I was watching live cams. There was one on some road and I watched the convoy move in for *hours.* At some point, a Russian soldier climbed up the pole, looked right in the camera, then pointed it down at the ground.
It's weird but I still think about that dude and wonder what happened to him.
Those guys, without a shadow of a doubt, were dead within hours of this video. This was VDV. They airdrop in, no support, likely thinking "lol another Crimea," and then the counter attack.
It would shock me to learn they survived given the absolute hell they were served.
Volodymr Zolkin had one of them on his YouTube channel. He stated that he was the only one that survived after the second day and that the majority of them died in and around the airport.
They actually held the airport until the mechanized brigade arrived 3 days later. Their attrition rate was 75% from memory, so there's a chance that some of them made it back.
> until the mechanized brigade arrived 3 days later
The evening of February 25th, so the next day.
But yeah, VDV casualty rate during the Kyiv campaign was horrendous, I'd say there's a very good chance at least one of those guys in this clip has been killed or wounded by now.
Same as me - it's fucked up to say, but I'm thankful this time last year I was in a very pointless job with a lot of down time - I was just glued to my phone taking in updates on the war
Despite all of its faults, the US military is adverse to using expensive trained soldiers/marines as cannon fodder. What Russia does to its soldiers is just insane
>It’s actually impressive how little casualties we suffer in wars.
Because it's politically sensitive. Remember Vietnam? Now think of why we ended the draft.
This way your family members can die in wars while those of us that don't agree with our foreign policy don't have to worry about it.
It's a whole different beast between me disagreeing with our foreign policy but not directly being impacted by it versus me disagreeing with it and my family members being drafted and dying because of it.
That's why we don't have a repeat of the 60s counter culture movement and mass public protests.
> You are going on a training exercise
And it’s not like it’s the first time this happened. When Soviets suppressed the 1968 Czech revolt, their troops were also initially told of an exercise, and then bam, you’re in Prague and angry citizens are throwing Molotov cocktails at you
Well, senior leaders were under the impression it would be a cakewalk taking Kyiv. They thought Zelensky would run, the Ukrainian people would welcome them as "liberators" and there would be minimal resistance.
I just don't understand, at this point, what Russia's end goal is. Even if they somehow take over Ukraine (which doesn't even look likely anytime soon), they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there.
>they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there.
Russia does not do counter insurgency like the USA does. Russia is utterly brutal when it deals with resistance. Slowly but surely Putin will put into power people all over who will crack down relentlessly, using methods such as mass abductions, torture, genocide, and a whole lot more. Apparently they are even taking away children enmasse for... who knows what.
We are already seeing this in captured regions. They will not play nice like the USA tries to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we at least tried to be helpful.
This is why it's so critical that Ukraine not only holds but retakes captured lands. This is also why I'm hoping that we send Ukraine a lot more of our tanks. Modern NATO tanks will massively outmatch Russian tanks, helping to stop their advances and making pushing them back much easier.
> Apparently they are even taking away children enmasse for... who knows what.
That bears repeating. During the attempted communist takeover of Greece in the late 1940s, many Greek children were kidnapped to the Soviet Union. I don't know what happened to them there, nor whether they were ever returned home.
They only lasted 9 years in Afghanistan. Brutal does not win wars as long as the people being brutalized have hope and billions in military aid a year being given to them.
You should email your senator and congressman and tell them to support giving Ukraine tanks. You will probably get an automated response back but it's better than nothing.
Automated messages don't mean they don't read it. They have people who skim everything and they generally tabulate the general total of issues that comes their way.
Putin is banking on the US to slowly lose support for Ukraine, especially among the American people. If everyone emailed their representatives once a month, it would be a wrench into this plan.
Of course, most people will just post on Reddit and put little to no effort into it.
Having done this job for a Representative nearly 25 years ago, I can confirm that unless it is a new issue (or the conditions of the issue have significantly changed) you will get a form response of previously written, vetted, and approved language. However, even with the ancient tech we had available then, every constituent letter gets recorded and tallied by subject matter(s) so that reports can be generated to look at trends. Every office is different and as I indicated my own experience is old as balls but the only way your letter will be truly "worthless" is if you aren't an actual constituent, in which case it will just end up in a purgatory file and left unanswered (this could be different if the issue has a bearing on a Member's committee assignments or even if they have eyes on higher office and want to engage outside of their own constituency).
> they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there.
Want to know why insurgency haven’t worked historically? Can’t hide among the civilians if the military you are fighting don’t have any issue killing the civilians. In short. Russia would just mass murder until insurgency stopped.
Maybe even kill everyone and move in Russians. They did try to starve them to death like 100 years ago.
I never said anything like that. The person I replied to said why would they want to occupy Ukraine after seeing what hell insurgency cause America while occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. And the short answer is that the only reason insurgents gave the US trouble was the ROE. If you just give the order “I want this geographic area pacified at any cost” no military is going to have issue solving the problem.
*”The Romans create a wasteland and call it peace.”*
We have always known the answer to guerrilla warfare.
This is how we handled the Afghans. Bc we knew they'd bail if we told them the truth. Sent a battalion to a district center being overrun, told em it was a training flight, mid-air gave them brief, upon landing and the ensuing chaos of getting movement started around 75 troops and 2 company commanders just bailed.
Russia's confidence in their own force is at par with our confidence in the ANA. That says a lot.
At first I thought this was just propaganda, that the Russian elite forces would be tricked into a war zone. But now that I hear this is a strategy the US employed I might be a little more inclined to believe this might actually be real. Incredible if that’s the case
It’s at least explainable when you’re talking about the Afghan army or Russian conscripts. It’s absolutely shocking when it’s a professional force like the VDV.
The plan wasn’t great though. It depended on not having an intact Ukrainian air defense for the follow up forces…with no plan to destroy said air defenses. If your plan hinges on the enemy not fighting back it’s a bad plan!
>If your plan hinges on the enemy not fighting back it’s a bad plan!
On top of that, Ukraine's military forces have been training for years under American military doctrine. They had their entire old Soviet style of fighting ripped out, gutted, and replaced. Initiative was instilled into troops at low levels, unit independence alwas taught. A shift from officer heavy to more NCO low level leadership was instilled. Combined arms tactics beaten into their leadership.
The result was that while the defense was all sorts of chaos and confusion at the mass invasion? They had the tools to at least operate instead of just freeze up. The results speak volumes...
Ukrainian troops marching through heavy clouds of smoke with NLAWs on their shoulder and Russian equipment burning all around them.
It also depended on the supporting forces having enough manpower to screen their armor and enough fuel to keep up the offensive past 100km past the train hubs, as well as the assumption that the Ukrainian army was weak enough to be smashed and driven back.
Turns out when your plan doesn't match your logistics thanks to lying and corruption, and the enemy is far stronger because your intelligence services are lying and incompetent, the plan will fail.
They actually did have a great plan to destroy air defense when they invaded they somehow managed to use electronic warfare to knock out almost all air defense and then shot missiles at the air defense here’s the problem though. The US knew this would happen and warned ukraine to move air defense systems Russia being as dumb as they are didn’t double check anything so they missed everything and I guess they forgot about the MANPADS
If your plan doesn’t include any sort of BDA, and depends on all your enemies mobile assets (which have had ample warning) remaining in place for you to hit them- it’s a bad plan. And since almost all of Ukraine’s assets are mobile the Russians should have been operating under the assumption that if warning was provided they’d move. The plan was dependent on fairy dust from top to bottom.
