#Ukrainian servicemen

[demiurgeua]

День вшанування захисників Донецького аеропорту 2025

“Сьогодні День вшанування захисників Донецького аеропорту. Саме у ці дні, 10 років тому, завершилася героїчна оборона ДАПу, що тривала 242 дні. Українських захисників російські загарбники назвали «кіборгами», бо не могли зрозуміти, чому гарнізон летовища ніяк не вдається взяти штурмом. Тоді наші воїни продемонстрували неабияку мужність, сталевий дух та надзвичайну витримку. Вони стали справжнім…

[folklorespring]

10 years ago Donetsk Airport was closed due to armed clashes with russian subversive groups.

Later the Ukrainian defenders defenders of Donetsk Airport will be called cyborgs, a reference to their invincibility and courage. This name was first used by unknown pro-russian militant while trying to explain why the units of the militia forces could not take up arms at the Donetsk airport, which is protected by several dozen Ukrainian servicemen.

On the night of May 26, 2014, a group of pro-russian forces partially occupied Donetsk airport. It took place as Donetsk city and that part of the wider region were already under russian occupation. The airport was the last Ukrainian stronghold in the city.

The defense of Donetsk airport lasted 242 days.

The ruins of the airport, 24 December 2014

[nullnvoid911]

Ukrainian servicemen of volunteer battalion "Azov" (Азов) rest inside of an armored personal carrier (APC) during their military training near Mariupol, Donetsk area.

Ivan Boberskyy, February 6, 2015

[redjaybathood]

There is news about another execution of POWs by russians. People who are "we're not antisemitic, we're just against war crimes", why are you silent on this?

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/01/23/7494930/

Early reports indicate that during an assault on Ukrainian military positions in Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces captured six Ukrainian defence forces servicemen and later executed them.  

[stop-war-ukraine]

On November 30, we mark the Day of the Radio Engineering Troops of the Air Force of the #Ukrainian Armed Forces!

This branch of the military is known as the "eyes" of the Air Force because its servicemen work tirelessly around the clock to detect and track hundreds of enemy aircraft, helicopters, #drones, bombs, and missiles.

They never take shelters during enemy attacks because their mission is to quickly identify hostile targets and relay this critical information to command posts. Then, aviation, anti-aircraft missile forces, mobile fire groups, and electronic warfare units spring into action, and the country receives warnings of impending danger.

Thank you, our defenders 🫶

[tomorrowusa]

Putin is trying to pass off North Korean troops fighting in the Russian army as members of the Buryat ethnic group in Siberia.

It's already suspected that Putin is giving North Korea missile technology in return for ammunition and other military supplies. Apparently troops from North Korea are also part of the deal. Unfortunately for Putin, they seem to be as useless as his own troops.

The Suspiline report citing Ukrainian intelligence sources says that 18 North Korean soldiers fled their positions somewhere on the border between the Bryansk and Kursk regions of Russia, just 7 kilometers (4.4 miles) from the state border with Ukraine. The source said the reason for them absenting themselves is not known but it said Russian forces were currently hunting them while the commanders in the area were trying to cover up the incident and to hide it from higher command. The incident comes just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward a request to ratify the treaty for a “comprehensive strategic partnership” between the Russian Federation and North Korea, which had been signed on June 19 during Putin’s visit to the DPRK.

Claiming that North Koreans are actually Buryats is quite a stretch. Buryats have a generally East Asian appearance which might fool people in Europe. But once they speak or write, the similarity disappears.

Buryat is related to Mongolian and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Korean is rather unique and uses its own homegrown phonetic script. They don't sound or look anything alike.

The report of these soldiers being absent without leave (AWOL) also coincided with other intelligence reports that up to 3,000 North Korean combat troops were being trained to form a “special Buryat battalion” at the base of the 11th Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Russian army at Sosnovy Bor near Ulan Ude in Buryatia. The reports say the unit is currently being provided with weapons and equipment. A Ukrainian milblogger, Igor Sushko, said on X / Twitter on Tuesday that the North Korean troops were being issued with Russian military identity cards identifying them as Buryats. The Buryatia Republic is situated in eastern Siberia, where its indigenous people have an Asian appearance. Andrei Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering  Disinformation, commented that integrating North Korean military personnel into Russian forces was likely to be complicated by the language barrier: “Less than 1% of the cadre officers in the North Korean army are proficient in Russian. Understanding this is crucial for examining the potential future involvement of these troops with the Russian armed forces. “Although Russia might utilize North Korean soldiers initially in the Kursk region, there’s a possibility that several tens of thousands could eventually be deployed to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories alongside Buryat counterparts,” Kovalenko added.

It would be interesting to hear how the Buryats and North Koreans are getting along in Russia. The Buryats have every right to resent that Putin is trying to pass off North Koreans as Buryats.

The attempt to include North Korean troops with the Russian forces in the Ukraine invasion is another indication that Russia is getting short of troops.

