Lyman woken up to find Aleksandr in the woods and he went to the parka of the city of Lyman
But when Aleksandr was captured outside the eastern city of Lyman last week, he was thinly dressed, without the customary armband denoting his allegiance — usually red or white for Russia and blue or yellow for Ukraine. The Ukrainian soldiers gave him a parka because they wanted to keep him warm.
“He came out of the forest and went to our positions,” said Serhiy, one of the Ukrainian soldiers who had found Aleksandr, recounting the capture to a pair of reporters from The New York Times visiting their position near the front line.
There are people dying next to me and they are begging for water. You believe you can take down your weapon and nothing else will happen. After a 10 minute break, the fight starts again and the Ukrainians are after you. There is no feeling attached to it. Just wave after wave.”
Lyman, a strategically important rail hub, sits on the northeastern bank of the Siversky Donets river amid a mesh of fields and forests. In May, Russia captured the city but over the last weekend it was taken by the Ukrainians. The future of Ukrainian advances could be helped by the presence of Lyman.
They look for the people who were left behind after their homes were damaged. Two men from the capital of the country form a unit.
“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. They were panicking but I believe it was a special unit. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”
Detection of sexual assault in Ukraine by Russian soldiers in the Kherson region: The case of Kammenyev-Kostanev
Ukrainian forces have regained control of hundreds of square miles of territory that they lost to Russia during the early days of the invasion, in large part at the beginning of October.
The scars of war are deep here. The UN investigators said Russia used sexual violence as a weapons of war against the Ukranian people. They have mentioned accusations of Russian soldiers carrying Viagra.
In two weeks of work in the Kherson region, the team from Kyiv has documented six allegations of sexual assault. The real number is almost certainly much higher, they say.
She says they walked around the rooms. “One stayed there, and the other one, who raped me, came in here. He walked around the room, but in this place, he groped me.
She says that he pinned her against the wardrobe and ripped her clothes. “I was crying, begging him to stop, but with no success,” she says. I thought it would be better if I stayed alive.
He warned her not to tell anyone, she recalls. She says she did not tell her husband right away. “But I told my cousin, and my husband overheard. He said that you should have told him the truth, but didn’t.
She spent the last three days indoors, too ashamed to leave her house. Then, in an extraordinary act of bravery, she says she confronted the Russian soldier’s commander.
“His commander found the head of his unit. He came to see me and told me, ‘I punished him severely, I broke his jaw, but the most severe punishment is ahead.’ Like shooting. The commander asked if I was okay with it. I said, ‘I don’t mind, I wish all of them will be shot.’”
The Russian-UKraine Kherson sexudosexual-violence riots: a case study in Tverdomedove
Although the prosecutor, Kleshchenko, and police officer Oleksandr Svidro are looking specifically for evidence of sexual crimes, everywhere they go they are confronted with the horrors of occupation.
The village didn’t actually occupy itself, but was behind Russian lines. Those gathered round shout that they’ve been abandoned for months, with no help from either Russia or Ukraine.
The man in the crowd is telling investigators that he was held by the Russians and then executed in a mock execution. It is hard to hear tales of torture in this location, but that is not the subject of their work today.
A mother and daughter are walking down a road in Tverdomedove, which is one of the areas that has been hit by shelling, and they say they have never heard of any sexual crimes there.
She came back after the Ukrainian military liberated her village. Shelling had reduced her roof to its rafters.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/europe/russia-ukraine-kherson-sexual-violence-intl/index.html
Military Uniforms, Helms and Boots: How Do They Get Their Materials? An Empirical Study of Women in the Armed Forces
She says she doesn’t know where to put it so that it won’t fall onto her head. “If it would fall and kill me that would be better, so I won’t suffer. But I want to see my son again.”
Of course, many of these allegations will be impossible to prove; many do not even have a suspect. For now, the team files its reports, and its investigators continue their work, hoping to be able to file charges in the future.
They recently commissioned the first ever military uniform for pregnant women in Ukraine and are about to unpack it.
The young couple, both TV journalists, are now dedicated to their advocacy for women in the armed forces through their independent charity, “Zemlyachki.”
Servicewomen needed a lot more than uniforms. There is great demand for everything from small boots to lighter plates for bulletproof vests.
Body armor plates, helmets and boots come from all over the world, including Sweden, Macedonia and Turkey. When it comes to procuring winter items like sleeping bags and thermal clothing for comfort, they say they are difficult to procure.
Kolesnyk says they have distributed equipment worth $1 million so far and helped at least 3,000 women. He tells CNN that if they are shooting rockets, they should do it in minimum comfort.
Not to compete with it, and to help our government, that’s what we’re doing. Their hub is full of cardboard boxes filled with kit paid for via grants and Crowdfunding.
