Russische vlag op het parlement van de Krim

[Walvader]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door djimi

Het is in de eerste plaats MIJN oorlog niet, hé, dus als daar door eender wie een nederlaag dient te worden geleden, ga ik daar waarschijnlijk niet slechter van slapen.

Alhoewel:

het zou mij géén plezier doen mochten mijn Oekraïense vriendinnen van "Chillera" - en die hun vrienden en vriendinnen - onder een nederlaag van eender wie nog méér mee moeten lijden dan onder die vervloekte Russische aanvallen op 'hun' Odesa.

Hoe méér raketlancering-installaties, schepen, tanks, vliegtuigen, ... van de Russen kapot gaan, hoe beter, dus.

Zelfs als de Amerikanen dat ineens om de één of andere onverklaarbare reden niet meer zouden willen.

Na ruim 2000 jaar overdosis 'humiliation' onder het Romeinse Rijk, het Christendom en allerlei andere 'visionaire' wereldverbeterij wordt het voor 'het Westen' misschien wel tijd voor 'eens iets helemaal anders'.

Dat is het punt en verschil tussen zo velen hier en tomm: Het is onze oorlog niet. Daardoor zijn wij veel neutraler en objectiever.

[Walvader]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Ik denk niet dat het Oekraiens regime het nog 5 jaar volhoudt. Ze vinden nu al bijna geen volk meer om de meat grinder te voeden..
Ook merk je aan opiniepeilingen dat velen in het Westen het nu al beu zijn om te moeten opdraaien voor een hopeloze zaak. Een meerderheid in de VS wil dat de hulp aan het regime stopt. Dat zal zeker niet in het voordeel van Biden spelen en zal door Trump gebruikt worden. Daarom verwachten veel waarnemers dat Biden er een einde aan zal breien nog voor de presidentsverkiezingen.

Bronnen?

[Walvader]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

De westerse pers loopt aan de leiband van de elite, die wil dat de good news show doorgaat zodat mensen niet door krijgen dat hun belastingsgeld wegvloeit naar een hopeloze zaak.
Maar nu en dan, vooral in de zogenaamde "kwaliteitspers" dringt de realiteit door.

En de/jouw russische pers?

[patrickve]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Ik denk niet dat het Oekraiens regime het nog 5 jaar volhoudt. Ze vinden nu al bijna geen volk meer om de meat grinder te voeden..

Het zou mooi zijn mochten alle Oekrainers eraan zijn binnen nu en 5 jaar, maar ik vrees dat dat een beetje optimistisch is aan de huidige vleesmolen kadans.

[Erw]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door patrickve

Het zou mooi zijn mochten alle Oekrainers eraan zijn binnen nu en 5 jaar, maar ik vrees dat dat een beetje optimistisch is aan de huidige vleesmolen kadans.

Hoezo? Het is toch veel beter dat die terug mama en papa gaan helpen zaaien en oogsten en verkopen aan ons aan een goe prijske?

[tomm]

KHARKIV OBLAST – Fighting throughout Ukraine is grueling, even for hardened veterans. For inexperienced troops recently plucked from civilian life, it's something else altogether.

Ihor, a former lawyer, recalls that day at the start of August when the Russians attacked the cratered ruins of Novoselivka in Kharkiv Oblast, which his 1st company was defending.

The attack was well-prepared. The Russian troops scouted out the position with their seemingly limitless drones. When they struck, their mortars zeroed in on what cover remained. A shell dropped into the living room of the house Ihor and a fellow soldier were occupying. They survived because they happened to be in the hall.

Enemy artillery established fire control over the only roads leading to the village, cutting off medevac and reinforcements.

As counteroffensive presses forward in southeast, ‘every meter costs a life’
This left Ihor's unit, with their three weeks of NATO basic training and two months' deployment in Kharkiv Oblast, one-on-one with professional Russian troops with superior firepower.

The casualties were only recovered by nightfall. An undisclosed number didn't make it, including some of Ihor's friends from the unit.

"I lost brothers in arms there," he said. "I haven't been back since, and I don't want to go back. What I went through there is just chaos."