New York Magazine recently featured a lengthy interview with Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Institute called Ukraine War: Why Russia is in More Trouble Than It Looks.

A relevant excerpt...

Russia’s advantage has been the ability to withstand very high levels of attrition because of the materiel and manpower resources they have, and also their significant capacity for mobilization of resources on a national scale — that is, defense industrial production, manpower recruitment, and the like. But Russia’s actually operating under very significant constraints. And if anything, its advantage on the battlefield is likely to decline as we get into this winter and look further ahead into 2025. First, in terms of equipment, the Russian military has been sustaining very high levels of loss that are principally being replaced by Soviet-era stocks — not entirely, but at this stage, Russia is eating through its Soviet legacy, and its rate of equipment production is quite low relative to the numbers being lost on the battlefield. This doesn’t mean that Russia is going to run out of armored fighting vehicles. What it does mean is that the Russian military has increasingly been forced to adjust tactics to minimize their losses, and that also reduces their ability to achieve any operationally meaningful breakthroughs. When you look at manpower, the Russian government has significantly increased the payouts and benefits to recruit personnel. The reason for that is straightforward. It’s clear that at this rate of loss, the Russian contract recruitment campaign is unable to keep up. This too does not mean that Russia is going to run out of manpower, but it’s clear that they’re struggling, and they are not likely to be able to sustain this pace of operations, staying on the offensive with this rate of loss.

Russia has apparently already been trying to recruit mercenaries in Syria and possibly even Africa. The quality of foreign troops in Russia has been rather uneven. That 18 North Korean troops have gone AWOL and may be trying to escape to Ukraine is an indication that importing fighters from abroad is not going well for Putin.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Ukrainian servicemen at their positions during the defense of Kharkiv in the first hours of the invasion. February 22, 2022.

[stealth-skills]

Operators of the SOF and two regular servicemen- Russo-Ukrainian War, 2024-5

[warriormale]

Servicemen of 24th Mechanized Brigade, named after King Danylo, of the Ukrainian Armed Forces rest at their position on a front line in Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region [Handout: Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces via Reuters]

Support Ukraine Freedom!

WarriorMale

[follow-up-news]

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon said Monday that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. These are the first reported casualties since the U.S. and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost 3-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said around 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during battle with the Ukrainian army over the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a Ukrainian incursion, the agency, known by its acronym GUR, said in a public post on the Telegram messaging app. At least three North Korean servicemen went missing around another Kursk village, GUR said. The White House also said it now believes North Korean troops are on the “front lines” of Russia’s war and are “actively engaged in combat operations” against Ukraine.

[demiurgeua]

День вшанування захисників Донецького аеропорту 2024

“Сьогодні День пам’яті захисників Донецького аеропорту, героїв, які написали важливу сторінку в історії боротьби за нашу Незалежність. Цей подвиг українських воїнів продемонстрував усьому світові відвагу, мужність та незламність українців. Навіки в нашій пам’яті зака��бувалися слова: «Кіборги вистояли, не встояв бетон». Ми дякуємо кожному, хто бився в ДАПі. Ми памʼятаємо усіх, хто віддав життя за…

[darkmaga-returns]

'Give us troops': Ukrainian official calls on Western allies to send troops to Ukraine

Today, 12: 3027

https://en.topwar.ru/258536-dajte-voennosluzhaschih-ukrainskaja-chinovnica-prizvala-zapadnyh-sojuznikov-otpravit-vojska-na-ukrainu.html

Ukrainian Commissioner for the Rights of Military Personnel Olga Reshetilova called on Kyiv's Western allies to send their troops in order to solve the problem of replenishing losses in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In an interview with the British publication The Guardian, the Ukrainian official stated that due to the acute shortage of personnel, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen are forced to remain in their positions without the possibility of rotation. At the same time, the issue of the possible demobilization of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens caught on the streets and sent to the front with virtually no training is not even being considered by Kiev. According to Reshetilova, if Ukraine's allies agreed to send their troops to the war with Russia, the crisis with mobilization in the Ukrainian army could be resolved.

At the same time, the official apparently does not care at all that direct participation of NATO countries in the Ukrainian crisis will, with a high probability, lead to a third world war with the use of nuclear weapons, which will guarantee the complete collapse of Western European civilization.

It is no longer a secret that the word "give" is the main instrument of Ukrainian quasi-diplomacy. The entire vertical of the Kyiv regime - from Zelensky to the last official - constantly asks for something in their communications with their allies: money, weapons, energy supplies, and now military personnel.

However, it is unlikely that Ukraine's "allies" are truly concerned about the fate of this country. By indirectly participating in the Ukrainian crisis, the European satellites of the United States often serve the interests of the United States, which has taken on the role of world hegemon, to the detriment of their own interests. Only the authorities of the Baltic dwarf states may agree to send their troops to fight Russia, and even then they will do so not out of love for Kyiv, but guided by their own cave-like Russophobia.

