Ukrainian Soldier’s Cry for Help: We’ve Been Retreating for Four Days
Translated from Russian by Gleb Bazov
Video: A Call from the ATO Zone – We’ve Been Retreating for Four Days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZxCQkhWOhE&feature=youtu.be
Ukrainian Soldier: I am currently the area of Sverdlovsk, Krasno-Partisansk and Izvarino. There are only 400 of us left out of almost 800.
Reporter: Describe the situation. What is happening now? Please tell us.
Ukrainian Soldier: What is happening now? Since 02:00 am we are being pummeled with Grads. Right now, there was mortar shelling that lasted about two hours. We don’t have anything to respond with. All we have are the two wretched SAUs [Note: Self-Propelled Artillery System]. We are sitting here and taking it. We are sustaining losses. There are dead and wounded. Yesterday there were dead; today there are dead. Yesterday there were wounded; today there are wounded.
There are no reinforcements. There is no food. They got us only 800 … 400 litres of water for four hundred men. It’s just a litre a day per person, or what? And that’s how it is here. And you write that everything is fine and we are attacking Sverdlovsk. We are not fucking attacking – we are retreating for the forth day in a row!
There is no order to withdraw. There are killing us like cannon fodder. They know where we are, but we have no idea who it is that we are fighting against! We can’t see them! They are hitting us and picking us off.
And it’s coming from the “neutral” territory – from the territory between Ukraine and the border. The territory between Russian and Ukraine – those two wretched kilometers of the neutral zone.
The fields are burning around us. Very many of our vehicles have been blown up. Fuel trucks are burning. We are retreating into the forest. There is no order to withdraw. We are just sitting there.
Reporter: Who is your commander?
Ukrainian Soldier: Commander of the 72nd Brigade, he gave the order to stand ground. Colonel Grishenko. Out of one company, a full company, only 35 men are left and only one unit of military equipment. And by protocol, there must be 10 units of equipment and 90 men. Can you imagine our losses? And that’s how we fight here.
Reporter: Is there anything else you want to say?
I want to tell the command of our “great” ATO to start acting, even just a little bit. They must withdraw forces from here! I understand that it will give the militants the place and the opportunity to fortify. But they must withdraw the forces! Put everyone into one live chain – everyone close ranks and push along the entire front and move forward together, rather than deploy individual units.
Because … we are not afraid to fight, but we don’t want to become cannot fodder. We are not cannot fodder, we are human beings. And when they put checkmarks and conduct negotiations with terrorists … while we can’t even see them to shoot at them. They airdrop ammunitions that we don’t need in a hundred years. We want to move forward in one joint front to kick them out of our land.
If they are ready to go forward with this and think with their heads, let even one of them come and spend a day and a night here. Let him spend time in the trenches, being shelled with Grad. Let him try it himself to see how “cool” it is. He’ll be drinking a ton of sedatives a day.
And then they tell us they will be paying some kind of compensations. And then they write that we didn’t handle weapons carefully. When we are already in the hospital.
There are almost no helicopters that fly here. There was just one that came in, one in so many days, just to take away the “200s” and the “300s” [Note: KIA/Killed In Action and WIA/Wounded In Action]. Three “200s” – that’s three killed – and eleven wounded. It came yesterday and the day before yesterday. Before that, they did not fly – they were too afraid to fly. Do they think we are not afraid to stand here?
The NeoNazi filth that took over the Ukrainian “government” don’t even give a damn about their own. Teenagers being led into a meat grinder by amateurs and strutting peacocks.
Who is in the neutral area referred to by this guy? It is on the opposite side of the ground to the rebels. Is he insinuating that this is Russians?
If so, why would he not say so? After all at this point he obviously has very little to lose.
I have to say that the idea of people being able to call into radio shows from a battle zone seems very odd indeed. Almost as odd is that cell coverage is still up.