Ihor's company is part of the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, one of the new brigades that Ukraine began staffing at the start of the year. It's also one of the few brigades that are set to hold the northeastern front, while the majority of troops and equipment is stationed on the southern front where Ukraine's slowly pushing forward.

While it’s doing its duty defending Russia’s push in Kharkiv Oblast, lack of experience and the limits of training and equipment made for a harrowing first two months in the field.


Infantryman Ihor (R) and his comrade recall their difficult days in eastern Kharkiv Oblast on Aug. 17 2023. (Oleksandr Bordian / Courtesy)
New brigades
Before January, the 32nd didn't exist, and the vast majority of its soldiers were civilians who had never shot anyone. Many did not want to be in the army.

This brigade is deployed to Kharkiv Oblast, over an hour east of Kupiansk — where Russian forces have conducted a big push over the past month and a half. Russian forces were alleged to have up to 100,000 troops that way.

Soldiers from different brigades told the Kyiv Independent that the Russians in this area are experienced and well-equipped soldiers, extensively stocked with artillery shells and MLRS rockets.

Soldiers from the 32nd are open about how in over their heads they often feel. The infantrymen talk about being outmatched by the competent and seemingly fearless Russian troops they saw on this axis of attack.

"Everything is not like what you read in daily briefings and on the news," said Volodymyr, an infantry sergeant with the brigade, who was in the thick of the fighting.

Pro-Russian sympathies make life harder for soldiers, cops in Kupiansk district
Like most units, the 32nd is starved for vehicles and artillery ammo. Most of the good equipment is deployed to the counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia front.

It also lacks battlefield experience, from low ranks to commanding officers. Nor do they have many options to draw on somebody else's. The year 2022 ground down Ukraine's supply of experienced warfighters to the point where there can be said to be a shortage.

"The brigades where the commanders and sergeants are new are getting experience through ongoing field operations," Sergiy Zgurets, the head of the military analytics center Defense Express, said.

Reached by email, the press services of the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces said they wouldn't be able to respond to questions on this topic.

Limits of NATO training
All the infantrymen of the 32nd brigade had been to Germany to train to NATO standards for three weeks.

This was an obvious solution. Some of the soldiers here had been excited to go, thinking the training would help them become effective.

In many ways, it had been.

The infantry praised the physical training. Press officer Andriy Smiyan and his aide Oleksandr highlighted the life-saving power of tactical medicine training, widely practiced in the West but virtually unknown in Soviet-style armies.

The training also comes with a full set of gear for each soldier.


Soldiers with the 32nd Mechanized Brigade cross a field in May. (Oleksandr Bordian / Courtesy)
However, the same soldiers who spoke to the Kyiv Independent didn't hide their scorn about how the training prepared them for a war that doesn't exist in Ukraine. They said the NATO officers don't understand the reality on the ground.

"A NATO infantryman knows he's supported and can advance with the confidence that there's a high likelihood that he won't be killed or maimed," Ihor said.

The NATO way of war calls for massive preparatory airstrikes and artillery barrages and demining before the infantry is sent in, he added.

It usually doesn't work that way in Ukraine.

Between the country's tiny, old air force, ancient T-64s, and a continuing shortage of artillery shells and infantry vehicles, it often falls to infantry to hold the line against Russian probing attacks and occasional assaults, supported by overwhelming artillery and huge numbers of drones.

Troops said they sometimes struggle to apply NATO small unit tactics because there often isn't enough cover to do so.

Zgurets said that the instructors in Germany put a lot of emphasis on teaching urban combat. But the skills of how to smoke an enemy out from a trench, how to build an assault group, and coordinate it with artillery and drone support were lacking.

The style of battle in the Ukrainian countryside, blending World War I trench combat and 21st-century tech and tactics, are only seen in Ukraine — they are outside NATO's wheelhouse.

Furthermore, the translators that are used often lack a military background and fail to convey accurate commands or responses between instructors and trainees, Zgurets added.

He said that it would be helpful for some of these instructors to visit Ukraine.

"European countries can correct their training," Zgurets said. "There has been a mutual understanding of experiences and concerns, and this is the moment when they can be cleared away."

