Ukraine’s Offensive Falters as Elite Units Defect to Pro-Russia Side

[Catherina]

31. This has been going on for days. Ukranian military units defecting and switching sides

Youtube and news sites which emphasize reporting over propaganda have been crawling with videos of Ukranian troops refusing to fire on their compatriots and switching sides.

This one is from a few days ago when local people of South-East caught and disarmed the tank near the city of Donetsk. The tank crew doesn't even seem to have and idea how to properly operate the vehicle. In this video, according to the freaks of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, what you see are terrorists.

According to the audiovisuals, what you see is simple civilians willing to stand up in front of a tank with their car and their bodies to stop it.

Quick translation: "Who do you plan to shoot at? Stop the engine! Stop the engine! What are you pulling your assault rifle out for? Do you think that if we jump on your tank it will protect you? No, tell us, who are you going to shoot at? Switch off the engine, hush it down, we are telling you. Where will you go - everywhere people. Chaps, let's pull them out of this tank, they don't know what they are doing. Hush down the engine, stop it, who are you going to shoot at - at own lads?
Chaps, don't touch them, let's solve it normally, like normal people.
Hush down the engine, stop it."

Judging by the copious amount of cursing the civilians are very angry because they suspect this tank is headed for the city of Slaviansk. The poor tank crew seemed clearly frightened and ashamed and the tank commander did the only right thing: he climbed out of the tank, begged to crowd not to touch it (he is personally responsible for it) and tried to convince the crowd that they didn't plan on shooting anyone. The tank commander looks like a nice young guy placed in an impossible situation and the civilians understood that. The residents were angry because initially the tank crew tried to avoid them. The good news is that level heads were saying "stop screaming! stop screaming!" and cooled down the angry crowd. And no, despite all the weasel worded screeching implications from our State Department, there weren't any Spetsnaz GRU in disguise or any sign of Russians at all.

If these civilians had been military, even without anti-tank weapons, they could have easily set this tank on fire. In other words, complete total chaos for the putchists in Kiev who weren't counting on Ukranian military not wanting to kill their fellow compatriots.


And all those who claim to "know" Russians are causing the chaos can't provide a shred of credible evidence to back up their claims except for "clothes and guns look Russian" and "they look organized". Of course they have uniforms and look "organized". Half of the Ukrainian army has defected in the East, the Berkut force was disbanded by the interim govt and most of police are siding with protestors -- there's plenty of organized and armed people to go around. And the unarmed locals, men, women and teenagers are out in full force too as evidenced by all the videos.

It was local civilian activists who peacefully disarmed the 25th Brigade of Ukrainian paratroopers sent over there and then provided food and civilian clothes for them.

The idea of shooting at one's own people at the whim of questionable 'government' in Kiev seems utterly unimpressive to Ukrainian soldiers and reservists.

On this video from Donetsk, you can see some Ukrainian military vehicles raising Russian flags, while others raise the flags of the Donetsk

Here's another video. Kramatorsk residents at the local Malotaranovka railway crossing blocking a convoy of 15 military vehicles.

...

One YouTube video of what happened next shows a woman coming to a soldier with the reproach: “You are the army, you must protect the people.”

“We are not going to shoot, we weren’t even going to,” is the soldier’s reply.

Similar conversations could be heard at each of several APCs which entered the city, with locals promising to defend their neighbors, in case the soldiers start a military operation.

...

“We’ve seen here, that these are neither separatists nor terrorists, but ordinary local residents, with whom we are not going to go to battle,” one of the defected soldiers said.

....



Anti-government activists block a collumn of Ukrainian men riding on Armoured Personnel Carriers in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on April 16, 2014. (AFP Photo/Anatoly Stepanov)


The soldiers and civilians started fraternizing very quickly and soon were joking about “coming for a visit without weapons next time.” Many of the soldiers put on St. George’s ribbons, the traditional Russian emblem used to commemorate the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazism in World War II.

http://rt.com/news/ukrainian-tanks-kramatorsk-civilians-840/

Ukrainians don't want fight with Ukrainians and they don't want to fight with Russians all for the grand Austerity prizes like 50% pension cuts, higher retirement ages, loss of social services etc in IMF's Cracker Jack box. Surprise surprise.



In other important news, though you wouldn't know it from the corporate press,

Head of EU intelligence, Commodore Georgij Alafuzoff, rules out Russian military presence in Ukraine

"In my opinion, it’s mostly people who live in the region, people from the region who are not satisfied with the current state of affairs... concerned citizens"

as reported in the EU press.

Finnischer militärischer Geheimdienst: keine russischen Sicherheitskräfte auf ukrainischem Territorium
Von petrapez | Veröffentlicht: 15. April 2014

In einem Interview mit dem finnischen Rundfunk YLE sagte Alafuzoff, dass es in der Region nicht zu aktiven Feindseligkeiten und zu keiner gross angelegten Präsenz von russischer Seite gab. “Meiner Meinung nach, sind es vor allem die Menschen, die in der Region leben und nicht mit dem aktuellen Stand der Dinge zufrieden sind”, so Admiral Alafuzoff.

https://www.radio-utopie.de/tag/george-alafuzoff/

Interview is here in Finnish: http://yle.fi/uutiset/eun_tiedustelujohtaja_venaja_ei_ole_asemoitunut_sotilaallisesti_ukrainaan/7190544