I can’t say I’ll ever pity Pravy Sektor but I do pity those conscripts who aren’t, at least for having been so brainwashed. Yes, they’re still responsible for killing innocent civilians and they’re also responsible for never stopping to think about or try to determine for real whether the people they are fighting are terrorists. But how many troops who signed up for our illegal and utterly obscene invasion of Iraq on trumped-up charges went to fight “terrorists” too? The Iraqis weren’t terrorists any more than the Novorossiyans; the only difference is that Iraqis were dehumanized by being called rag-heads instead of potato beetles. And it’s got to be utter hell to have a conscience, do and see all that awful stuff and then learn later it was all based on lies.
Too bad that the Ukie soldiers are focused on the wrong ‘enemy’.
If the Ukies had real courage and brains, they would rise up and kill their oligarchs and USSA owned traitors. Then they could stand as free men, instead of kneeling as slaves to foreign clipdicks.
dusty is suggesting the telephone call is propaganda… which it very well might be.
But what follows is definitely propaganda. The big names keep falling. Is there anything published in the West that is not scripted in its entirety by a controlling elite?
Revanchists
there doesn’t seem to be any understanding that the land belongs to the people who live there. It belongs to neither the US Regime nor its Junta. .. i suppose this is an example of the “we own everything” Israeli mindset that is running the US Regime and its Ukraine Junta.
The Soldier’s Revolt
Hidden Story of the Americans that Finished the Vietnam War
The most neglected aspect of the Vietnam War is the soldiers’ revolt–the mass upheaval from below that unraveled the American army. It is a great reality check in an era when the U.S. touts itself as an invincible nation. For this reason, the soldiers’ revolt has been written out of official history.
The army revolt pitted enlisted soldiers against officers who viewed them as expendable. Liberal academics have reduced the radicalism of the 1960s to middle-class concerns and activities, while ignoring military rebellion. But the militancy of the 1960s began with the Black liberation struggle, and it reached its climax with the unity of White and Black soldiers.
http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2008/12/soldiers-revolt.html
T1
mijj said…
“there doesn’t seem to be any understanding that the land belongs to the people who live there.”
That’s IT. Right there. And it applies all over. Well said.
I am sorry but I have no sympathy for the Nazi Soldier
He calls the people in Donbass region Terrorists, when they are just ordinary Ukrainian citizens.
He and his leaders call the people in the Donbass region “Sub Human”.
This soldier should stand an fight (hand to hand if necessary) but not cry like a baby looking for sympathy as someone (maybe someone who was a bricklayer, a butcher) has destroyed his big killing machine.
Sympathy – No, a big No.
This is what it’s all about
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/16/brics-countries-development-bank
This is what they try to stop. They try to lure Russia into a conflict and isolate her. Do you think they give a damn about anyone in Ukraine. I’m afraid that their puppets in Kiev will do anything in their power to provoke Russia.
@dusty, It is a common guerrilla tactic to move close to a border. Any returning fire can easy go to the wrong side of that line by mistake. Any serious commander always fears that possibility and any retaliation such a misfire can bring.
Dear Lord. When will the fratricide end? When will mankind stop being fuked-over by ZOG Oligarchs?
Am grateful that Novorussians are making real progress in this conflict imposed on them by the West. But I pity those young men who are being led to slaughter. Strelkov should systematically eradicate the Oligarchs behind this senseless war. That includes Mercs from the West. One hopes that Americans engaged in killing or “protecting” Oligarchs will have family here who wake-up and tell their loved-ones to STOP the madness. Until Americans begin to thoroughly repudiate these acts we will be rightfully vilified by good people EVERYWHERE.
I hate seeing this shit. What a fuking waste. Really.
It might be that some (not all) of the Ukrainian soldiers might be attracted with some kind of payment. Ukrainian economy is in collapse then only ones with money are the oligarchs and foreign powers sponsoring this conflict. I just think many have no choice, unemployment and perish or get some money doing things that probably you would not do otherwise. Its jus a tragedy but do the EU/US/Neocons care? Of course not.
@Nora
Many are 18-19 year old conscripts who blindly believe what is on TV. Same as in most other countries.
In a way, a tragedy of the school system for not teaching people to be skeptical of the news.