Retired U.S. Major General Gordon Davis told the Kyiv Independent that training by NATO allies has been "indispensable. While specific tactics and procedures promoted by allied trainers may not have achieved the results that Ukrainian leadership and forces expected, the reason for this shortfall is certainly multi-dimensional."

He added that the training abroad is still better than Ukraine can offer and while realism could be improved, it'd take a huge investment for training programs to be able to replicate Russian tactics.

"Therefore, it is all the more important for Ukraine to invest in the quality of Western provided or supported training by contributing the missing pieces of current combat intelligence and lessons learned from personal Ukrainian sacrifice and success."


Soldiers with the 32nd Mechanized Brigade on the move in May, two months before being going to the frontline. (Oleksandr Bordian / Courtesy)
Struggle to survive
At the infantry positions, Sergeant Volodymyr met the Kyiv Independent wearing the bitterly ironic smile of a man forced to endure too much too quickly.

"None of the guys will want to talk to you," he said. "They don't want to think about it."

Volodymyr himself refused to speak, but once Ihor began explaining the situation, he eventually joined the conversation in fragments, adding this or that observation. By the end, Volodymyr can barely contain his bleak descriptions of the vagaries of combat.

"A heroic feat — to jump out from that basement and shoot aimlessly in their general direction, then end up without an arm or a leg, or just dead?" Volodymyr said. "What's the point?"

To get to the positions, soldiers have to walk on foot for five kilometers in the dead of night, with no sources of light, while carrying all of their incredibly heavy gear.

The positions themselves were ruins, with few places to hide. It's dangerous to stick a limb out from what cover remained, let alone go to the bathroom. Because the Russians in this area are relatively sharp, with professional troops and special forces in addition to conscripts from prisons or the general population. They’re well-screened and show little signs of fear.

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"They have night vision drones, Orlans, and other tech; they see everything," Volodymyr said. Many of these drones are equipped with droppable munitions, having learned from the Ukrainians using this technique in 2022.

The feeling of constantly being watched and targeted is hugely demoralizing for the Ukrainian troops.

"It locks you up, you want to take certain actions, but you can't because the eye of Sauron is always watching," Ihor said, referencing the villain and master of the orcish horde from the Lord of the Rings.

The 32nd's tank operators seem a bit less edgy. There's a friendly modesty in how they talk about learning to work in teams, or how one of them got the nickname Sniper when he hit all three targets with his T-64 in a training exercise.

But they have their own nasty surprises to worry about. A tank platoon commander named Vladyslav recalls how the first time a Ukrainian tried to use a tank radio, the Russians immediately zeroed in on it and buried it in artillery. Since then, they learned never to use communications devices more powerful than a hand-held. Enemy troops are too-well positioned to punish any slip-ups.

"They (Russians) are sitting on some of the most advantageous positions in the region," said a tank commander with the callsign Yenot.


Ukrainian soldiers with the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade gather next to an anti-aircraft autocannon in May. (Oleksandr Bordian / Courtesy)
Many factors to blame
The struggles are straightforward. The question of where limitations end and blame begins is more slippery.

Infantrymen criticized their training as unrealistic for a scenario when you’re out of everything but the enemy. But most acknowledged that it was helpful in some ways.

Soldiers also laid blame on their command for specific decisions, for example, taking up a position in a narrow basement that was impossible to escape quickly if the conditions turned life-threatening. Ihor lost some people he knew that way.

The Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces refused to respond to questions.

But it's not always that simple. Press officer Smiyan pointed out that the brigade’s commanding officers have to make the best decisions they can with the information they have and live with what happens. Without a core of experienced veterans, the command staff in these brigades is learning on the job just like everyone else, Zgurets said.

Russia's massive artillery advantage throughout the country and its predominance of drones and electronic warfare on this part of the front, don't help either.

These explanations make sense but they do nothing to cheer up the men going into battle.

"The infantry takes the entire brunt on itself,” Ihor said.


https://kyivindependent.com/new-brig...harkiv-oblast/

De Oekraiense troepen zelf zien de Russen niet als klunzen maar als levensgevaarlijke tegenstanders die beter getraind zijn en beter materiaal hebben dan henzelf.