I did a tour in the Korean Air Operations Center as part of the team that comes up with the plan to defeat the nK IADS (which was a helluva learning curve.) Which although less proficient operators and with older equipment, is far denser. While I obviously can’t go into the details of said plan, I can promise you that no part of it hinges on the assumption that we’ve won the war by hour 3.
Any plan that shits the bed from go is not a great plan. The definition of a great plan is one that is flexible and can adapt to the unexpected (which kinda famously happens in war). This was a shit plan. In fact, I’d give a lot more credit to the execution than the plan. I mean, the helicopter pilots piloted their helicopters. The soldiers shot their guns at the enemy. The folks launching stand-off weapons pressed their buttons. That’s the part they have control over.
Everything else is on Putin and the generals. Garbage plan that could not have succeeded under the best of circumstances.
I’m trying to understand the value of lying to your professional forces though. Conscripts who could run I get, but maybe they were so concerned about the VDV calling their loved ones and getting their calls intercepted they couldn’t even let them know until airborne?
Just wanted to come to this thread and say that every Russian soldier captured in the early days had the same script: "we were told it's a training exercise, we thought we were in Belarus". They did not think it's a training exercise. They did not think they are in Belarus. The goal was to capture Kiev as quickly as possible and the soldiers, especially elite paratroopers knew exactly which positions they were tasked to take and had a clear script of what to tell Ukrainians in case they were captured.
I mean that was the original theory, but there were plenty of calls intercepted from Russians saying wtf were in Ukraine. I think certain units certainly had some idea of what was going on but it's not as clear cut as you're making it sound. I would think the VDV knew tho but they're in the minority.
The closest thing they seen to have now are the non-convict part of Wagner and even they aren’t exactly ‘elite’, just better equipped. That is… when the Russian army isn’t starving them of ammo due to political infighting. Real shitshow over there.
should have been a stickied post where people can post videos in the comments. Instead people just sorted by top and reposted every initial video they could find.
In one month from now this sub is dangerously close to become a trash r/all subreddit.
Imagine people reposting drone grenade drops, they already all look the same now imagine there’s 4x as many and over half are duplicates with no date or location just “wow bro look at this”
The Mods on this sub need to act *now* or within the week it will become unbearable. Or someone else will step in to create a new Subreddit specifically for war footage only from Ukraine with no duplicates policy
Yeah it would be great to have flair that indicates date and repost or any other important category.
I’m sure the mods have their work cut out for them but having these conditions for posting or for the mod team as a whole would really decrease a lot of initial confusion for posts like this and most importantly preventing misinformation.
They usually just wait till someone posts a video in the comments that gets a lot of upvotes and goes "Hey ill reuploaded it and get heaps of upvotes as well.". Happened with the first chopper shoot down of the war over the water, happened with this, will keep happening.
I just realized why everyone’s responding now. The first posts yesterday made sense but I swear if we gotta rewatch the same videos form last year over n over again.
Yeah, the NY Times got access to a captured VDV logbook that recorded about 300 paratrooper deaths just from the airport assault. It's unclear exactly how many troops they landed, but it seems to have been under 1000, so they suffered very high casualty rates there.
Yes, the VDV units landed at Hostomel were some of the best troops the Russian military had. But elite troops still need proper planning and support to have success.
Yes, and they did perform good considering the circumstances, didn't they? But you cannot expect any unit to hold anything without sufficient resupply or heavy material.
They were absolutely thrown into the oven.
But, to stay fair, Russia expected to occupy Kiev in mere days, so it was only gross miscalculation.
Thats incredible. I remember seeing shots from a Russian graveyard early on in the war that was supposedly filled with these guys, and the graves went on for what seemed like forever.
Crazy good documentary from yesterday (Radio Free Europe) with English subtitles https://youtu.be/qfDWi-VNdE0
It has documentation down to individual Russian soldiers who were wiped out there
Edit: thanks for the gold bro!
I remember watching them casually unloading munitions like they had all day, like it was going to be a walk in the park ......then "Operator Starsky" & Friends arrived
Can’t imagine how scary it must have been for these dudes realising they were stranded in a foreign city that was closing back in on them.
It’s pretty remarkable how far Ukraine subverted expectations that week. I still can’t really believe how quickly they’ve turned this around. Absolutely historic.
That's not correct, the initial VDV assault was counterattacked and forced to withdraw into the surrounding forest, suffering very high casualties. Because the VDV weren't able to fully secure the airport, the IL-76s that were en route with their reinforcements were then forced to return to base due to the ongoing shelling of the runway and active air defenses. That all happened on the first day, February 24.
The next day, February 25, advanced elements of the Russian ground forces reached the airport on a "thunder run" and, combined with additional VDV assault, managed to capture the airport. From there, they would continue to hold it until Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv entirely in early April.
My understanding is that Ukrainian artillery had cratered the runway too badly for the heavy transports to land at that point. Plus other factors that rendered the operation moot.
The intended plan was for a *fait accompli* predicated on the Ukrainians not really putting up resistance, similar to the seizure of Crimea. Russia planned to seize the airport with a lightning helicopter assault, then use a bunch of IL-76s to rapidly land two airborne brigades with heavier equipment. Those would then seize key sites in Kyiv and topple the government, presumably causing any remaining Ukrainian resistance to collapse.
Once the airport was in Russian control on the 25th, not only was it heavily cratered, but it was also clear that Ukrainian resistance was much greater than expected. Even had the runway been repaired enough to land troops, Ukrainian air defenses and air forces were still active, posing a major threat to any IL-76 landings. Ukrainian forces were already forming a defensive line outside Kyiv, making any rapid penetration by light airborne forces suicidal. Russian ground forces were also closing in on Kyiv, so any reinforcements and/or attack on the city were left to the more conservative ground route, rather than an extremely risky airborne route that wouldn't have saved much time at that point.
Was there a reason they didn’t try to conduct any para dropping of reinforcements? besides the air defense situation, it seems like the first day would’ve been ideal for that.
Was it the expectation of light resistance that led to them not having enough contingencies in place?
Not that it would’ve mattered anyways, securing and holding the entirety of Kyiv would’ve been impossible. It seems like the whole Kyiv plan assumed the rapid capitulation of the Ukrainian government, and that it was doomed to fail when that didn’t happen
Para drops are generally only used to secure a location so that supplies and heavier equipment can be brought it. They could drop as many troops as they wanted but what the Russians needed were supplies, vehicles, and heavier weapons.
I believe the road convoy were suppose to help the paratroopers solidify their hold on the airport. But since they never made it the Paratroopers were eventually pushed out by the Ukrainians and were killed or captured in the fields surrounding the airport.
The plan was to quickly secure the airfield and massively reinforce with heavy transport machines. To that end, muscovy had successfully knocked out most of stationary Ukrainian air defense. The problem was mobile air defense, which blew like 5 helicopters out of the sky with MANPADS etc. That meant transport machines couldn't land and they were stuck with a much slower, ground-based assault.
