(Intro by Tom Cooper)

Hello everybody!

There you have it: the last week was over before I have managed to continue my feature on air warfare. No problem: let’s re-focus on reviewing the last week instead, before returning to that one.

What was going on? On the diplomatic scene, and regardless of all the, usual, sensationalising by the media, actually: nothing at all. Reportedly, Dumpf is so disappointed by non-cooperation from both Russia and Ukraine, with lack of outlooks for enriching himself from this war, he’s about to junk this affair once again. And then, so much so, some are reporting the USA are going withdraw the mass of its forces from Europe, and cease serving as NATO’s primary conventional force as early as of 2027. I would say: great. Just, alone because of profits diverse of Dumpf’s supporters are extracting this way: unlikely to happen. Thus, ‘in the West, nothing new’.

In turn, thanks to Dumpf, Moron and Zele have got yet more reasons for flashy media appearances. Moron first discovered that water is wet; got scared so much, he sent a stern warning to everybody in Europe, that Dumpf’s about to betray them. What a discovery: he’s now a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics…

Lots of Zele-fans in the West then proudly announced that Europe will stand behind Zele. Simply cool. Wouldn’t it be that, except for standing behind Zelensky, fantastic European leaders are still doing next to nothing to enable Ukraine to win this war….

Slightly less zombie-like (but only a notch), the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, then published the article The West’s Last Chance, to issue a number of stern warnings. Where it was amusing to monitor different media platforms quoting different points of his article, always depending on their preferences. Actually, Stubb did little but define things that must be obvious to any drunkard on dope at least since 2015: the ‘old world order’ (read: Western domination era) is collapsing, he said; a fragmented, multipolar world is emerging (imagine Brazil and India becoming permanent members of the UN Security Council - and pursuing their own interests there… pure horror, isn’t it?!?); there’s a lack of cohesion and the West is dangerously divided, the ‘global South’ is feeling ignored… and without the West convincing the rest of the world that it’s capable of dialogue (rather than monologue), consistency (instead of double standards), and cooperation (instead of domination), it’s going to become the biggest laughing stock in history… and that in a matter of the next 10 years…

Sigh… really?

Actually, I consider myself both idealistic and enthusiastic, but: what Stubb is ‘warning about’ - now, and for the next ‘10 years’ - is what many have been saying for at least a decade (if not much longer) and what is still, systematically, and per law, ignored. Because all the possible dickheads in the EU/NATO still know better. Or if not, then prefer to deal with in form of sticking their heads deeper into the sand (usually for the purpose of filling own pockets). Therefore anybody preaching nonsense in style of, ‘…Europe can offer what neither USA nor PRC can offer to the global South, especially no exploitation…’ - is only bolstering the already existent credibility gap. Because, at most, this is idealistic babbling by somebody from a country without history of imperialism, and then nothing substantiated by deeds. Actually, the gap between this kind of idealism and reality has meanwhile grown even bigger than the gap between pipe-dreaming in Kyiv and all over Europe, and the realities on the battlefields of the war in Ukraine.

Fact is: the ‘rules-based order’ is already non-existent. It was systematically dismantled by the very powers that imposed it upon everybody, the very ‘West’. Resulting in a situation where ‘the West’ (whether ‘Europe’, or ‘Europe + USA, Canada etc.) already now, not ‘in 10 years’ (nor in 10 months), has no moral-, nor political authority any more. It’s neither exceptionalist, nor in a position to lecture anybody at all.

Over to Don.

***

Sumy

A mixed team of five soldiers from the 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade and a Border Guards unit were dropped off at the southern edge of Oleksiivka. Four entered the basement adjacent to a destroyed house but the fifth was separated and eventually made his way back to safety. Russians went by their house and Russian drones flew overhead. From concealed positions in the nearby woods they would engage the drones with single shots, using an average of three shots to down them. They would use single shots to kill Russians.

From the top of the basement steps, one of them fired on three Russians with automatic fire, killing one, maybe two, and wounding another. While continuing to fire, he was shot in the neck and died.