[tomm]

Editor’s note: Some soldiers, local police officers and residents of Kupiansk district, Kharkiv Oblast, are not identified by name due to security concerns. All of the reporting and interviewing for this story was completed before the order was announced on Aug. 10 to evacuate 12,000 district residents from threatened areas.

KUPIANSK, Kharkiv Oblast – How do you defend a town where some civilians are out to get you?

Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk district are wrestling with this question regularly.

Fighting in the area has escalated in recent weeks, according to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar and interviews with soldiers there. Russian forces are attacking towards Lyman and Kupiansk to relieve the Ukrainians’ pressure on Bakhmut.

As shelling intensifies, 12,000 people were ordered to evacuate the areas closest to the fighting, including part of Kupiansk itself. The area receives at least eight incoming blasts per day, local police said. Combat is happening less than 10 kilometers away from the city.

Besides the Russian military, there’s another thing that Ukrainian troops and police are being forced to contend with. According to interviews with dozens of soldiers, police officers, and civilians around Kupiansk, many of the local residents that remain are pro-Russian. Some of them are former or active collaborators of enemy troops.

"Subjectively speaking, there are many separatists here," said Yevhen Didkovskyi, a community relations officer with the 138th Battalion deployed in the area. "People who hate us on principle."



This can be deadly for the troops and the civilians who help them. Multiple soldiers told the Kyiv Independent that their living quarters were targeted in ways that suggest that someone fed coordinates to the enemy. A few soldiers quipped that people in the local marketplace are the first to know to clear out of the way when there’s something incoming.

The war-weariness and lack of income in this depopulated area also contributes.

Even when there is no active collaboration, enough locals are leery of troops for it to be an issue. Soldiers complained about being obstructed in their duties, refused aid, or charged jacked-up prices.

When asked how this all affects morale, most soldiers had something ironic to say.

“The morale fell long ago, we just got used to it,” said one of a group of soldiers in Kivsharivka, a town about 15 kilometers southwest from Kupiansk.


Kupiansk, the administrative center of the Kupiansk district, had a population of about 28,000 before the 2022 invasion, now down to just 11,000. It’s hard to say what percentage is pro-Russian. People who spoke to the Kyiv Independent had very different estimates.

Kupiansk's former mayor, Hennadiy Matsehora, infamously welcomed the Russians into his town, joining their occupation authority and aiding them with housing, transportation, and other needs, until Kupiansk was liberated in September 2022.

Didkovskyi reckons that about 50% of the current local population remains pro-Russian. The same rough numbers were cited by a group of civilians talking about their town of Kivsharivka, while cleaning up the aftermath of Russian shelling of a residential building.

Nevertheless, a Ukrainian police officer who escaped from occupied Kupiansk after being arrested and tortured by the Russians, said that close to 85% of the original pre-occupation police force turned and started working for the occupiers. These people fled to Russia when Kupiansk was liberated, according to multiple police officers.

Didkovskyi said he also runs into sullen obstructionism from community leaders. “I come to a village, go into the head’s office and go: ‘Look, I got 30 cold, wet, angry men with guns, can you just find me three empty houses for them to stay?’ He stands there for two hours like: I don’t know. What? I don’t know.”

As a result of the danger posed by collaborators, troops are spending less time in the towns and villages and more time in the countryside, in dugouts, according to a soldier with the callsign Uklon and his fellows.
“People older than 40, who were born in the USSR and educated under these banners live in the past, thinking the USSR will come again and give them everything for free,” Demenko said, although collaboration suspects do come in all ages.

Didkovskyi said something similar: “Somehow it’s like they’re waiting, like someone has to give them something. To decide something for them. The Daddy Tsar.”
On one street in Kivsharivka, a group of volunteers cleaning up the debris from a Russian munition agreed with this view. The blast gouged a big hole in the side of a residential building at ground level. These volunteers said that Kivsharivka is full of grannies and other closet sympathizers with Soviet nostalgia or gorged on Russian media.

However, many people were very reluctant to give their names. A group of soldiers just down the road explained that while most pro-Russian locals are staying very quiet, Ukrainian patriots here may want to keep their head down, to avoid being targeted, as well.