Anonymous 15:13
What really went on among the troops in Vietnam was actually pretty well-known at the time — among other things, Second Lieutenants did not generally have a very long life-span. And you are correct that the real difference came when blacks and whites took a look at the big picture and united against their real enemy.
There’s a lesson in that.
“KIEV, July 16. /ITAR-TASS/. The inhabitants of a tent camp set up on Kiev’s Independence Square dubbed as Maidan are ready to vacate the place and go to fight to Eastern Ukraine if their condition is met: the children of high-ranking Ukrainian officials must go to the war together with them, the tent camp representatives told ITAR-TASS.
“We are ready to remove the tents from the square and go to the front. But we would like Mr. Avakov (Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov) to send his son with us. And all those who are sitting at Verkhovnaya Rada (parliament) should also gather their children, and then, together, we are going to fight (in the east),” a Maidan activist said.
Arsen Avakov has recently described what is going on at Independence Square as a disgrace which is discrediting the meaning of the Maidan movement.
…..
“The concentration of strange and unknown people on the country’s main square is a project of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and marginal parties that have become a thing of the past,” Avakov said.
“We were very hurt by Avakov’s remarks, especially when he called us a FSB project,” a tent camp inhabitant, who introduced himself as Roman, told ITAR-TASS.
“It is very favourable today to blame everything on Russia while the incumbent authorities in Ukraine are inactive. The Maidan has become a hindrance to the authorities. It prevents them from hustling their nasty and murky business, which the previous regime also did. The authorities are hiring people who are staging provocations on Independence Square to get a formal pretext to disperse us,” Roman went on to say.”
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/740945
davai ukie! into the bag with you,
fritz…for you krieg ist vorbei!!
Did he ever think how those civilians in Slaviansk and elsewhere felt under daily Grad/mortar bombardment? I guess not. He complains only when he’s the target…
Dear The Saker,
An interesting call. Initially I felt some sympathy that they have been abandoned by their own Govt. and commanders and then I read this and it slowly dissipated:
“We are not cannot fodder, we are human beings. And when they put checkmarks and conduct negotiations with terrorists … while we can’t even see them to shoot at them. They airdrop ammunitions that we don’t need in a hundred years. We want to move forward in one joint front to kick them out of our land.”
He seems quite content to carry on killing other human beings and doesn’t seem to have come to the realisation that he should surrender and go back home and learn the truth.
As mijj said…
“there doesn’t seem to be any understanding that the land belongs to the people who live there.”
When will these hate filled people realise that for the people of Novorossiya – it is their land! and they are defending it! and their people.
And lastly, the pessimist said…
“KIEV, July 16. /ITAR-TASS/. The inhabitants of a tent camp set up on Kiev’s Independence Square dubbed as Maidan are ready to vacate the place and go to fight to Eastern Ukraine if their condition is met: the children of high-ranking Ukrainian officials must go to the war together with them, the tent camp representatives told ITAR-TASS.
“We are ready to remove the tents from the square and go to the front. But we would like Mr. Avakov (Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Interior Minister Arsen Avakov) to send his son with us. And all those who are sitting at Verkhovnaya Rada (parliament) should also gather their children, and then, together, we are going to fight (in the east),” a Maidan activist said.”
I have always had this view. If all these people sitting in the USG/EU/UK/Junta are so hell bent on sending other people’s children to fight and die – send your own as well! A law should be passed in these countries that if you vote in parliament for war – you send your children too…….lets see how many of them vote for war.
Are the Maidan waking up to reality? Shame they still want to fight there brothers in the East though :(.
Rgds,
Veritas
Anonymous @ 16 July, 2014 15:13
You are correct about “fragging” in Vietnam.
It is not an unknown phenomenon in war – in reality not in the propaganda.
This has happened in “Ukraine” and this will likely increase with “encouragement”.
Part of joint enterprise in “atrocities” are designed to minimise this trend, but as shown in Vietnam ultimately even this is unsucessful – even the Phoenix programme.
As posited before the opponent has effectively declared war on the rest of the planet and its inhabitants, so likely such behaviours will not be restricted to “Ukraine”.