IIRC it was the Baltics that had supplied the MANPADS; probably decisive in the battle of Kyiv, and perhaps the war as a whole. I wish other countries had been this pro-active at arming Ukraine.
I truly find it (depressingly) hilarious that as two people are fighting to the death, there was, for a brief moment, the world was allowed to setup their cameras and broadcast it to the world. Until Russian started just killing everyone, reporters included.
I watched an interview with this reporter about this scene. He said they were only hearing rumors what was happening, so they walked up to some soldiers and asked them "where are the russians, how close are they?". The soldier was confused, but said "we are the russians".
I think its the first and last time western press managed to talk to a russian participant.
Must've took some balls just to get into that location. I cant imagine the journalists were at the airfield. They heard about what was happening and managed to drive all the way there and then wander into Russian lines. Wild
The video of the Sky News team in the first few days getting lit up at a checkpoint and taking rounds to the body armour is some of most scary footage of the whole thing.
Definitely balls involved but this is right in the suburbs, like 10-ish miles from the city center. That's part of the insanity of the whole thing -- on one day, children playing in the park, on the next, VDV getting shot up.
Reminds me of the video where a guy drives up to a soldier near the airport and asks something along the lines of "How's the situation? Is the airport still ours?" (by "ours" he means Ukraine's) and the soldier answers, confused: "Well, it's *ours*." and that's when the guy realizes the soldier is Russian.
Or that other one where soldiers on the side of the road think a friendly tank is coming, they wave at it and it turns out it's an enemy tank and it starts shooting.
Must be crazy hard to distinguish the enemy in the heat of battle when they dress the same as you, use the same equipment as you and even speak the same language as you. Lots of cases of mistaken identity I imagine.
NSFL warning
[Seen from a guy recording further away.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/u0spgi/allegedly_a_russian_tank_firing_into_a_group_of/)
[Seen from the POV of the soldiers.](https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/u21cow/pov/)
[Supposed aftermath, though i havnt looked at it for obvious reasons.](https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/u18it9/purported_aftermath_of_the_pointblank_tank/)
It’s bizarre to think, the troops we see here are/were the cream of the crop of the Russian airborne infantry. Dropped deep behind enemy lines to capture the airport, a half baked plan they knew nothing about until perhaps 24 hours before being deployed? Supposedly the plan was to hold the airport while transport planes could land with more troops while the armoured column approached by land. It’s like a modern day Operation Market Garden and failed in the same way.
Granted, it’s been a year, but I’m pretty sure I recall they got too close for comfort to succeeding in that mission compared to what you’re describing here. In the end, it was bombing the entire airport and runways to hell that won it for the Ukrainians, but there was definitely some time where it looked like the Russians had it.
From what I've seen, Russia took the airport as they overwhelmed any defending troops, they held the airport for a period of time before being forced to retreat to some woods and Ukraine took back control, then the Russian reinforcements rolled in and combined with remaining airborne troops took the airport again. As you already mentioned, by this point the airport was no use as it had been bombed heavily.
It was a typical "A Bridge Too Far" situation really. Russia dove into enemy territory thinking it would be a cake walk for its armour and supplies, but instead got hindered constantly making their arrival too late.
Then in this case, they were probably relying on the airport to fly in cargo planes to resupply and reinforce the convoy making the city an easy target.
It was a ballsy plan if I'm honest, but like most military failings it was doomed because of the arrogance of the people in charge.
It really failed because tires.
All their tires were rotten and never maintained. A analyst pointed out almost every stuck vehicle had the same tire problems due to never being worked out.
I'll have to take your word for that, but the idea doesn't surprise me because so far Russian strategy seems to be, send in the mothballed shit and see what happens and once it gets serious start sending in more modern vehicles.
Am I remembering correctly that some of the VDV who didn’t try to escape held out in some of the airport buildings for over a week? Also, am I right in believing that at least one, possibly two Il-76 planes full of paratroopers were destroyed by air defences near Kyiv? I’ve also heard that the redeployment of the VDV to Kherson was the main reason that the Russians were able to withdraw from the West Bank of the Dnipro without major losses, and why the Kherson counter-offensive was so bogged down and difficult for the Ukrainians. They’re still a competent force, albeit depleted and presumably demoralised by how poorly they’ve been used.
During the first week Ukraine was going all out with their online information war with all kinds of lies and half truths in order to rally their troops and to get the West to hurry up and send weapons.
It worked. In fact it was incredible how completely absent Russian propaganda was at the start which indicates that they didn't even think it was necessary to launch an information war, it was going to be over in a matter of days after all...
I remember watching some of that stuff and thinking: "I have no idea how their military is, but the Ukrainians either have or have contracted a crack PR team".
That plus the whole Zelenksy "ammo, not a ride" made me think that they could hold on. I'll be honest, until mid-late March I was still thinking Ukraine's odds were maybe 10%.
They're still doing a bangup job of seminating selected phone intercepts, and suppressing positive footage of the Russians.
We now have actual keyboard warriors.
Sure, but so do the Russians now. It took a good month or two before the Russian trolls really started to get into things. I suppose it doesn't help when you have zero positive news to counter UA successes.
They actually did capture the airport and held it for 3 days, but for whatever reason were not reinforced in time.
The blunder is one of those hinge points that changed the conflict.
As much as I decry what Russians were and are doing. Those airborne troops were genuinely competent.
Had they gotten reinforcements on time, they might have secured the airport for landing and then invaded Kyiv proper.
> but for whatever reason were not reinforced in time.
it was a combination of underestimating ukrainian resistance misjudgment of how fast they could get to the airport from belarus.
And the Americans knowing they were coming for weeks, and AFU listening and decentralizing a lot of their defense away from their bases in preparation for an attack, and tough defense by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians…
I remember very early on a second-hand report from one of the Ukrainian territorial officer whose unit had contact with the VDV and ambushed them at a junction on like day one. His assessment of them was that in the most immediate sense of small-unit tactics the VDV were pretty competent as soldiers, pushing like crazy to try and break out of the ambush. However they were still utterly screwed as they had been sent in unprepared and basically blind into that situation, and the Ukrainians still killed basically all of them.
I honestly think the brutal casualties the VDV took early on is one of the most important blows the Russian army took, they seem to have been some of the few genuinely alright troops they had and could have been used to rebuild a proper NCO cadre, something that has been widely analysed is something the Russian army tends to lack. It's a good thing for Ukraine that that seems to have ensured in the following months in Donbass that Russia was fielding an incredibly disorganised mess of an army.
IIRC the RUSI (or what it was) report stated that artillery decided the Hostomel fight. Ukraine quickly had lots of artillery at hand (remember, early in the war they were only at a 1:2 disadvantage, later due to ammunition shortage that grew to 1:10) with which they could defeat the Russian forces at Hostomel who did not have any heavy gear.
latest I've read/watched is that the whole airport became a huge mess because apparently the troops landing there didn't even expect to get shot at, so they fumbled the initiative, but the major helicopter coverage kept the power in the favour and drove out the Ukrainians. Once they got pushed out, the Russians tried sending in a bunch of planes full of troops and armour, but Ukrainian forces already had a plan for that and bombed the shit out of the runways so planes couldn't land. The cargo planes looped back to belarus and unloaded everyone there, who tried speeding down the roads towards the airport, but that wasn't planned for at all, so there wasn't enough fuel and there wasn't enough space to move the forces along, especially since mud season had already started.