As of early June, the State Bureau of Investigation, which is responsible for cases involving law enforcement, judges, and high-ranking officials, opened 1,249 cases of high treason, 250 cases of collaboration, and 22 cases of aiding and abetting the aggressor state (article 111-2).

The sentences for collaboration range from being banned from holding public office for a number of years to spending up to 15 years behind bars, in addition to possible confiscation of property.

Police in Kupiansk said that arrests on collaboration are being made regularly. A local Telegram channel account called Marazm posts news about criminal charges and convictions related to pro-Russian activities every few days.

Police investigator Subotin said that as of last week, there were warrants out for 30 people. Known collaborators’ apartments had already been searched multiple times.

“We recently caught a guy in Kharkiv who had joined the police for the occupiers,” Subotin said. The man had slipped away from Kupiansk and eventually ended up in Kharkiv, where he tried to continue drawing pension from the Ukrainian government as if nothing happened.

However, many collaborators who worked with the occupiers in Kupiansk district ran away shortly before liberation, police said. Right now, Ukraine is charging them in absentia. About 90% of the escapees are in Russia but some have also escaped to Europe, police said.

"Now the question of an international wanted list, announced through Interpol, is being decided," Subotin said. "So that if they're hiding in Europe, we can extradite them home.


https://kyivindependent.com/pro-russ...ansk-district/

Dit is wat ik hier al heel lang zeg, nu hoor je het eens uit totaal onverdachte bron.

Het westen besteed talloze miljarden om mensen te "bevrijden "die helemaal niet "bevrijd" willen worden.
Het Westen besteed vele miljarden om met andere woorden mensen te laten onderdrukken en om hun stem te laten verstommen. NAVO staat aan de kant van de onderdrukkers.

Kupiansk werd etnisch gezuiverd door het regime omdat inwoners er informatie doorspelen aan de Russen.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Walvader

Bronnen?

Ik heb die bronnen al gegeven op deze draad, moest je alles gelezen hebben zou je dat weten.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Walvader

En de/jouw russische pers?

De Russische pers loopt ook grotendeels aan de leiband van de Russische elite, net als de westerse mainstream pers aan de leiband loop van de westerse elite.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Karel Martel B

Bon ja, maar aangezien de Russen toch niet de res jaarerves hebben voor een invasie van Odessa, wat is het strategisch belang van deze "overwinning"?

Helemaal niets. Ze slagen er niet in op het front een verschil te maken dus vuren ze maar wat in het wilde weg raketten af, als teken van frustratie.

Ze krijgen het toch gratis van het Westen, en op het slagveld zijn ze er niet veel mee, dus beter de Russen er wat mee pesten door zaken te bombarderen die op het slagveld geen enkel verschil uitmaken.

Maar de Russen kunnen dat ook, als ze dat willen, zal het weer een erg koude winter worden in Kiev. Ze kunnen zelfs het Sovjet-monument, moeder Oekraïne, dat het regime geadopteerd heeft als nationaal symbool, en waarvan ze na 9 jaar proberen eindelijk de hamer en sikkel hebben kunnen verwijderen en vervangen door een Nazi-symbool, vernietigen als ze dat willen.
De Oekraïners houden zich al wat meer in, ze bombarderen bvb. geen warme centrales meer in de regio Belgorod. Ze hebben geleerd dat de Russen dan systematisch alle warmte centrales in heel Oekraïne bombarderen, er zit wel degelijk een logica in de oorlogsvoering. Oorlogsschepen zijn legitieme doelwitten, dus daar hebben de Russen minder probleem mee. Het schip zal hersteld worden, en het Oekraïense leger zal de volle laag krijgen.

