76 Comments

I think a large number of people don't realize that war is, you know, war.

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BTW, before throwing the grenades, the Ukrainian soldiers call on the Russians to surrender, like, ten times or so

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founding

thank you, the civilian pants and shoes threw me...but he was armed and holding the gun in a ready to fire way. Also, as far as I know, there is no language barrier here. While the Russians may not speak the Ukrainian language, the Ukrainians all speak Russian. Also the guns weren't on automatic just blowing bodies apart, like video games. Double tapping is a good plan, but they were also being careful with their ammo.

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The Ukrainians are heard cursing at the russians to surrender. Some versions of this video contain subtitles.

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Quick translation. Marine 1 first says minus 3 bitches. Then yells out surrender motherfuckers, you will live pieces of shit. Surrender motherfuckers, surrender with your hands up and you will live. Then asked marine 2 if he should throw some grenades. I agree 100% with Ryan, all 4 kills were legit. Only Russian propagandists spreading lies about war crime when they are the ones executing Ukrainian prisoners after surrender.

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founding

If I am not mistaken it is also Russian soldiers in Ukraine; they didn't belong there. If they were home drinking vodka they would not have been shot. Maybe. If they were drafted and didn't go then the Russian government might have shot them as draft dodgers. Kind of sucks when your government does something you don't philosophically agree with. A bundh of Americans were in this position in the 1960s & 1970s regarding Vietnam. [I am not saying I agree or disagree with the Vietnam War; just saying that no one always agrees with governmental policy.]

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founding
Jun 21, 2023·edited Jun 21, 2023

I saw another site's analysis of that video and he said the Ukrainians had circled behind the trenches and were attacking the Russians from the opposite end of the Ukrainian front line as they tried to retreat. That might explain why it appears that the Russians appeared to be moving with their weapons down. They weren't expecting the Ukrainians to be in front of them.

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Man, that's smart. It sucks if you're one of the Russians, but brilliant if you're Ukrainian.

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I'm no soldier, but they did seem unprepared.

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True, but a lot of them are unprepared before they enter the sovereign nation of Ukraine

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founding

I recall an interview with one of the last (then) surviving NZ soldiers from the First world war. Stated they gave one short chance for the Germans to come out hands up. This was an instruction not an option. Failure meant a bomb went in and they came out in bits. Then he chuckled.

They took thousands of prisoners, but absolute compliance was required.

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founding

Are these weapons silenced in some way? Or are the soldiers wearing hearing protection? I have always wondered how everyone isn't deafened in these contained environments.

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author

I think these weapons are silenced. As for hearing loss. I have it. People do get deafened.

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And eventually you can get some really nice hearing aids from the VA like I did.

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"Your hearing loss has been determined to (not) be service related"

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Are you telling me after I got out of the service (1991) they stopped making soldiers wear ear plugs? Or did you just choose not to? Now even with hearing protection some hearing loss is to be expected, the military is a high noise level environment... Even without adding in Weapons fire...

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author

I never wore hearing protection unless I was on the range. I always thought it was too dangerous, like I would miss someone saying something too me.

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Exactly this, Ryan. When I was leading soldiers in live-fire training of any sort I never wore hearing protection. My responsibility was to the men who I was leading, not my delicate hearing holes.

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Carrying our earplug cases was part of the uniform of the day so to speak...

But I was also a line mechanic, so that may have played a part in things... Also I was always on heavy loud vehicles (M578/M88/M113's/Gamma Goats) so hearing protection was just a smart play... Not to mention the 2 1/2 tons and 5 ton trucks...

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Ask any soldier who was in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, none of them wore earpro. They were all worried they wouldn't hear something. It's extremely common for veterans from those wars to have hearing issues.

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Jun 22, 2023·edited Jun 22, 2023

Yup. In the 80's I had round earplug cases, hung on a shirt pocket button, part of the uniform. In the 90's I had rectangular earplug cases, hung on different items depending on SOP. When I went to Bosnia and to Iraq, the only time I wore earplugs at all was at the range, and they were either handed out there or I had them in the paper case in my pocket. In Iraq in the humvee, I had a set of over the ear hadphones for the radio which provided sound protection. Ditched them when I unassed the vehicle. Same thing with the Bradley except there it was a CVC helmet. No earplugs in combat, you need to hear the sonsabitches.

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We always wore hearing protection when I served... You won't be around actual gunfire long and still be able to hear without it...

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First impression is UKR released the video as a psyop against the elventy-five thousand dispirited mobiks sitting in the main defense line trenches a few klicks further south. (Bluntly, if you stay in your trench, we will come in & light you up.) As to the personnel with no visible arms, how many times does even a well-disciplined troop go to the latrine without his weapon? Keep up the outstanding work Mr. McBeth & never forget that God invented whiskey to keep us Irish from conquering the world.

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You can hate what the Russians do, and hate Russians soldiers in general, maybe, and feel sorry for the poor bastards who die confused and scared. Legit? It seems so, but so sad.

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Great breakdown, thank you.

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War is crazy. Videos like this remind me that the speculated totals on paper are just the same as this but on an unimaginable level. Slava Ukraine.

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Your analysis was informative. Thank you. I’m curious about your opinion of how the two sides fought in that video?

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From what we saw, and we don’t know what they cut out, the Russians performed miserably. Totally taken by surprise and running around with no situational awareness. Poor guys just overwhelmed.

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Someone said the Ukrainians came in the trench from the Russian side, which is why the Russians seemed to run right into them with weapons down.

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Yes, I heard that too. Total surprise attack-ambush-rout.

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As the inimitable Clint Smith has said, you can be killed by people you’ve killed WHO ARENT DEAD YET so if the son of ***** moves shoot ‘em again

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Anyone find substack really clunky?

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I’m using an iPhone and it’s fine for me

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Thank you for the excellent analysis. War is ugly and not what most people have been lead to believe it is via media and movies.

A former Harris County (TX) DA said of a police shooting years ago, if you are justified in shooting them once then you are justified in shooting them X times. Admittedly procedures have changed since then and war is very different.

The Russians appear to have been caught with their guard down. "Fog of war" comes to mind. It's almost like the Russians didn't realize how close the Ukraines were to their positions.

Tactics by the Ukraines appeared to be reasonably for the most part.

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Suppressed weapons didn’t help, one could argue a smart move by UA soldiers;

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