It helped that the Russians came from different units with different passwords and weren’t familiar with each other. One night, a Russian tried to run into the basement and met one of the Ukrainians face to face on the stairs. The Russian used his radio to say he found the missing soldiers and the Ukrainian shot him immediately after. Those two bodies in the basement, plus the dead Russians above ground nearby, created a stench in the heat.

They waited for one group of Russians to come within 5 meters before opening fire. One of them threw a grenade in the basement before being killed. They all dove for cover but there was no explosion. After looking around they found it. The ring was pulled off the grenade, but the ring broke from the pin which remained in the fuse and prevented it from exploding. They unscrewed that fuse, put a new spare fuse in and used the grenade in a different attack later.

Friendly drones made their survival possible for so long. They were always on overwatch, telling them when there were Russians in the area. The drone teams would try to kill the Russians first, but if they couldn’t the infantry would engage them. Once, they were told that four, then five, then nine Russians were headed their way. Then the infantry lost communications with the drone team so they prepared for battle. But the fight never happened because the drones ended up killing all nine Russians.

They received some drone-dropped supplies. Some of the water in the bottles were emptied so there was a smaller chance of the bottle bursting when dropped. Nine partially-filled bottles were sent and from this they might collect 1.5-2 liters of water that survived impact. They called on the radio and if Ukrainian drones didn’t see any Russian drones, they emerged from the basement and were able to forage batteries, water, food and ammo from the Russians they killed. They looted so many bodies that every time a Russian appeared they’d say another Glow delivery had arrived. They even used looted gas canisters to heat their food.

On the 41st day, they fought an engagement that lasted too long, or maybe the wounded Russian yelled too loud or completed a radio transmission before he died when a grenade was tossed in the direction of his yelling. From their basement they started hearing explosions and they thought their own drones were finishing off wounded Russians, but it turned out that Russian drones were dropping gas grenades. One border guard soldier put his gas mask on. The other poured water onto a Tshirt and breathed through it. The 103rd soldier tried breathing through a couple of wet wipes. They coughed for a while but survived.

It was when the Russian drones started to attack the basement entrance with explosives that they realized they were discovered. Their commanders told them to barricade the entrance against explosives and they will come and get them. They propped up a metal bed frame in the stairway and covered it with boards. By the end of the day, half the boards were shattered.

After a while, the attacks stopped. Their commanders thought maybe the Russians thought the basement was empty or that anyone in the basement was dead. During the night, they took shovels they found on the Russians and dug a trench all night along the back wall and used the dirt that was placed into plastic bags used to drop food to create a parapet with sandbags in front of the trench. Body armor was also used on the parapet. The dirt was so packed that by morning the trench was only knee deep.

The bombing resumed and an explosion penetrated the ceiling of the basement; one soldier was seriously wounded. The other two kept digging until their hands were bloody. They were short on food and after the gas attack had very little water. They lost communications with their commanders. The boards on the bed frame and the bed frame itself were destroyed and the entrance was open. The two were laying down in the trench when another big explosion shook the basement. One of them said he thinks he’s finished. The other answered that he couldn’t move and thought he was done, too. It turns out that the heavy sandbags from the parapet fell on them and pinned them in the trench. With effort, they lifted the bags off themselves.

The mattress started burning and giving off smoke, which probably helped conceal them from the drones that could now see into some of the holes in the ceiling. Between the first and all the explosions, the Russians probably expected they were dead. Of the three survivors at the beginning of the previous day, one of them was dead but two remained. They rigged an antenna through the holes in the ceiling and couldn’t contact their commanders but they reached a neighboring position that passed on their status. They were told to be ready for a night time extraction, and when they emerged from the basement the drones led them to the extraction point.

One had a grenade fragment that penetrated to the bone, a broken rib and ruptured ear drums. The other had shrapnel wounds. They both had concussions. In the 42 days they were in position, they killed 25-30 Russians and two of them were killed.

‍

‍

This text is published with the permission of the author. First published here.