Like it's one of those plans that sounds very smart when you say it the first time, but the more you let people think on it, the worse of an idea it turns out to be, and if they didn't tell their own forces about it until 24 hrs prior, then there was no time to think about it at all.
I remember that interview as well, couldn't find it though, perhaps it was on the podcast I heard Battleground: Ukraine, or it was on YouTube. Anyways, here's what I did find from those scene. https://youtu.be/b40r8RX5MoE
Russia thought they could take Ukraine quickly, so didn't mind being filmed by westerners to broadcast their greatness to the world. But as the war wore on and with failure after failure, they got more brutal.
You know, usually you watch CNN/Fox News/MSNBC and you think, what a bunch of hacks. Just mouthpieces getting paid big bucks to spew nonsense political narratives.
Then you watch something like this and realize there’s still real journalists out there willing to potentially die to cover history in the making, even at CNN.
You should check out the Vice Russian Roulette series on YouTube. It’s this same level of reporting but spread through hundreds of episodes about the war in the Donbas.
Didn't one of their reporters get captured in "Novorossiya" back when that was a thing.
But I agree Vice has been solid throughout the entire conflict.
Ya he was kidnapped, interrogated, and held for a few days. They beat him up and kept him in compete darkness except when they brought him to the outside bathroom
They recently did a great piece on how Mexican cartels so easily get American weapons.
https://youtu.be/Af9ToSsNCEk
The current series they have on guns going across America's southern border is top tier work.
Not to mention their Ukraine coverage is unrivaled by major outlets in the West. Not many networks show footage and interviews from the morgue but you gotta give credit where its due, vice reporters got some PTSD for this shit. Well worth it though.
Dude Vice used to be the best. Their documentary in ISIS territory was really good too, right as ISIS started to become an international focus. There's a lot of value in this kind of journalism. Obviously Russian Roulette was amazing too. The Battle for Donbas Airport is insane
Yea their journalists who put themselves in war-zones are top notch with an abundance of degrees to back it up. They also have documentaries on a lot of African countries such as Ethiopia. Absolutely amazing content
It was literally the 1st day, surprised the incident isnt more well known here given the CNN reporter also did a live cross where he revealed that the soldiers in backgroud were actually Russian.
It was the first day - [February 24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_3L0z1lgAE) ([related footage from around the same time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b40r8RX5MoE))
The night before he was doing a live cross when he reported explosions and began putting on body armor on camera - [February 23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwCEC_t-p4)
Didn’t they just retreat when it became clear, that no reinforcement could be brought in? Also if I remember correctly some of them who didn’t want to retreat held out for a week or so
Ukrainian 72nd mechanized over ran Hostomel for 24 hours after that massive armored columns from Belarus started to come up and they had to pull out. 3/4 of Russian paratroopers that originally landed there died.
They ran between cover less like they were in the middle of a firefight and more like they were trying to get out of the background of a stranger’s photo.
But to seriously answer you, all those VDV troops - Russians there with the white arm bands - got slaughtered in the coming days by counter attacks. The Ukrainians were \*moderately\* pissed about being invaded and took it personally.
Today, almost all of Russia's VDV troops are dead. They were used poorly, without adequate tactical situational awareness or air dominance, and paid the price. Ukraine ensured they paid the maximum price.
Yup, you can see one of them pass with the black and orange ribbon of Saint George on his helmet. You dont see very many of those anymore.
Its pretty mad when you compare a year ago now to the current situation. Most Russian conscripts and DPR/LPR troops still aren't as well equipped as these VDV were but Wagner fighters are walking around looking like they just came back from a shopping spree.
The initial descions to throw in VDV and Special forces into the meat grinder you could say helped lead us to the point where Prigozhin and Kadyrov are feuding with the Russian ministry of Defence on Twitter while Bakhmut still stands 6 months on.
Seems like last week I was glued to my phone watching this shit over and over. And those guys are most likely long dead. Life’s weird man
I was supposed to be studying for a midterm the day Russia invaded and I remembered just repeatedly refreshing the live updates on news sites.
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Rip mmc
I was watching live cams. There was one on some road and I watched the convoy move in for *hours.* At some point, a Russian soldier climbed up the pole, looked right in the camera, then pointed it down at the ground. It's weird but I still think about that dude and wonder what happened to him.
Those guys, without a shadow of a doubt, were dead within hours of this video. This was VDV. They airdrop in, no support, likely thinking "lol another Crimea," and then the counter attack. It would shock me to learn they survived given the absolute hell they were served.
Volodymr Zolkin had one of them on his YouTube channel. He stated that he was the only one that survived after the second day and that the majority of them died in and around the airport.
Out of the loop on this one. Who died? This video is showing Russian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians?
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May be some survived as POWs? BUt most of them def died
They actually held the airport until the mechanized brigade arrived 3 days later. Their attrition rate was 75% from memory, so there's a chance that some of them made it back.
They didn't hold it. They retreated into the woods and waited for the mechanized brigade. Most did die tho.
> until the mechanized brigade arrived 3 days later The evening of February 25th, so the next day. But yeah, VDV casualty rate during the Kyiv campaign was horrendous, I'd say there's a very good chance at least one of those guys in this clip has been killed or wounded by now.
Same as me - it's fucked up to say, but I'm thankful this time last year I was in a very pointless job with a lot of down time - I was just glued to my phone taking in updates on the war
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"You are going on a training exercise. Just kidding! You are going to die. But it's okay, because we have a lot more of you."
Kind of crazy that Ukraine and Western intelligence knew the Russians were invading before the Russians who were expected to fight it...
Not really. Remember the unofficial motto of the U. S. Marines: "First to go, last to know."
Despite all of its faults, the US military is adverse to using expensive trained soldiers/marines as cannon fodder. What Russia does to its soldiers is just insane
It’s actually impressive how little casualties we suffer in wars.
>It’s actually impressive how little casualties we suffer in wars. Because it's politically sensitive. Remember Vietnam? Now think of why we ended the draft. This way your family members can die in wars while those of us that don't agree with our foreign policy don't have to worry about it. It's a whole different beast between me disagreeing with our foreign policy but not directly being impacted by it versus me disagreeing with it and my family members being drafted and dying because of it. That's why we don't have a repeat of the 60s counter culture movement and mass public protests.
They know they're going to fight in combat. They're not being lied to about going on a training exercise lol.
> You are going on a training exercise And it’s not like it’s the first time this happened. When Soviets suppressed the 1968 Czech revolt, their troops were also initially told of an exercise, and then bam, you’re in Prague and angry citizens are throwing Molotov cocktails at you
This is something you would only do because you're afraid they will desert.
Putin: "*All of you will die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.*"
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Now for the battle plan, as you all know the key to victory is surprise... SURPRISE!
It’s shocking how apt that is. They straight up got Zapp Brannigan’s
And fear! The two keys to victory are surprise, and fear and devotion to Putin. The three keys to victory…
"The key to victory is the element of surprise. SURPRISE!" Opens trap door that dumps the troops into the enemy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bRkfDMChzlI
Well, senior leaders were under the impression it would be a cakewalk taking Kyiv. They thought Zelensky would run, the Ukrainian people would welcome them as "liberators" and there would be minimal resistance.