Het Westen wil de sancties tegen Russisch graan niet opheffen? Wil zeggen dat die hongerige Afrikaantjes hen gestolen kunnen worden. De Russen hebben daar 2 antwoorden op:
1) de landen waar hongersnood heerst gratis Russisch graan aanbieden.
2) De Oekraïense graaninfrastructuur volledig met de grond gelijk maken. Waar heel wat Oost-Europese landen hen dankbaar voor zijn, want deze hebben een embargo tegen Oekraïens graan opgezet. (als iemand referenties wil, zal ik deze geven)

[tomm]

Ik wens ook eerlijk met mezelf te blijven en niet te vervallen in propaganda.
De eerlijkheid gebiedt mij te zeggen dat niet het hele Oekraïense regime Nazi is. De Nazi's zijn sterk vertegenwoordigd bij de politie, het leger, en Binnenlandse Zaken, nuttige idioten die goed kunnen vechten, maar de echte machthebbers in Kiev blijven de oligarchen, waarvan er een groot aantal Joods of moslim is. (net als in Rusland) En natuurlijk de VS, die het regime 100% onder controle hebben.
Ik geef toe dat de Russen dat Nazi-aspect wat overdreven hebben omdat dit natuurlijk past binnen het narratief. Desalniettemin, Nazi's die controle hebben over het leger, de politie en Binnenlandse Zaken is toch wel geen gezonde situatie.

[Jay-P.]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Ik wens ook eerlijk met mezelf te blijven en niet te vervallen in propaganda.
De eerlijkheid gebiedt mij te zeggen dat niet het hele Oekraïense regime Nazi is. De Nazi's zijn sterk vertegenwoordigd bij de politie, het leger, en Binnenlandse Zaken, nuttige idioten die goed kunnen vechten, maar de echte machthebbers in Kiev blijven de oligarchen, waarvan er een groot aantal Joods of moslim is. (net als in Rusland) En natuurlijk de VS, die het regime 100% onder controle hebben.
Ik geef toe dat de Russen dat Nazi-aspect wat overdreven hebben omdat dit natuurlijk past binnen het narratief. Desalniettemin, Nazi's die controle hebben over het leger, de politie en Binnenlandse Zaken is toch wel geen gezonde situatie.

Als ge dan toch eerlijk wil zijn (HA!) kunt ge toegeven dat niemand stelde dat niet ALLE Russen ongedierte zijn?
DAT zou een eerste stap zijn.

Het Russisch ongedierte zijn -volgens mij- alleen diegenen die gij hier dagelijks zit te verheerlijken.
Volgens jouw schrijfsels dus een 75% plus meerderheid. Bon, WAT is het nu eigenlijk?
Geef een seintje als ge d'er uit zijt.

[Walvader]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Editor’s note: Some soldiers, local police officers and residents of Kupiansk district, Kharkiv Oblast, are not identified by name due to security concerns. All of the reporting and interviewing for this story was completed before the order was announced on Aug. 10 to evacuate 12,000 district residents from threatened areas.

KUPIANSK, Kharkiv Oblast – How do you defend a town where some civilians are out to get you?

Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk district are wrestling with this question regularly.

Fighting in the area has escalated in recent weeks, according to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar and interviews with soldiers there. Russian forces are attacking towards Lyman and Kupiansk to relieve the Ukrainians’ pressure on Bakhmut.

As shelling intensifies, 12,000 people were ordered to evacuate the areas closest to the fighting, including part of Kupiansk itself. The area receives at least eight incoming blasts per day, local police said. Combat is happening less than 10 kilometers away from the city.

Besides the Russian military, there’s another thing that Ukrainian troops and police are being forced to contend with. According to interviews with dozens of soldiers, police officers, and civilians around Kupiansk, many of the local residents that remain are pro-Russian. Some of them are former or active collaborators of enemy troops.

"Subjectively speaking, there are many separatists here," said Yevhen Didkovskyi, a community relations officer with the 138th Battalion deployed in the area. "People who hate us on principle."



This can be deadly for the troops and the civilians who help them. Multiple soldiers told the Kyiv Independent that their living quarters were targeted in ways that suggest that someone fed coordinates to the enemy. A few soldiers quipped that people in the local marketplace are the first to know to clear out of the way when there’s something incoming.

The war-weariness and lack of income in this depopulated area also contributes.

Even when there is no active collaboration, enough locals are leery of troops for it to be an issue. Soldiers complained about being obstructed in their duties, refused aid, or charged jacked-up prices.

When asked how this all affects morale, most soldiers had something ironic to say.

“The morale fell long ago, we just got used to it,” said one of a group of soldiers in Kivsharivka, a town about 15 kilometers southwest from Kupiansk.


