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Friday, September 05, 2014

Fighting Tanks With Minivans

Dig this.
(Ukrainian Army volunteer) Mr. Kravchenko said he joined the militia because he wanted Ukraine to be part of Europe...His training consisted of calisthenics and one day of shooting a Kalashnikov, he said...The unit, funded by private donations, was no match for the artillery and tank fire of the Russian military...Mr. Kravchenko said he boarded a minivan that joined a column of at least 60 other Ukrainian vehicles, which left Ilovaisk early in the morning. Ukraine's poorly funded armed forces often rely on buses and minivans to ferry many of their troops. After the convoy had been on the road about an hour, Russians and Russia-backed militia opened fire on it, first with mortars, then with machine guns, he said.

Mr. Kravchenko said the minivan broke down after it was riddled with bullets, and he jumped aboard a municipal bus carrying troops. Within minutes it was raked by machine gun fire that mowed down the passengers, killing the man sitting next to him and wounding Mr. Kravchenko in the shoulder, he said.

He piled out of the bus with a handful of survivors and jumped aboard a pickup truck carrying six other men, which continued before it, too, was hit by machine gun fire and then blew up when it was hit by a grenade. Most of the others died in the pickup, he said, or were killed when they took cover beneath it and it exploded, he said.
Bravery? Yes. Equipment? No.

Something tells me Putin isn't done yet.

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