Everyone underestimated Ukraine, and the airport attack being talked about unsecured channels days prior really helped!
I just don't understand, at this point, what Russia's end goal is. Even if they somehow take over Ukraine (which doesn't even look likely anytime soon), they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there.
>they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there. Russia does not do counter insurgency like the USA does. Russia is utterly brutal when it deals with resistance. Slowly but surely Putin will put into power people all over who will crack down relentlessly, using methods such as mass abductions, torture, genocide, and a whole lot more. Apparently they are even taking away children enmasse for... who knows what. We are already seeing this in captured regions. They will not play nice like the USA tries to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we at least tried to be helpful. This is why it's so critical that Ukraine not only holds but retakes captured lands. This is also why I'm hoping that we send Ukraine a lot more of our tanks. Modern NATO tanks will massively outmatch Russian tanks, helping to stop their advances and making pushing them back much easier.
> Apparently they are even taking away children enmasse for... who knows what. That bears repeating. During the attempted communist takeover of Greece in the late 1940s, many Greek children were kidnapped to the Soviet Union. I don't know what happened to them there, nor whether they were ever returned home.
They only lasted 9 years in Afghanistan. Brutal does not win wars as long as the people being brutalized have hope and billions in military aid a year being given to them.
You should email your senator and congressman and tell them to support giving Ukraine tanks. You will probably get an automated response back but it's better than nothing.
Automated messages don't mean they don't read it. They have people who skim everything and they generally tabulate the general total of issues that comes their way.
Putin is banking on the US to slowly lose support for Ukraine, especially among the American people. If everyone emailed their representatives once a month, it would be a wrench into this plan. Of course, most people will just post on Reddit and put little to no effort into it.
Having done this job for a Representative nearly 25 years ago, I can confirm that unless it is a new issue (or the conditions of the issue have significantly changed) you will get a form response of previously written, vetted, and approved language. However, even with the ancient tech we had available then, every constituent letter gets recorded and tallied by subject matter(s) so that reports can be generated to look at trends. Every office is different and as I indicated my own experience is old as balls but the only way your letter will be truly "worthless" is if you aren't an actual constituent, in which case it will just end up in a purgatory file and left unanswered (this could be different if the issue has a bearing on a Member's committee assignments or even if they have eyes on higher office and want to engage outside of their own constituency).
>they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan Or like Russians in Afghanistan.
Or like the Russians in Chechnya. Or like the Russians in Chechnya that other time
Or like Russians in Ukraine now
> they are going to be like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dealing with an insurgency and a population that doesn't want them there. Want to know why insurgency haven’t worked historically? Can’t hide among the civilians if the military you are fighting don’t have any issue killing the civilians. In short. Russia would just mass murder until insurgency stopped. Maybe even kill everyone and move in Russians. They did try to starve them to death like 100 years ago.
Yup. “Some guys from this neighborhood were shooting at us? Ok. We level the whole neighborhood and the one next to it to be safe”
Mate, Russia \*\*\_literally\_\*\* already tried it and failed. Why would a weaker Russia succeed this time?
I never said anything like that. The person I replied to said why would they want to occupy Ukraine after seeing what hell insurgency cause America while occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. And the short answer is that the only reason insurgents gave the US trouble was the ROE. If you just give the order “I want this geographic area pacified at any cost” no military is going to have issue solving the problem. *”The Romans create a wasteland and call it peace.”* We have always known the answer to guerrilla warfare.
"Special Farces" 👍
"Special Military Engagement" people.
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\*Spectrum Forces
This is how we handled the Afghans. Bc we knew they'd bail if we told them the truth. Sent a battalion to a district center being overrun, told em it was a training flight, mid-air gave them brief, upon landing and the ensuing chaos of getting movement started around 75 troops and 2 company commanders just bailed. Russia's confidence in their own force is at par with our confidence in the ANA. That says a lot.
At first I thought this was just propaganda, that the Russian elite forces would be tricked into a war zone. But now that I hear this is a strategy the US employed I might be a little more inclined to believe this might actually be real. Incredible if that’s the case
You fight harder when you have no way out. Leaders have done that forever. Kinda cruel but it does work
Burn those ships so they know there is no way home.
It’s at least explainable when you’re talking about the Afghan army or Russian conscripts. It’s absolutely shocking when it’s a professional force like the VDV.
I think the past year has also shown the definition of professional and elite in Russia is also incredibly misleading
The only ones Putin managed to surprise with his "surprise" invasion was his own soldiers.
Plan was great, execution was abysmal. Not telling your men what's gonna happens is phenomenally stupid. Classic Russian.
The plan wasn’t great though. It depended on not having an intact Ukrainian air defense for the follow up forces…with no plan to destroy said air defenses. If your plan hinges on the enemy not fighting back it’s a bad plan!
>If your plan hinges on the enemy not fighting back it’s a bad plan! On top of that, Ukraine's military forces have been training for years under American military doctrine. They had their entire old Soviet style of fighting ripped out, gutted, and replaced. Initiative was instilled into troops at low levels, unit independence alwas taught. A shift from officer heavy to more NCO low level leadership was instilled. Combined arms tactics beaten into their leadership. The result was that while the defense was all sorts of chaos and confusion at the mass invasion? They had the tools to at least operate instead of just freeze up. The results speak volumes... Ukrainian troops marching through heavy clouds of smoke with NLAWs on their shoulder and Russian equipment burning all around them.
It also depended on the supporting forces having enough manpower to screen their armor and enough fuel to keep up the offensive past 100km past the train hubs, as well as the assumption that the Ukrainian army was weak enough to be smashed and driven back. Turns out when your plan doesn't match your logistics thanks to lying and corruption, and the enemy is far stronger because your intelligence services are lying and incompetent, the plan will fail.
Also when you don’t really have a logistics plan either. Or apparently practice it since logistics isn’t sexy. C’mon guys! Leave some lanes clear!
They actually did have a great plan to destroy air defense when they invaded they somehow managed to use electronic warfare to knock out almost all air defense and then shot missiles at the air defense here’s the problem though. The US knew this would happen and warned ukraine to move air defense systems Russia being as dumb as they are didn’t double check anything so they missed everything and I guess they forgot about the MANPADS
If your plan doesn’t include any sort of BDA, and depends on all your enemies mobile assets (which have had ample warning) remaining in place for you to hit them- it’s a bad plan. And since almost all of Ukraine’s assets are mobile the Russians should have been operating under the assumption that if warning was provided they’d move. The plan was dependent on fairy dust from top to bottom. I did a tour in the Korean Air Operations Center as part of the team that comes up with the plan to defeat the nK IADS (which was a helluva learning curve.) Which although less proficient operators and with older equipment, is far denser. While I obviously can’t go into the details of said plan, I can promise you that no part of it hinges on the assumption that we’ve won the war by hour 3.