Veritas,
“A law should be passed in these countries that if you vote in parliament for war – you send your children too.”
Charlie Rangel keeps trying to re-institute the Draft every year with just those kinds of provisions in place, but how about no one’s children get sent? Just imagine a new Geneva Convention or whatever treating wars between countries as a duel between their leaders! I mean, they could have the weapons, time, location and seconds of their choice, even if they’re too fat to do anything but arm-wrestle. ;~)
But going back to Vietnam, it wasn’t just the children of TPTB that got out of serving: at least until the Lottery, that 2S deferment kept a lot of rich(er) kids alive while people for whom college was not an option had no choice in the matter.
Hey anonymous!
@dusty, “It is a common guerrilla tactic to move close to a border. Any returning fire can easy go to the wrong side of that line by mistake. Any serious commander always fears that possibility and any retaliation such a misfire can bring.”
That’s the thing. The rebels are, we know, to the north, the Ukrainian army is between them and the border. If the rebels were on both sides of the thin(ish) string of army (rebels/army/rebels/border) then the rebels would be likely to end up shooting each other.
So, assuming the guy is telling the truth about being shelled from the border region, who is doing the shelling from that direction?
Nora — My memory is that the college deferment only worked for certain college majors. My brother was deferred because he was an EE major. He had friends from college that went who were not engineers.
I doubt if any draft today would defer college students. Too many of them. And too many pikers with majors that don’t train them for chit. If I were running the draft I’d start at Yale — work my way up and down the Eastern Seaboard — making sure I hit Chicago, Berkley and Palo Alto. Dual-citizens would have the lowest draft numbers. First in line, baby. The flights to Israel will be jam-packed for years.
The IIS college deferment was a trick. If you took it formally, and you had to sign for it (though you received it if you didn’t sign at registration each semester) you were eligible until 35 instead of 26. I used to warn everyone not to sign that line on the registration forms. F’ them and the war.
Nixon was smart and got the protestors off the street with the lottery which was hellish for those caught in it. What a birthday present! You’re a grunt. 16 weeks of training and an M-16 that didn’t work when it got wet and muddy. First thing you wanted to do was get an AK-47.
JFK’s Best and Brightest thought war was a graduate school project.
They fed 2 million kids into that nightmare. By 1970 they had hooked 40% of the troops on drugs. Hell, the CIA had to sell them to someone and the logistics were easy.
I’m not surprised thet the junta are hanging their troops out to dry.
The biggest threats to the thieving oligarchs are the neo-nazis, the Donbass fighters and those that remain on the Maidan, in that order.
The first two can be neutralised by arranging for them to slaughter each other in a drawn out guerrilla war.
it’s sick behaviour, but rational if you are sitting on billions stolen from the people and those two groups are the most likely to relieve you of it and leave your head on a spike.
This out to increase defections and people refusing to head any call up. The Fascists leave their boys to die in the field save in Kiev
How long til Porky hits the road and gets out n a plane
Gleb Bazov
Thanks for translating this.
вот так
Note to editor:
Because … we are not afraid to fight, but we don’t want to become cannot fodder. We are not cannot fodder…
cannot should be cannon fodder.
@ T1,
Nam -> fragging.
AGS,
I’m not so sure about that, at least in the earlier years; I’m remembering an awful lot of Liberal Arts and Econ types who never got called up. Another complication, of course, was that whether or not you got called up depended on whether your district had met its quota or not and a lot of guys did volunteer, at least at first and especially from more rural districts.
And yes, making sure there are no class-based deferments is a big part of what Rangel’s been trying to do. I totally agree with your thoughts about the draft — the uber-rich benefit the most and should give back the most, right? ;~) But I’m sure he’s also got in mind the fact that the public would have a lot more interest in NOT going to war if they knew their kids would have to serve, rather than other people from other places.
And I LUV the idea of dual-citizens being called up first!!!!! I can remember being utterly livid during the start-up of the first Iraq War when a Jewish woman whose family had done quite well here over a couple of generations sniffed that she’d *never* let her outrageously-spoiled-brat son serve in the American army but had no problem whatever with the idea of him fighting for Israel. I was so appalled I did everything in my power to avoid having anything else to do with her unless it was absolutely necessary. UGH !!!