Alina Panina, a female prisoner who survived a wartime at the Azovstal prison, in Kiev’s old industrial heartland
It is difficult for a man to understand that he can’t go there and his sister is there. So, I’m trying to do my best here to help not only my family, but the whole army,” he says.
The woman, who gave only her first name for security reasons, walks in to pick up a uniform and other gear before heading out on her next assignment. She joined the army in March and is a member of an intelligence unit.
“It’s so valuable to have these people who understand that we are tired of wearing clothes that are three sizes too big,” she says. “We had no helmets, we had old flak jackets, wore tracksuits and sneakers. Now we feel that we are humans.”
She is laughing as she laces up her new boots. The best selling memoir by a Holocaust survivor, “The Choice”, was handed over before the two hugged goodbye. The aim is that this can be a tool to help process trauma. Zemlyachki has also formed partnerships with military psychologists to whom women in combat can reach out.
Other women, such as 25-year-old Alina Panina, are receiving psychological support through the Ukrainian military. A border guard with a canine unit, Panina spent five months in captivity at the infamous Olenivka prison in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region after leaving the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
She was finally released on October 17 as part of an all-female prisoner exchange with Russia and went into mandatory rehabilitation at a military hospital, under whose care she remains.
“I was not prepared [for captivity], and we discussed this a lot with other women prisoners that life hasn’t prepared us for such [an] ordeal,” Panina says at a pizza bar run by veterans in downtown Kyiv.
Her partner might lose his job now that her fate is uncertain. He is also a border guard who is still in captivity. Panina doesn’t know where he is in prison, as she scrolls through pictures of him.
The local authorities have asked civilians to leave the region. But for Tarasov, as for so many in Ukraine’s old industrial heartland, fleeing his home for a safer area had seemed impossible.
The Russian army’s campaign to take Bakhmut is pushing the shelling towards the west. The town has been hit every day since the beginning of the month according to the hospital director.
Tarasov was in his basement during the shelling and now must live there. He ventured out to buy vegetables to make the national dish of borscht.
Tarasov describes the puddle of blood around a civilian wounded in the middle of the night. Initiated medical attention to an injured civilian in Bakhmut
His face pales as he relays the graphic images still fresh in his mind. “I was wearing a leather jacket and if it wasn’t for that, I would have blown apart. I mean, my guts would have been all over the place… I lost a lot of blood. I remember seeing it — a huge puddle.”
Tarasov is a devout Christian and believes an “invisible power” saved his life. He is eternally grateful to the Ukrainian soldiers who threw him in their truck and drove him to a hospital that was able to treat civilians wounded in the war.
Tarasov begged for the doctors to save his limb. I wanted to know if my arm could be sewn back on. I saw that it was completely torn off and was just hanging in the sleeve. And my stomach was burning. I figured it must be the intestines coming out. There was blood all over.
Medical staff at Kostiantynivka have been continuing their work through power failures and water shortages caused by repeated Russian attacks on the energy grid. Generators were used to keep the lights and heating on for eight hours last week.
“She’s a resident of Bakhmut. She was hit in the abdomen with a bomb and had damage to her organs. Every day we see people with these wounds. Every day.
Meanwhile, medical staff hear the constant thud of artillery fired around Bakhmut – unwelcome signals that another patient may soon lie on the operating table.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/europe/ukraine-bakhmut-injured-civilians-intl-cmd/index.html
Nikita Chibrin and the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade – in Ukraine, after a failed offensive
“If I had a lot of money, I would rather live abroad,” Tarasov says. Everything I had saved up was invested there, because I have no money of my own. I had no money and nowhere to go.”
Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March.
I saw them run and then realized they were rapists. He said that the rapists raped a mother and daughter. Their commanders shrugged when they found out about the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes.
Chibrin was in Ukraine for a number of months. When the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew at the end of March from the area northwest of Kyiv, following the failed offensive there, he and his unit returned to Belarus.
In a move that sparked outrage across the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the unit an honorary military title and praised it for its “heroism” and “bold actions.”
He said to CNN he would be willing to testify against his unit at the international criminal court if given the chance. He maintains he himself didn’t commit any crimes.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/europe/russian-defector-war-crimes-intl-cmd/index.html
On the crimes committed in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade: murders, rapes and looting
He said that people were allowed to shoot someone who had a phone. He claims there is little doubt some of the men in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade were capable of killing unarmed civilians.
They did not hide this at all. A lot from my unit, when we left Lipovka and Andreevka in the end of March, they took cars, vehicles, they took civilian cars and sold them in Belarus,” he said. “The mentality is, if you steal something, you are good. If nobody catches you, good! You are very good if you steal expensive things and don’t get caught.