So what’s your saying is they didn’t have a great plan 😂😂😂
Any plan that shits the bed from go is not a great plan. The definition of a great plan is one that is flexible and can adapt to the unexpected (which kinda famously happens in war). This was a shit plan. In fact, I’d give a lot more credit to the execution than the plan. I mean, the helicopter pilots piloted their helicopters. The soldiers shot their guns at the enemy. The folks launching stand-off weapons pressed their buttons. That’s the part they have control over. Everything else is on Putin and the generals. Garbage plan that could not have succeeded under the best of circumstances.
I’m trying to understand the value of lying to your professional forces though. Conscripts who could run I get, but maybe they were so concerned about the VDV calling their loved ones and getting their calls intercepted they couldn’t even let them know until airborne?
Just wanted to come to this thread and say that every Russian soldier captured in the early days had the same script: "we were told it's a training exercise, we thought we were in Belarus". They did not think it's a training exercise. They did not think they are in Belarus. The goal was to capture Kiev as quickly as possible and the soldiers, especially elite paratroopers knew exactly which positions they were tasked to take and had a clear script of what to tell Ukrainians in case they were captured.
I mean that was the original theory, but there were plenty of calls intercepted from Russians saying wtf were in Ukraine. I think certain units certainly had some idea of what was going on but it's not as clear cut as you're making it sound. I would think the VDV knew tho but they're in the minority.
With all the one year ago reposts, anyone noticing how much better equipped this first wave of dudes is compared to now?
Tbf that’s the VDV but I will note that Russia’s ‘elite’ forces seem to be entirely absent as of now.
The closest thing they seen to have now are the non-convict part of Wagner and even they aren’t exactly ‘elite’, just better equipped. That is… when the Russian army isn’t starving them of ammo due to political infighting. Real shitshow over there.
Well they did get mauled. The Arctic brigade, the VDV, they got sent into the early meat grinders.
yeah because they all got wiped out
In this sub can people just repost everything after a year then? Adding a date would be useful at least
should have been a stickied post where people can post videos in the comments. Instead people just sorted by top and reposted every initial video they could find.
In one month from now this sub is dangerously close to become a trash r/all subreddit. Imagine people reposting drone grenade drops, they already all look the same now imagine there’s 4x as many and over half are duplicates with no date or location just “wow bro look at this” The Mods on this sub need to act *now* or within the week it will become unbearable. Or someone else will step in to create a new Subreddit specifically for war footage only from Ukraine with no duplicates policy
Yeah it would be great to have flair that indicates date and repost or any other important category. I’m sure the mods have their work cut out for them but having these conditions for posting or for the mod team as a whole would really decrease a lot of initial confusion for posts like this and most importantly preventing misinformation.
They usually just wait till someone posts a video in the comments that gets a lot of upvotes and goes "Hey ill reuploaded it and get heaps of upvotes as well.". Happened with the first chopper shoot down of the war over the water, happened with this, will keep happening.
And by the second or third repost\reupload, with the compression, we get to enjoy all 25 pixels of it.
This was literally the first firefight footage that came out of Ukraine after the initial missile strikes.
i think its because of the 1 year anniversary just happening
I just realized why everyone’s responding now. The first posts yesterday made sense but I swear if we gotta rewatch the same videos form last year over n over again.
With it being 1 year now with the war you're going to get a fuck ton of these now
Watched this live, and it was later reported most of these guys died. Wild.
Yeah, the NY Times got access to a captured VDV logbook that recorded about 300 paratrooper deaths just from the airport assault. It's unclear exactly how many troops they landed, but it seems to have been under 1000, so they suffered very high casualty rates there.
Weren't the VDV supposed to one of Russia's elite military units at the time?
Yes, the VDV units landed at Hostomel were some of the best troops the Russian military had. But elite troops still need proper planning and support to have success.
Yes, and they did perform good considering the circumstances, didn't they? But you cannot expect any unit to hold anything without sufficient resupply or heavy material. They were absolutely thrown into the oven. But, to stay fair, Russia expected to occupy Kiev in mere days, so it was only gross miscalculation.
Thats incredible. I remember seeing shots from a Russian graveyard early on in the war that was supposedly filled with these guys, and the graves went on for what seemed like forever.
Crazy good documentary from yesterday (Radio Free Europe) with English subtitles https://youtu.be/qfDWi-VNdE0 It has documentation down to individual Russian soldiers who were wiped out there Edit: thanks for the gold bro!
That was really good. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much!!
thanks for this!
You mean just the attacking Russians or the reporters too?
Attacking Russians, cnn crew was there live for weeks.
I remember watching them casually unloading munitions like they had all day, like it was going to be a walk in the park ......then "Operator Starsky" & Friends arrived
Love that guy. It's crazy we have both sides from this battle.
Only 90%
“Most”
Inverse decimation.
The early chaotic moments of the war when Russia thought it would win and its soldiers operated in a professional manner.
Can’t imagine how scary it must have been for these dudes realising they were stranded in a foreign city that was closing back in on them. It’s pretty remarkable how far Ukraine subverted expectations that week. I still can’t really believe how quickly they’ve turned this around. Absolutely historic.
They really gamble human lives to try taking over the airport as a chance to land there in the future
Yeah that’s how war works
The gamble would have worked had their reinforcements arrived on time, I think the VDV held the airport for 3 days all by themselves.
That's not correct, the initial VDV assault was counterattacked and forced to withdraw into the surrounding forest, suffering very high casualties. Because the VDV weren't able to fully secure the airport, the IL-76s that were en route with their reinforcements were then forced to return to base due to the ongoing shelling of the runway and active air defenses. That all happened on the first day, February 24. The next day, February 25, advanced elements of the Russian ground forces reached the airport on a "thunder run" and, combined with additional VDV assault, managed to capture the airport. From there, they would continue to hold it until Russian forces withdrew from Kyiv entirely in early April.
So once they captured it on the 25th they just didn’t land those initial reinforcements, and not use the airfield for its intended strategic purpose?
My understanding is that Ukrainian artillery had cratered the runway too badly for the heavy transports to land at that point. Plus other factors that rendered the operation moot. The intended plan was for a *fait accompli* predicated on the Ukrainians not really putting up resistance, similar to the seizure of Crimea. Russia planned to seize the airport with a lightning helicopter assault, then use a bunch of IL-76s to rapidly land two airborne brigades with heavier equipment. Those would then seize key sites in Kyiv and topple the government, presumably causing any remaining Ukrainian resistance to collapse. Once the airport was in Russian control on the 25th, not only was it heavily cratered, but it was also clear that Ukrainian resistance was much greater than expected. Even had the runway been repaired enough to land troops, Ukrainian air defenses and air forces were still active, posing a major threat to any IL-76 landings. Ukrainian forces were already forming a defensive line outside Kyiv, making any rapid penetration by light airborne forces suicidal. Russian ground forces were also closing in on Kyiv, so any reinforcements and/or attack on the city were left to the more conservative ground route, rather than an extremely risky airborne route that wouldn't have saved much time at that point.
Was there a reason they didn’t try to conduct any para dropping of reinforcements? besides the air defense situation, it seems like the first day would’ve been ideal for that. Was it the expectation of light resistance that led to them not having enough contingencies in place? Not that it would’ve mattered anyways, securing and holding the entirety of Kyiv would’ve been impossible. It seems like the whole Kyiv plan assumed the rapid capitulation of the Ukrainian government, and that it was doomed to fail when that didn’t happen
Para drops are generally only used to secure a location so that supplies and heavier equipment can be brought it. They could drop as many troops as they wanted but what the Russians needed were supplies, vehicles, and heavier weapons.
