Thread by @ZimermanErik

A word about #Kiev in its treatment of #Mariuopol. Without rehashing details previously covered, it is clear that the fall of the city is imminent and that the regime in Kiev has neither the ability nor the intention to try to come to its aid. No offensive is coming to break the

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/status/1507177390342033411

siege nor are any reinforcements and supplies on their way. The defense of the city by #Azov, #Ukrainian National Guard, Army & Naval infantry units has been heroic in its intensity, doggedness and bravery. Putting aside the legitimacy, virtue & honor of all their actions during

the siege, and all the motivations for such staunch defense (of an intensity unseen elsewhere in Ukraine), also putting aside any & all ideologies any of the defenders may have (ie #Azov & right sector national socialism), the bravery of the defense thus far is unquestionable.

Not surprisingly at this point, that bravery and sacrifice is least respected by the #Zelensky regime obsessed with its artificial legitimacy, identity & indicting w/ treason all who disagree. The defenders of #Mariuopol should not be allowed to surrender, but ordered to do so!

To put the choice of surrender on a soldier alone, when his commanders and country have left him only with the choices of surrender or death is dishonorable and cowardly. You force him to either end his life uselessly after already having more than done his duty, or accept upon

himself the responsibility of a warrior's dreaded word, "surrender". You demand of him death or a dishonor ill deserved. Better governments w soldiers in similar situations have allowed surrender, while the best of commanders have ordered them, taking upon themselves the burden

and off the back of their loyal fighters. Famously such an argument happened between Moshe Dayan and his generals regarding troops surrounded in the border outposts of the Bar-Lev line in Sinai by massive Egyptian divisions (two field armies) during the Yom-Kippur war.

They argued between allowing surrender as a direct command or ordering it. #Zelensky considers neither. In his climate controlled offices in #Kiev, he basks in the bravery of the soldiers he condemns to die. And for what? Is it the Alamo where the sacrifice of buying just 3 days,

allow General Houston to organize his army and win the war? No, instead we are reminded of another modern age conflict between two western states (where the world sanctioned neither party to this extent nor declared one state saintly and the other demonic), the Falklands War.

First you have Governor Sir Rex Hunt who ordered the few dozen royal marines (& some other volunteers) defending the islands to surrender, after putting up a brave fight & inflicting casualties on the Argentine invaders) thereby sparing all of their lives rather than wasting them

uselessly trying to stop a large invasion. Eventually, the Falklands were liberated under the strong leadership of #MargareteThatcher & the captured royal marines repatriated (to a hero's welcome). On the other hand, you have General Menendez, who commanded the Argentine army

in the Falklands during their brief stay, surrendering to the British Task Force while he retained the capital, Stanely with around 10,000 Argentine soldiers. He had requested permission from Argentina's junta leader, Leopoldo Galtieri, who sat comfortably in Buenos Aires.

Famously Galtieri refused and yelled at his General to fight. Menendez, fearing casualties among the (British!) civilians of Stanley in vicious house-to-house combat, with little hopes of victory, surrendered anyways. Zelensky, though with less military knowledge than Galtieri,

is acting as petulantly & carelessly with the lives of his fighters. The odds Menendez faced when he surrendered were infinitely better than those the Ukrainian defenders now face. The civilian suffering, not of the enemy population (as in Stanely) but of the Ukrainian citizens

themselves is likewise infinitely worse. Yet we have public and defiant (how brave oh Zelensky!) rejections of the Russian offers of amnesty and surrender, making it all the harder for a Ukr city defender to feel he could lay down his arms honorably. Amazingly, the Russians

offered all the defenders safe passage out of the city. Realizing many might be fighting so defiantly because as members of #Azov & right sector units they are associated with (or have) nazi ideologies, that may mean Russia will not treat them like regular POWs. Thus Russia

extended an offer of free passage out of the city and back to Ukrainian held territory. Extraordinary given Russia's inverse desire to get a hold of these unit members (one of their declared goals of the operation being "denazification"), and the fact most would likely return

immediately to the front line to continue to fight Russian forces. Not only did we not have an acceptance of the offer, we had mockery of it by #Kiev, and of course non reporting from the western media. Zelensky is not Churchill, and despite his public wearing of leggings & heels

has done nothing in his life to earn the right to order fighters on the front, in a war his failed statesmanship caused, that his leadership has left surrounded & hopeless, to fight to the death. The honorable course of action is not to allow, but to order them to surrender.