Admiral Beez
1st Lieutenant
Good account of a veteran Ukrainian tank commander.
www.nytimes.com
Paywall free here: https://archive.is/PkNIW
“Poltava recalled a defining moment when he was a young officer serving under contract with the Russian military in Georgia. During the Russian intervention to annex the Abkhazia region, he was approached by an older Georgian man who asked him what he was doing there. "I'm standing there, a young officer, and I say, 'I'm defending the motherland,'" Poltava recalled. "He looks into my eyes. 'Son, where is your motherland? Where are you from?' I say, 'I'm from Kharkiv, Ukraine.' And he says, 'And this is Poti, Georgia.' And he spits in my face. It was like a smack. I was taken aback. And then I thought, 'Really, what am I doing here?'"
“Fighting against the Russian Army has made him reflect on the many untruths he was taught at the Soviet military college, including that Soviet tanks were superior to the American Abrams tanks. "Now we are facing them and we see it's like heaven and earth," Poltava said, "and we understood how much they brainwashed us." "We were always told that the U.S. and NATO were our enemy, and it turned out the opposite," he said. "Those who we thought were our friends stabbed us in the back."
This awakening to the foundational lies and farcical ineptitude that is Russia is the biggest risk to Putin and Russia’s prestige and hold on Bellarus, Chechnya, Georgia, the ‘Stans and the far east. Ukrainians can see first hand that Russia is a broken scrap heap of a nation, and these other nations above will soon test the same shackles.
‘Give Me an Abrams!’ Ukrainian Tank Commanders Grow Impatient.
For now, they are holding on with inferior Soviet-era tanks, but relish the idea of taking on the Russians with modern Western battle tanks.
Paywall free here: https://archive.is/PkNIW
“Poltava recalled a defining moment when he was a young officer serving under contract with the Russian military in Georgia. During the Russian intervention to annex the Abkhazia region, he was approached by an older Georgian man who asked him what he was doing there. "I'm standing there, a young officer, and I say, 'I'm defending the motherland,'" Poltava recalled. "He looks into my eyes. 'Son, where is your motherland? Where are you from?' I say, 'I'm from Kharkiv, Ukraine.' And he says, 'And this is Poti, Georgia.' And he spits in my face. It was like a smack. I was taken aback. And then I thought, 'Really, what am I doing here?'"
“Fighting against the Russian Army has made him reflect on the many untruths he was taught at the Soviet military college, including that Soviet tanks were superior to the American Abrams tanks. "Now we are facing them and we see it's like heaven and earth," Poltava said, "and we understood how much they brainwashed us." "We were always told that the U.S. and NATO were our enemy, and it turned out the opposite," he said. "Those who we thought were our friends stabbed us in the back."
This awakening to the foundational lies and farcical ineptitude that is Russia is the biggest risk to Putin and Russia’s prestige and hold on Bellarus, Chechnya, Georgia, the ‘Stans and the far east. Ukrainians can see first hand that Russia is a broken scrap heap of a nation, and these other nations above will soon test the same shackles.