Nora, AGS
One college career pursuit that was exempt from the Vietnam war era draft was that of teacher. A lot of men chose that profession because of that. They don’t now, though.
вот так
@Gleb Bazov
Thank you! Thank you! for your hard work translating this.
what would we do without you?
Your hard work is sincerely appreciated.
God bless you!
@dusty
You have a local guerrilla force fighting troops from the other side of the country. They probably know every inch of that land. I’m sure they can do circles around those Kiev troops and hit them with accuracy from every direction they want.
My guess is that they face a clever commander that tries to lure them into hitting Russian soil. What we are witnessing is the confusion of a simple soldier that gets fired from a certain direction, one that his superiors are afraid to hit back. They are afraid, because right now OECD is inspecting the Russian borderline. Any cross-border hit will be recorded. The soldier simply doesn’t know this.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
PS. I really need to get an alias for posting here.
Anon14:58
Foreign Policy is the worst Neocon Neoliberal rag on the planet spewing their garbage hasbara
July 11 was eons ago. But there is a western news embargo on how it is unraveling as the rainbow hewed Putin 5 turn the tables
i feel sad about uki forces too who for no falut of their own are fighting wityh their russian brothers.-all for sake of evil anglosaxon race whcih msut be annihilated imemdiately.
@Dusty…
I don’t know if you are suggesting or not, that what one hears is propaganda.
The Ukranian soldier sounds quite frightened & desperate to me.
There is no way that what I heard is propaganda as you seem to suggest.
I will go with my own woman’s instincts that are better than men’s when it comes to cries for help.
You see Dusty, women are “designed” that way to hear the cries of real desperation versus the “whiny” cries for attention.
That Ukranian soldier is desperate and *very* frightened. I hear him at times out of breadth.
Nobody is that good of an actor because nobody can imitate that well —-fear for one’s life.
Carmel By The Sea, if I was suggesting that the piece was a fake then I’d have said so.
I was quite clear, please read my words for confirmation.
The guy was claiming that he and his colleagues were under attack from a place that they should not have been, a place where the rebels, for several practical reasons would not be likely to be located. Indeed, if he thought the attackers were rebels, I am sure he’d have said so. If he were less panicked he would probably understand that there were only two likely sources for his anguish and neither were likely to be representatives of the rebels to the north.
However, the piece is absolutely now a part of the propaganda war, whether that was intentional or not is irrelevant, the fact of its use is undeniable.
By the way, don’t trust what you think you hear. Your mind will be, as you unwittingly inferred, filling in the blanks. Look instead at what they say and then filter the words with their actions.Personally, that’s why I like written accounts. ;)
16 July 2014 – 1:03pm
“Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov was attacked in the zone of the anti-terrorist operation. Details about the assassination plot were due to be given at a briefing at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry today, Ukrinform reported.”
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/politics/57757.html
The Junta, yes of course, they are scum, but somehow the fact that the orders, all the orders that matter, including the order to bomb civilians, are coming from Washington or from the gang of American advisors running this show from Kiev, seems to be forgotten. Poroshenko, despicable though he is, is also in a very unenviable position. He is a total puppet, a marionette. He knows it, and he can’t leave his puppet role, not until he is told to leave by his masters. Where would he go? I am almost certain he regrets having run for President. He may not get out of this alive, and he knows it. His masters, the ones giving the orders, will get off scot free no matter how things turn out.
“Where would he go?”
UN Human Rights Commissioner? Human Rights and genocide seem to go together these days. Pay’s good, too. Just lay off the “justice” shit, and he’ll be fine. Look at Navi.
So, the neocons have turned Ukraine into battlefield where Europeans kill each other for EU membership and IMF slavery. Or, the Kiev junta is killing Russian-speaking for not willing to become EU members.
If they knew what they are fighting for..most EU populations are probably more eurosceptic than ever before, at the moment.