NEGLIGENCE OR BETRAYAL?

When I read or hear the news about the war in the East of Ukraine, I experience pain and shame. The interim president had military fatigues made for himself and is posing with binoculars from every other Ukrainian website, while the border with Russia remains as porous as it was three months ago when the first groups of Russian infiltrators started coming into Ukraine. Now 15 to 20 thousand foreign militants are said to operate in the two regions in Eastern Ukraine.

Practically every day there’s information on the Internet about some Ukrainian troops being surrounded by pro-Russian terrorists. The troops are not allowed to attack: they have the right only to defend themselves. All pleas for help on the part of the Ukrainian soldiers are ignored, no military assistance from other units is given. The latest example: after having been attacked for more than 24 hours, a detachment of Ukrainian soldiers actually surrendered. It retreated leaving all the weapons to the enemy.

The other day one of the Ukrainian units in the East was visited by parliamentarians form Kyiv. The video of the visit was uploaded on the YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDkASKEwnuo ). The impression is rather depressing. The soldiers were mobilized about 2-3 months ago. Some of them had never served in the army and had never shot guns. Now they are given UAH 1,300 (a little more than USD 100) of monthly allowance which they use to buy food in neighboring villages. They have no water to wash themselves. Drinking water is scarce and, if any, it can hardly be drunk at all – so dirty it is.

Originally, hopes for the improvement of the situation were laid upon the election of the new President. The president-elect called the ongoing war an anti-terrorist operation and said that any anti-terrorist operation should last no longer that several hours. Now hopes for the better are pinned on the President’s inauguration to be held on June 7…

I wonder what kind of military tactics would our officials use and what dates would they set if their own children were soldiers in the Ukrainian East?

Tags: betrayal, Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities, war