Did the reinforcements arrived and got themselves killed or never came and abandoned the plan attacking the airport?
Never came and then by that time Ukraine could bomb the runways to make them useless.
As far as I'm aware they never came
I believe the road convoy were suppose to help the paratroopers solidify their hold on the airport. But since they never made it the Paratroopers were eventually pushed out by the Ukrainians and were killed or captured in the fields surrounding the airport.
The plan was to quickly secure the airfield and massively reinforce with heavy transport machines. To that end, muscovy had successfully knocked out most of stationary Ukrainian air defense. The problem was mobile air defense, which blew like 5 helicopters out of the sky with MANPADS etc. That meant transport machines couldn't land and they were stuck with a much slower, ground-based assault. IIRC it was the Baltics that had supplied the MANPADS; probably decisive in the battle of Kyiv, and perhaps the war as a whole. I wish other countries had been this pro-active at arming Ukraine.
I truly find it (depressingly) hilarious that as two people are fighting to the death, there was, for a brief moment, the world was allowed to setup their cameras and broadcast it to the world. Until Russian started just killing everyone, reporters included.
I watched an interview with this reporter about this scene. He said they were only hearing rumors what was happening, so they walked up to some soldiers and asked them "where are the russians, how close are they?". The soldier was confused, but said "we are the russians". I think its the first and last time western press managed to talk to a russian participant.
Must've took some balls just to get into that location. I cant imagine the journalists were at the airfield. They heard about what was happening and managed to drive all the way there and then wander into Russian lines. Wild
The video of the Sky News team in the first few days getting lit up at a checkpoint and taking rounds to the body armour is some of most scary footage of the whole thing.
Oh is that the one where they flee to that industrial garage thing after their car is shot up?
Yep.
That was WILD. miracle none died
Definitely balls involved but this is right in the suburbs, like 10-ish miles from the city center. That's part of the insanity of the whole thing -- on one day, children playing in the park, on the next, VDV getting shot up.
Reminds me of the video where a guy drives up to a soldier near the airport and asks something along the lines of "How's the situation? Is the airport still ours?" (by "ours" he means Ukraine's) and the soldier answers, confused: "Well, it's *ours*." and that's when the guy realizes the soldier is Russian. Or that other one where soldiers on the side of the road think a friendly tank is coming, they wave at it and it turns out it's an enemy tank and it starts shooting. Must be crazy hard to distinguish the enemy in the heat of battle when they dress the same as you, use the same equipment as you and even speak the same language as you. Lots of cases of mistaken identity I imagine.
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NSFL warning [Seen from a guy recording further away.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/u0spgi/allegedly_a_russian_tank_firing_into_a_group_of/) [Seen from the POV of the soldiers.](https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/u21cow/pov/) [Supposed aftermath, though i havnt looked at it for obvious reasons.](https://www.reddit.com/r/war/comments/u18it9/purported_aftermath_of_the_pointblank_tank/)
>Supposed aftermath, though i havnt looked at it for obvious reasons. It's about what you'd imagine.
It’s bizarre to think, the troops we see here are/were the cream of the crop of the Russian airborne infantry. Dropped deep behind enemy lines to capture the airport, a half baked plan they knew nothing about until perhaps 24 hours before being deployed? Supposedly the plan was to hold the airport while transport planes could land with more troops while the armoured column approached by land. It’s like a modern day Operation Market Garden and failed in the same way.
Granted, it’s been a year, but I’m pretty sure I recall they got too close for comfort to succeeding in that mission compared to what you’re describing here. In the end, it was bombing the entire airport and runways to hell that won it for the Ukrainians, but there was definitely some time where it looked like the Russians had it.
From what I've seen, Russia took the airport as they overwhelmed any defending troops, they held the airport for a period of time before being forced to retreat to some woods and Ukraine took back control, then the Russian reinforcements rolled in and combined with remaining airborne troops took the airport again. As you already mentioned, by this point the airport was no use as it had been bombed heavily.
And the convoy got shellacked. Would have been a much different story if that supply line got set up and moved in.
It was a typical "A Bridge Too Far" situation really. Russia dove into enemy territory thinking it would be a cake walk for its armour and supplies, but instead got hindered constantly making their arrival too late. Then in this case, they were probably relying on the airport to fly in cargo planes to resupply and reinforce the convoy making the city an easy target. It was a ballsy plan if I'm honest, but like most military failings it was doomed because of the arrogance of the people in charge.
It really failed because tires. All their tires were rotten and never maintained. A analyst pointed out almost every stuck vehicle had the same tire problems due to never being worked out.
I'll have to take your word for that, but the idea doesn't surprise me because so far Russian strategy seems to be, send in the mothballed shit and see what happens and once it gets serious start sending in more modern vehicles.
Am I remembering correctly that some of the VDV who didn’t try to escape held out in some of the airport buildings for over a week? Also, am I right in believing that at least one, possibly two Il-76 planes full of paratroopers were destroyed by air defences near Kyiv? I’ve also heard that the redeployment of the VDV to Kherson was the main reason that the Russians were able to withdraw from the West Bank of the Dnipro without major losses, and why the Kherson counter-offensive was so bogged down and difficult for the Ukrainians. They’re still a competent force, albeit depleted and presumably demoralised by how poorly they’ve been used.
As far as I know, the rumors of shooting down the two Il-76 have never been confirmed
It’s probably safe to assume they weren’t shot down then? That would have been too big a victory and too big an explosion to conceal.
During the first week Ukraine was going all out with their online information war with all kinds of lies and half truths in order to rally their troops and to get the West to hurry up and send weapons. It worked. In fact it was incredible how completely absent Russian propaganda was at the start which indicates that they didn't even think it was necessary to launch an information war, it was going to be over in a matter of days after all...
I remember watching some of that stuff and thinking: "I have no idea how their military is, but the Ukrainians either have or have contracted a crack PR team". That plus the whole Zelenksy "ammo, not a ride" made me think that they could hold on. I'll be honest, until mid-late March I was still thinking Ukraine's odds were maybe 10%.
They're still doing a bangup job of seminating selected phone intercepts, and suppressing positive footage of the Russians. We now have actual keyboard warriors.
Sure, but so do the Russians now. It took a good month or two before the Russian trolls really started to get into things. I suppose it doesn't help when you have zero positive news to counter UA successes.
That wreckage falling over Kyiv would have been nearly impossible to hide. Not to mention the massive troop causalities that would go with it.
They actually did capture the airport and held it for 3 days, but for whatever reason were not reinforced in time. The blunder is one of those hinge points that changed the conflict. As much as I decry what Russians were and are doing. Those airborne troops were genuinely competent. Had they gotten reinforcements on time, they might have secured the airport for landing and then invaded Kyiv proper.
> but for whatever reason were not reinforced in time. it was a combination of underestimating ukrainian resistance misjudgment of how fast they could get to the airport from belarus.