Kupiansk, the administrative center of the Kupiansk district, had a population of about 28,000 before the 2022 invasion, now down to just 11,000. It’s hard to say what percentage is pro-Russian. People who spoke to the Kyiv Independent had very different estimates.

Kupiansk's former mayor, Hennadiy Matsehora, infamously welcomed the Russians into his town, joining their occupation authority and aiding them with housing, transportation, and other needs, until Kupiansk was liberated in September 2022.

Didkovskyi reckons that about 50% of the current local population remains pro-Russian. The same rough numbers were cited by a group of civilians talking about their town of Kivsharivka, while cleaning up the aftermath of Russian shelling of a residential building.

Nevertheless, a Ukrainian police officer who escaped from occupied Kupiansk after being arrested and tortured by the Russians, said that close to 85% of the original pre-occupation police force turned and started working for the occupiers. These people fled to Russia when Kupiansk was liberated, according to multiple police officers.

Didkovskyi said he also runs into sullen obstructionism from community leaders. “I come to a village, go into the head’s office and go: ‘Look, I got 30 cold, wet, angry men with guns, can you just find me three empty houses for them to stay?’ He stands there for two hours like: I don’t know. What? I don’t know.”

As a result of the danger posed by collaborators, troops are spending less time in the towns and villages and more time in the countryside, in dugouts, according to a soldier with the callsign Uklon and his fellows.
“People older than 40, who were born in the USSR and educated under these banners live in the past, thinking the USSR will come again and give them everything for free,” Demenko said, although collaboration suspects do come in all ages.

Didkovskyi said something similar: “Somehow it’s like they’re waiting, like someone has to give them something. To decide something for them. The Daddy Tsar.”
On one street in Kivsharivka, a group of volunteers cleaning up the debris from a Russian munition agreed with this view. The blast gouged a big hole in the side of a residential building at ground level. These volunteers said that Kivsharivka is full of grannies and other closet sympathizers with Soviet nostalgia or gorged on Russian media.

However, many people were very reluctant to give their names. A group of soldiers just down the road explained that while most pro-Russian locals are staying very quiet, Ukrainian patriots here may want to keep their head down, to avoid being targeted, as well.

As of early June, the State Bureau of Investigation, which is responsible for cases involving law enforcement, judges, and high-ranking officials, opened 1,249 cases of high treason, 250 cases of collaboration, and 22 cases of aiding and abetting the aggressor state (article 111-2).

The sentences for collaboration range from being banned from holding public office for a number of years to spending up to 15 years behind bars, in addition to possible confiscation of property.

Police in Kupiansk said that arrests on collaboration are being made regularly. A local Telegram channel account called Marazm posts news about criminal charges and convictions related to pro-Russian activities every few days.

Police investigator Subotin said that as of last week, there were warrants out for 30 people. Known collaborators’ apartments had already been searched multiple times.

“We recently caught a guy in Kharkiv who had joined the police for the occupiers,” Subotin said. The man had slipped away from Kupiansk and eventually ended up in Kharkiv, where he tried to continue drawing pension from the Ukrainian government as if nothing happened.

However, many collaborators who worked with the occupiers in Kupiansk district ran away shortly before liberation, police said. Right now, Ukraine is charging them in absentia. About 90% of the escapees are in Russia but some have also escaped to Europe, police said.

"Now the question of an international wanted list, announced through Interpol, is being decided," Subotin said. "So that if they're hiding in Europe, we can extradite them home.


https://kyivindependent.com/pro-russ...ansk-district/

Dit is wat ik hier al heel lang zeg, nu hoor je het eens uit totaal onverdachte bron.

Het westen besteed talloze miljarden om mensen te "bevrijden "die helemaal niet "bevrijd" willen worden.
Het Westen besteed vele miljarden om met andere woorden mensen te laten onderdrukken en om hun stem te laten verstommen. NAVO staat aan de kant van de onderdrukkers.

Kupiansk werd etnisch gezuiverd door het regime omdat inwoners er informatie doorspelen aan de Russen.