[nullnvoid911]

Russian servicemen fire a 2A65 Msta-B 152 mm towed howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in Lyman during the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Stanislav Krasilnikov, November 18, 2023

[beardedmrbean]

Ukrainian forces have struck North Korean troops in Russia's Kursk region, marking a new phase in the war.

A Ukrainian official said the troops were wearing Russian uniforms and hit by an artillery strike.

He said that since the first attack, there had been daily battles around Ukrainian-held Sudzha.

A Ukrainian official gave Business Insider further details about the first clashes between Ukrainian and North Korean troops in Russia's Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a cross-border counteroffensive in August.

Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Monday that "the first North Korean troops have already come under fire in Kursk Oblast."

This was later confirmed by Ukraine's defense minister, Rustem Umerov, who called it a "small engagement." Rustem said the skirmish signaled decisively that North Korea had joined the conflict.

In remarks sent to BI, Kovalenko gave more details about the attack.

"It was an ordinary combat engagement in the Kursk region," he said, describing how Ukrainian forces conduct reconnaissance, identify enemy positions, and launch strikes.

He said Ukrainian forces knew that North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms had been distributed across various Russian army units in the region for training under combat conditions.

"An artillery strike was launched against a position where Russians and North Korean military personnel were located," he said.

Kovalenko added that it wasn't an isolated incident.

He said "daily battles" were now occurring in the area around Sudzha, a Ukraine-held town at the center of its push into the region.

"Of course, shelling of the positions occurs daily," he said.

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said North Korean soldiers — which Ukraine says number 11,000 — had already suffered losses in Kursk.

Kovalenko said the North Koreans were being given "a few weeks" of training before being sent to live combat positions.

He said they posed "a serious threat that requires additional resources from our forces."

He also said some were being given training in using reconnaissance and strike drones, skills that present a future risk to South Korea.

Once back in North Korea, they could use their new drone know-how "for future terrorist actions in the border areas with South Korea," he said.

BI was unable to independently confirm Kovalenko's account.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian intelligence has shared details of the military equipment it says Russia has issued to North Koreans, including mortars, rifles, machine guns, and anti-tank missiles.

North Korea experts told BI the military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang was a win-win for both countries. But on a practical level, they also spoke of the logistical difficulties of combining two militaries.

This includes the conditions the troops will probably be cooperating under — including language issues, strains of racism from some Russian troops, as well as close supervision from North Korean officials to make sure they don't desert.

Ukrainian intelligence also recently shared what it said was intercepted audio of Russian servicemen discussing the coming Korean troops in a conversation that suggested a chaotic start to North Koreans joining Russia's fight.

[what-we-fight-for]

As if there was any doubt in the first place that the current sham administration was compromised - the US appears to have been transformed into a Russian vassal state overnight.

This will have global ramifications beyond just Ukraine, but Ukraine is first in line to bear the brunt of the consequences.

If you have the means, please consider donating directly to the Ukrainian government:

Or one of the vetted charities below:

Rep the blue and gold while creating jobs for AFU veterans:

[tomorrowusa]

Over the past decade or so we've encountered various acronyms to refer to specific groupings of countries. BRICS and MINT are a couple of those.

Now the war in Ukraine has prompted a new acronym to name the countries directly or indirectly fighting against it: CRINK for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

One of Zelenskyy’s key messages to his western allies is that Ukraine is no longer fighting Russia but a malign group of autocratic states. They have been dubbed Crink: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. All help Russia’s war. Pyongyang sends soldiers, ballistic missiles, howitzers and shells. Tehran offers kamikaze drones. Beijing sells micro-electronic components used in weapons systems and is a political partner. Pyongyang’s deepening involvement in Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945 has implications for the Asia Pacific region, especially for South Korea, Kyiv thinks. According to Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence organisation, the Kremlin is providing Kim Jong Un’s regime with torpedoes and technology for making drones. North Korea is keen to receive intelligence from Russian military satellites and air-to-air missiles, it says.

North Korea's involvement as a combatant sealed the deal for the NK. Putin's flimsy attempts to hide North Korean involvement took a big hit when Ukraine captured a couple of wounded North Korean soldiers.

The Kremlin has taken elaborate steps to conceal the presence of 12,000 elite troops sent in autumn by Pyongyang to Russia. At camps in the Far East they were given Russian equipment: uniforms, rifles and fake military documents.

The foreign soldiers even received phoney Russian names. All were “born” in the Siberian republic of Tuva, where locals have an Asian appearance and belong to a Turkic ethnic group. The North Koreans were then attached to regular Russian marine and assault corps units and sent to the frontline, thousands of kilometres to the west, around the Ukrainian-occupied Russian town of Sudzha. This legalistic pretence fell apart last week when two separate Ukrainian groups found the soldiers on the battlefield. Both were injured. They had lain in the cold for several days. Video shows paratroopers carrying one of them across a pine forest. They were driven to Kyiv, where Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency debriefed them, along with South Korea’s national intelligence service.

The only acronym which will keep Ukraine protected is NATO. Ukrainian membership in NATO will bring peace and stability to the region.