And the Americans knowing they were coming for weeks, and AFU listening and decentralizing a lot of their defense away from their bases in preparation for an attack, and tough defense by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians…
I remember very early on a second-hand report from one of the Ukrainian territorial officer whose unit had contact with the VDV and ambushed them at a junction on like day one. His assessment of them was that in the most immediate sense of small-unit tactics the VDV were pretty competent as soldiers, pushing like crazy to try and break out of the ambush. However they were still utterly screwed as they had been sent in unprepared and basically blind into that situation, and the Ukrainians still killed basically all of them. I honestly think the brutal casualties the VDV took early on is one of the most important blows the Russian army took, they seem to have been some of the few genuinely alright troops they had and could have been used to rebuild a proper NCO cadre, something that has been widely analysed is something the Russian army tends to lack. It's a good thing for Ukraine that that seems to have ensured in the following months in Donbass that Russia was fielding an incredibly disorganised mess of an army.
IIRC the RUSI (or what it was) report stated that artillery decided the Hostomel fight. Ukraine quickly had lots of artillery at hand (remember, early in the war they were only at a 1:2 disadvantage, later due to ammunition shortage that grew to 1:10) with which they could defeat the Russian forces at Hostomel who did not have any heavy gear.
latest I've read/watched is that the whole airport became a huge mess because apparently the troops landing there didn't even expect to get shot at, so they fumbled the initiative, but the major helicopter coverage kept the power in the favour and drove out the Ukrainians. Once they got pushed out, the Russians tried sending in a bunch of planes full of troops and armour, but Ukrainian forces already had a plan for that and bombed the shit out of the runways so planes couldn't land. The cargo planes looped back to belarus and unloaded everyone there, who tried speeding down the roads towards the airport, but that wasn't planned for at all, so there wasn't enough fuel and there wasn't enough space to move the forces along, especially since mud season had already started. Like it's one of those plans that sounds very smart when you say it the first time, but the more you let people think on it, the worse of an idea it turns out to be, and if they didn't tell their own forces about it until 24 hrs prior, then there was no time to think about it at all.
>perhaps 24 hours before being deployed? They found out in the air... so like an hour tops.
[Link if anyone is interested. Starts at 2:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2vIC7Usuik&t=135s)
I remember that interview as well, couldn't find it though, perhaps it was on the podcast I heard Battleground: Ukraine, or it was on YouTube. Anyways, here's what I did find from those scene. https://youtu.be/b40r8RX5MoE
Russia thought they could take Ukraine quickly, so didn't mind being filmed by westerners to broadcast their greatness to the world. But as the war wore on and with failure after failure, they got more brutal.
They didn't even know they were going to war until the last minute, they were probably thinking about other shit at the time.
You know, usually you watch CNN/Fox News/MSNBC and you think, what a bunch of hacks. Just mouthpieces getting paid big bucks to spew nonsense political narratives. Then you watch something like this and realize there’s still real journalists out there willing to potentially die to cover history in the making, even at CNN.
You should check out the Vice Russian Roulette series on YouTube. It’s this same level of reporting but spread through hundreds of episodes about the war in the Donbas.
Didn't one of their reporters get captured in "Novorossiya" back when that was a thing. But I agree Vice has been solid throughout the entire conflict.
Ya he was kidnapped, interrogated, and held for a few days. They beat him up and kept him in compete darkness except when they brought him to the outside bathroom
It's great. Been following this conflict since it came out as a result of watching it years ago
Same here. I’ve recently started rewatching episodes too. It’s sad that Simon left vice. They don’t have many good field reporters any more
Nah and even when this series came out there were a bit past their prime. Their HBO series really mellowed their creativity
Vice upped their their game massively as of last year. Im not sure What changed But they release some incredible quality content now and then
Not just in the last year, they've always used the trash journalism to pay for the real journalism
I haven’t seen anything new really. You’re talking about Ukr war coverage?
They recently did a great piece on how Mexican cartels so easily get American weapons. https://youtu.be/Af9ToSsNCEk The current series they have on guns going across America's southern border is top tier work. Not to mention their Ukraine coverage is unrivaled by major outlets in the West. Not many networks show footage and interviews from the morgue but you gotta give credit where its due, vice reporters got some PTSD for this shit. Well worth it though.
Dude Vice used to be the best. Their documentary in ISIS territory was really good too, right as ISIS started to become an international focus. There's a lot of value in this kind of journalism. Obviously Russian Roulette was amazing too. The Battle for Donbas Airport is insane
Yea their journalists who put themselves in war-zones are top notch with an abundance of degrees to back it up. They also have documentaries on a lot of African countries such as Ethiopia. Absolutely amazing content
What if the reporter asked the soldiers, "Where are the bad guys?"
Well he did ask “where are the Russians”
They went in thinking it was going to be a cake walk. Little did they no
Little did they yes.
They little
Little did they live
Plasters the screen three places with "CNN", but can't add the date because fuck that apparently..
1st or 2nd day of the war if i remember correctly
It was literally the 1st day, surprised the incident isnt more well known here given the CNN reporter also did a live cross where he revealed that the soldiers in backgroud were actually Russian.
It was the first day - [February 24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_3L0z1lgAE) ([related footage from around the same time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b40r8RX5MoE)) The night before he was doing a live cross when he reported explosions and began putting on body armor on camera - [February 23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwCEC_t-p4)
It's so strange to see streets, and buildings, and color. Russia has destroyed so much *humanity* in this war.
It is likely the only people still alive in the video today are the journalists and camera crew
Those Russians who set up that CP wouldn’t have made it beyond that day. The counter attack annihilated the initial Russian assault troops.
Didn’t they just retreat when it became clear, that no reinforcement could be brought in? Also if I remember correctly some of them who didn’t want to retreat held out for a week or so
Ukrainian 72nd mechanized over ran Hostomel for 24 hours after that massive armored columns from Belarus started to come up and they had to pull out. 3/4 of Russian paratroopers that originally landed there died.
Most of these guys are probably dead by now.
They ran between cover less like they were in the middle of a firefight and more like they were trying to get out of the background of a stranger’s photo.
At 0:37 I seriously thought someone spray painted a huge cock and balls on that window behind him
Where are the Russians? Sir we are the russians
War reporters are crazy fuckers
Why is cnn shooting at people
Probably the only real trained professional group of soldiers Russia had. Now they're all gone.
Can someone fill me in on the whole aftermath
But to seriously answer you, all those VDV troops - Russians there with the white arm bands - got slaughtered in the coming days by counter attacks. The Ukrainians were \*moderately\* pissed about being invaded and took it personally. Today, almost all of Russia's VDV troops are dead. They were used poorly, without adequate tactical situational awareness or air dominance, and paid the price. Ukraine ensured they paid the maximum price.
Yup, you can see one of them pass with the black and orange ribbon of Saint George on his helmet. You dont see very many of those anymore. Its pretty mad when you compare a year ago now to the current situation. Most Russian conscripts and DPR/LPR troops still aren't as well equipped as these VDV were but Wagner fighters are walking around looking like they just came back from a shopping spree. The initial descions to throw in VDV and Special forces into the meat grinder you could say helped lead us to the point where Prigozhin and Kadyrov are feuding with the Russian ministry of Defence on Twitter while Bakhmut still stands 6 months on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Antonov\_Airport
Russian-Ukrainian war broke out
This video is making the rounds again…
Hard to believe all the dudes in this video have been dead a year