As for the unit’s commanders, he said they were well aware of the alleged rapes and murders and of the looting, but took little interest in seeking justice.
“They reacted like: ‘Whatever. It happened. So what?’ Actually, there was no reaction,” he said. “Discipline goes [down the drain], there’s no discipline.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/europe/russian-defector-war-crimes-intl-cmd/index.html
Is it ok to fight the Ukrainians? The story of a soldier in Ukraine and the ill-preparedness of the AFU
Having seen the fighting first hand, he said the equipment Russian soldiers have is no match for the weapons to which Ukraine has access. He says that the Russian army is relying on Soviet-era equipment used in the Afghan war of the 1980s and that Ukraine is getting some of the most advanced weapons from its Western allies.
The truth was that they were spinning lies to get us to fight the Ukrainians. No one really thought that the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] would actually fight for their own country, for their loved ones. We only learned this after going in there.”
Men in his unit were also extremely ill-prepared for combat, according to Chibrin. He said the training his unit received consisted of commanders giving them a weapon, a target and 5,000 bullets.
“Keep shooting and then you are free to go. No one was doing anything. There was no training at all. I worked with a computer, at the office, worked as a lawnmower…” he said.
“It was a big lie. It was a military training with the Belarusian army. They lied to us. On February 24 they said that everyone would go to war, and Chibrin initially refused to go.
He said he was suffering from a back injury and went to a military hospital in Russia, but was forced to go back to Ukraine in May. This time he was sent to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, and then spent time in the forests around Izyum.
“I jump in [the bed of the truck] and I see, wow, other guys, also leaving Ukraine. And they say we don’t want to [fight the] war, we paid the commander money (to drive). I am waiting and watching. We are at the Russia border, and the car is stopped and the guys are jumping off and I am jumping off as well. And I go to the Russia border and I say I need the medical help,” he said.
Once back in Russia, Chibrin said he spent nearly a month in hospital, most of that being bedridden with terrible back pain. But he said he was unable to get proper treatment. He was told that if he wanted to go to the special sanatorium, he would have to sign a paper saying that he was going back to war.
Chibrin said that he would submit paperwork to cancel his military contract if he didn’t sign.
Anti-war song with Ukrainian widow Sasha Dovzhyk as an adviser to the Ukrainian army and the tragic fate of her son
He is writing an anti-war song, even though he witnessed the events in Ukraine. “Hundreds of souls, hundreds of bodies of lost people. Hundreds of mothers without children are stated in the chorus.
The Ukrainian Institute London is home to the associate lecturer in Ukrainian at the school of Slavonic and East-European Studies, who is named Sasha Dovzhyk. She has a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, University of London. Her time is split between the UK and Ukraine. The documenting Ukraine project supports her work. The views she gives in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
During December, it is a month of fairy tales when we are not afraid to peer into the darkness.
“We used to joke that our life was like a dark fairy tale inclined towards a happy ending. Ievheniia, a Ukrainian woman who fled her homeland to Poland this December to care for her two-month-old son, says that now it is over.
The war started in February of last year, when Russia invaded the east of their country. The brother of her was killed on the front lines of the Ukrainian Army when the international community turned a blind eye to Russian aggression.
In this dark Ukrainian fairy tale, pivotal moments – from marriage ceremony to funeral – take place via video link. In a time of war, this love is disrupted and shifted to the digital space.
A sports medicine physician and reserve officer, Ievheniia has too been ready to join Ukraine’s army these eight years, if called upon. She said she is not the kind of person who flees.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html
The story of Ievheniia, a bride in Poland, and the fate of her homeland during a Russian imperialist war
We have to remember that Europe plunged into darkness due to the Russian imperialist war as we rush to give gifts to our friends and family.
After driving westwards across the country under Russian bombardment, Ievheniia finally arrived at an enlistment office. She was interviewed on a Friday and told to return the following Monday to sign a contract with the Armed Forces.
On the weekend, she decided to take a pregnancy test, just in case. She laughed and said the ground was slipping under her feet during the war. “On top of that, it turned out that I was pregnant.”
The pregnancy test provided that plot twist: the woman who planned to defend her homeland instead joined the flow of refugees looking for safety in Poland.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html
A Video Wedding in Ukraine: A Story of Fairytale Events that Ends with Death and the Birth of a Boy in Decay
When war broke out Ievheniia and Denys wanted to show their commitment to the state. The everyday ingenuity of the country at war was at work; now, Ukrainian servicemen are allowed to marry via a video call. “Instead of (by) boring civil servants, we got married remotely by a handsome man in a uniform. I had nothing to complain about,” Ievheniia said.
