelensky said he could only talk with Putin directly, "with no intermediaries, no brokers.”

    The Ukrainian President also said Russia should withdraw its troops and equipment as the first step in negotiations between the two countries and that Ukraine will fight until "it regains all its territory back.""