Tymofiy Mylovanov Profile picture
Oct 3, 2024 13 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Retreat, loss, and survival in Ukraine

Our former student writes about the retreat of his brigade from Vuhledar this week. It is a heavy but honest reading

“The 72nd Brigade left Vuhledar battered, with heavy losses. 1/
Before that, the Russians had already reached the areas through which the brigade would retreat and set up firing positions in garages behind the cemetery. 2/
The 72nd’s withdrawal was brutal. Vehicles, armored carriers were hit and burned. After days of agony in the besieged city before that, the soldiers were drained. By the dawn of retreat, not all had the strength to move to try break through 3/
Some stayed behind, committing themselves to death to cover the retreat 4/
By a cruel twist, while my brigade was clawing its way out of Vuhledar, people across the country were sipping coffee, going to cinemas, and strolling to street music 5/
Well-wishes, both genuine and routine, were offered to the soldiers – even as they were dying, abandoned to their fate 6/
I have no way to bridge these two worlds - the peaceful Ukraine and the military, each marching relentlessly on its path 7/
We were reborn there in the war in the East. Born in Kyiv, we were forged again in the fields and basements of Vuhledar. Now those empty, iron-pierced spaces are our homeland, and we are strangers on the Kyiv’s streets 8/
In these three years of the war, unfamiliar faces have filled the sidewalks and metro, with new expressions I don’t recognize or can comprehend 9/
They seem light, translucent; we are grim and dirty, stained by a darkness that no bath or barbershop [a reference to the hipster culture of Kyiv] can wash away 10/
Now, the 72nd, driven from its den, risks annihilation in the open fields under artillery and FPV drones. The Russians’ control from Vuhledar’s heights stretches 15 kilometers, nearly to Kurakhove 11/
Pray, to anyone you can, that the 72nd – my first and forever brigade (though I left long ago) – isn’t ground into dust beyond Vuhledar 12/
Pray the remnants of this once-mighty force aren’t destroyed, that it has a chance to rise again, to carry its hard-won experience and pain into future victories (Igor Lutsenko) 13X

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More from @Mylovanov

Oct 26
Putin fears another coup as Russia finally begins to buckle, The Telegraph.

Trump turns the screws with oil sanctions, as civil Russian economy is in a recession, growth collapses, interest rates are crushing businesses, banking crisis threats, Ukraine breaks up refineries. 1/
FSB accused exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and 22 Anti-War Committee members of plotting a coup to violently seize power.

Kremlinologists say it signals new vulnerability at the heart of Putin's regime. 2/ Image
Earlier this month, hundreds of people gathered in St. Petersburg Square to sing an outlawed song calling for Putin to be overthrown.

Small pockets of protest are emerging across Russia. 3/
Read 16 tweets
Oct 26
Hodges: War is a test of will. At some point, families or people in Russia will say no more. Reports show soldiers executed or beaten for not attacking or desertion.
A 1917-like scenario could happen. It's hard to imagine that Russians are going to keep doing this endlessly. 1/
Hodges: Right-wing governments in Europe tend to echo Kremlin talking points, and some far-left groups are anti-Ukraine.

Ukraine is carrying the load now, and if we fail to help them succeed, we’ll face a much more difficult domestic situation ourselves. 2/
Hodges: If Ukraine fails — and that only happens if we fail — tens of thousands of trained Ukrainian troops with their equipment could be forced into the Red Army, absorbed into Russian formations.

That’s another negative outcome if we allow Ukraine to fail. 3X
Read 4 tweets
Oct 25
Ukraine spoiled a birthday gift for Putin, blowing up the new power line meant to connect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to the Russian grid.

Ukrainian partisans cut the line, and it is now reconnected to Ukrainian power, The Guardian. 1/ Image
Ukrainian partisans struck substations in occupied Zaporizhzhia, destroying a new high-voltage line to Mariupol that Russia planned to use to link the nuclear plant to its grid by 7 October. 2/
For nearly a month, the 6-reactor plant survived on diesel generators far beyond the 3-day safety limit, risking overheating and a potential Fukushima-style disaster. 3/
Read 6 tweets
Oct 25
“Her legs were blown off, she was blown to pieces.” Russia’s drone killed an 84-year-old woman, Grandma Lora, in Kherson when she was walking her goats, NYP.

In a September interview, Lora had said, “Everyone is afraid. All are scared, but each has hope.”

Now she is dead. 1/ Image
Larisa Mironyevna Vakulyuk, known as Baba Lora, 84, was killed instantly when a Russian FPV drone struck her and her two goats in Kherson’s Antonivka district. 2/
Journalist Zarina Zabrisky, who had interviewed Vakulyuk a month earlier, described the aftermath: “Her legs were blown off, she was blown to pieces.” 3/
Read 11 tweets
Oct 25
Q: NATO provoked Putin into invading Ukraine?
Farage: The endless eastward expansion of NATO, the EU. Kissinger warned about this. We shouldn't have done it.

Putin's invaded. I hoped Trump could bring him to heel, strike a compromise. That won’t happen. Putin’s a bad dude. 1/
Q: Why hasn't President Trump put more pressure on Putin?
Farage: He’s putting huge pressure on, including on India. Trump feels Putin made a fool of him.

Putin’s not rational. He wants a logical deal. The idea that I’m soft on this is nonsense. 2/
Q: If you were PM and Russian jets entered NATO airspace. Where do you stand on that?
Farage: Got to shoot them down. I'm the only person in the world that stood up in the European Parliament in 2014. I said there'll be a war in Ukraine. I'm the only person that got it right. 3/
Read 4 tweets
Oct 25
Putin only understands the language of force — you must talk to him like to a 1990s bandit, says ex-oligarch and former Putin prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky in The Washington Post.

He urges Trump to arm Ukraine with Tomahawks, not “fiddle with weak sanctions.”

1/ Image
Khodorkovsky told that Tomahawk missiles posed a real threat to Putin — unlike sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, which he called “too weak.” “Tomahawks were a strong threat. But sanctions sound like I’m just stepping on your shoe.”

2/
Trump briefly considered supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine, scrapped a Budapest summit, and then imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil firms — his first punitive step since returning to the White House.

The Kremlin panicked over the missile idea until Putin called Trump.

3/
Read 11 tweets

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