The internet gave Denys the ability to keep the magic going, as he was able to deliver flowers and professional portraits from the trenches.
Ievheniia was found unconscious in her rented flat, after Denys raised the alarm when she did not pick up the phone. A delay could have resulted in death. A Caesarean section followed. A man was able to meet his baby son because he was born two months early.
The men of fighting age are not allowed to leave the country under martial law. Denys got permission to cross the border and spent five days with his family.
It was a time filled with mundane things; shopping, registering with a doctor, laughing. Then he left. He had his birthday on November 17 and Ievheniia sent him greetings. He was killed the next day.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html
What Is It Like to Be? Consolatory Fables of Two Former Soldiers of the Russian Military Company Wagner, and their Prisoners in Kiev
Italo Calvino, the celebrated Italian journalist and editor of folktales, among other works, called them “consolatory fables” because it is that a rare fairy tale ends badly. It means the time to be consoled has not yet arrived. It’s time to act.
We should not get carried away by the narrative logic of a fairy tale. The wily kid will not use magic to beat the monster. Ten months ago, the Ukrainians were so desperate to win the fight against Russia that they needed a lot of military aid. Ukrainian victory depends on our collective effort.
“As a teenager, I was reading a lot of fantasy books and wondering how I would act in a fight against absolute evil. Would I be able to keep going with my daily life? I was told by Ievheniia. “Today, all of us have a chance to find out.”
Two former fighters of the Russian private military company Wagner have told CNN of their horrific experiences on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, and how anyone who faltered was immediately shot by their own commanders.
The two fighters were captured by Ukrainian forces late last year. CNN doesn’t reveal their identities for their own safety. Both are married with children and were recruited while in prison. One was serving a 20-year sentence for manslaughter.
For security reasons, the Ukrainians kept a presence in the room where the interview took place. CNN told the fighters that they could end the interview at any time they wished. But they spoke in detail for more than an hour.
There were 90 of us. Sixty people died in the first assault. A few were wounded in his first assault near Bilohorivka. One group of people is sent away if it fails. If the second one is unsuccessful, they send another group.”
The other fighter was involved in an assault on the forest near the city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine for five days.
You can not help the wounded. Even if the Ukrainians had minor wounds, you still have to keep going because you are the one getting hit by the fire.
A prisoner said his self-preservation instincts kicked in and other people froze. Some people stop in the forest and drop their weapons. It’s better to drop your weapons and die than come under fire and be killed.
He said that there was no movement of the wounded. “If you’re wounded, you roll away on your own at first, any way you can, somewhere neutral where there’s no fire, and if there’s no one around, you administer first aid to yourself,” he said.
Casualties piled up by the dozen, the men said. “When the casualties arrive, you get orders to load them, and you don’t really think who’s dead and who’s wounded,” one of the fighters said.
They were numb from the deaths of the Ukrainian soldiers. You would think you would feel something. [after killing someone], but no, you just keep going.”
The other fighter reported a similar situation: “Our commander was told that if anyone gets cold feet, he would have to be eliminated. And if we failed to eliminate him, we would be eliminated for failing to eliminate him.”
The Russian prisons of Prigozhin: A trip to Russia with a friend in the middle of the Cold War, and his promise to protect the Second Line
At the time, Prigozhin’s recruitment campaign in Russia’s prisons was in full swing. It is estimated by Western intelligence officials that between 40,000 and 50,000 men were recruited.
The fighters said most came because they had long sentences and only a few came for money. “But there were also some who had only 12 days of their sentence remaining, and they went anyway.
The selection process was so rudimentary that older prisoners only had to show they could march a few yards, one of the prisoners said. “They took almost everyone.”
One of the prisoners said: “For our freedom we had to fight for six months in Ukraine, to fight the Nazis. At the same time, he promised us wages, repayment of loans, and a clean history.”
Soon after Prigozhin’s visits, hundreds of prisoners were taken by bus and plane to a training ground in the Rostov region of Russia, according to the two men.
One person said he didn’t mention anything about danger. “He talked about expunging all convictions, we would serve six months, all convictions would be expunged, an advance payment of 240,000 roubles (around $3,300) and also that our task was to hold the defense on the second line.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/12/europe/wagner-convicts-eastern-ukraine-pleitgen-intl/index.html
The American Revolutionary Army is still at war: When I was kicked out of a military post-regime I was told to leave
I was ordered by the command to dig at my location, and I did so as soon as possible. The group of 10 was sent by the government and they killed them all.
“I think it was the wrong choice… I’d never participated in any military operation, especially fighting against the AFU, which refuses to give up its land. They brought us here under the wrong pretext. And so we are at war, but I don’t think it’s a just cause,” said one.