"“People older than 40, who were born in the USSR and educated under these banners live in the past, thinking the USSR will come again and give them everything for free,” Demenko said, although collaboration suspects do come in all ages.

Didkovskyi said something similar: “Somehow it’s like they’re waiting, like someone has to give them something. To decide something for them. The Daddy Tsar.”

LOSERS DUS.

[Walvader]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

Ik heb die bronnen al gegeven op deze draad, moest je alles gelezen hebben zou je dat weten.

RECENTE BRONNEN. Je riedeltje stamt misschien uit het verleden.

[Pandareus]

Een mooie opsomming van de grote opkuis van de russische Black Sea fleet tot zover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC_YGTqARg

[djimi]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door tomm

...

lack of income in this depopulated area

...

https://kyivindependent.com/pro-russ...ansk-district/

Allez gij, ...


Poetin besteedt talloze miljarden om 'khokhols' te "bevrijden" ("gedenazificeerd & gedemilitariseerd" in Newspeak) die helemaal niet "bevrijd" ("gedenazificeerd & "gedemilitariseerd") wilden & willen worden.

Poetin besteedt vele miljarden om met andere woorden 'khokhols' te laten onderdrukken en kapot te bombarderen, en op die manier hun stem te laten verstommen.


Ik sta NIET aan zijn kant, eerder integendeel.

Vladimir Solovyov wél, dat moge duidelijk wezen.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Jay-P.

Als ge dan toch eerlijk wil zijn (HA!) kunt ge toegeven dat niemand stelde dat niet ALLE Russen ongedierte zijn?
DAT zou een eerste stap zijn.

Het Russisch ongedierte zijn -volgens mij- alleen diegenen die gij hier dagelijks zit te verheerlijken.
Volgens jouw schrijfsels dus een 75% plus meerderheid. Bon, WAT is het nu eigenlijk?
Geef een seintje als ge d'er uit zijt.

Ik vergelijk liever geen mensen met ongedierte, ongeacht hun politieke voorkeur of origine.
Voor het gespuis in Wallstreet en dergelijke zou ik misschien wel een uitzondering op die regel kunnen toestaan.
Wat de Russen betreft ik begrijp volledig dat de grote meerderheid Poetin steunt en moest je iets van de ex-SU kennen zou je dat ook begrijpen..

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Walvader

"“People older than 40, who were born in the USSR and educated under these banners live in the past, thinking the USSR will come again and give them everything for free,” Demenko said, although collaboration suspects do come in all ages.

Didkovskyi said something similar: “Somehow it’s like they’re waiting, like someone has to give them something. To decide something for them. The Daddy Tsar.”

LOSERS DUS.

En waar wacht de gemiddelde hier op? Op leugens zoals "freedom and democracy"?
Iedereen gelooft in iets en iedereen is ergens een looser, U en ik inbegrepen.
De mensen hadden een beter leven in de SU en ze denken dat Poetin dat meer benadert dan het maffieus regime in Kiev, dat hen nog nooit iets geboden heeft.
Losers of geen losers, als u democraat bent zou u moeten toegeven dat hun mening zou moeten tellen.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door Pandareus

Een mooie opsomming van de grote opkuis van de russische Black Sea fleet tot zover. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqC_YGTqARg

Ze hebben de meeste van die schepen niet eens vernietigd maar beschadigd. Zal nul comma nul verschil maken op het slagveld.

[tomm]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door djimi

Allez gij, ...


Poetin besteedt talloze miljarden om 'khokhols' te "bevrijden" ("gedenazificeerd & gedemilitariseerd" in Newspeak) die helemaal niet "bevrijd" ("gedenazificeerd & "gedemilitariseerd") wilden & willen worden.

Poetin besteedt vele miljarden om met andere woorden 'khokhols' te laten onderdrukken en kapot te bombarderen, en op die manier hun stem te laten verstommen.


Ik sta NIET aan zijn kant, eerder integendeel.

Vladimir Solovyov wél, dat moge duidelijk wezen.

Het artikel toont net aan dat heel veel Oekrainers net wel bevrijd willen worden door "Poetin", informatie doorgeven aan de Russen, en alles doen om de Kiev troepen te dwarsbomen. U hebt het zelfs niet gelezen.