This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
After 3 years of war, more Ukrainians accept reality of likely ceasefire with Russia, but with conditions
In far eastern Ukraine, the "Artan" special operations unit prepared for another raid. The volunteer soldiers carried high-tech equipment that appeared to have come from the U.S. or Europe.
The unit has been carrying out daring acts of sabotage against the invading Russian forces — often behind enemy lines. Their motto is: "We know, we find, we destroy."
President Trump's repeated claim before he took office, that he could end in just 24 hours the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion in February 2022, has fueled fear in Ukraine and across Europe that he could cut off the vital supply of American weapons.
The Artan commander told CBS News if that happens, he and his men will keep fighting, even if their weapons run out altogether.
But after almost three years of grueling warfare, not everyone in Ukraine is still so gung-ho.
The Ukrainian people have stood up to Vladimir Putin's invading army, and they've paid the price in blood and grief.
A recent poll found that just over half of Ukrainians now believe their government should negotiate a ceasefire with Russia — more than double the figure at the start of the war. But many Ukrainians told CBS News that, while they want peace, it cannot come without conditions.
CBS News met Yevheniya Puzkiova in a therapy center run by TAPS, an organization founded in the U.S. to support the families of fallen service members. She lost her husband Oleksandr and her eldest son Oleksiy in the fight against Russia.
"If not them, then who? My husband didn't think twice about signing up, and my son went because of his father's example," she said.
Asked if she would support ceasefire negotiations with Russia, the grieving widow and bereaved mother said she would, "but with security guarantees for our people."
"Simply freezing the front line will not do anything," she warned. "Because in a few years, Russia will invade again."
Ukraine's government shares that fear. The country's leaders have said they will only agree to a ceasefire deal that comes with security guarantees, such as European peacekeeping forces on the ground, or NATO membership.
Ukraine is fighting for its very survival. It is a nation on a life or death mission, just like the ambulance CBS News rode along in as it raced toward a hospital not far from the front line in eastern Ukraine.
The soldier in the back was hit by shelling and suffered a shrapnel wound to his head. He was unconscious and on ventilation.
The ambulance was run by MOAS, an international aid group founded by an American entrepreneur that operates a fleet of 50 vehicles along Ukraine's 600-mile front line.
Dr. Mykhailo Ilyk is a pediatric anesthesiologist, but he left the safety of his hospital job two years ago to use his skills to help in the war effort.
Asked if it was worth the horrendous suffering of the Ukrainian people, which he sees daily, to defend their country, Ilyk didn't hesitate.
"Definitely," he said. "This is our land. We have to stand with it, to the last."
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After 3 years of war, more Ukrainians accept reality of likely ceasefire with Russia, but with conditions
Three years of war with Russia and the threat of U.S. support dwindling has many Ukrainians ready for a ceasefire, but they want some guarantees.
www.cbsnews.com
Excerpt -
"The research reveals a sharp rise in sabotage operations since 2022, peaking in 2024. That year, Russia targeted critical infrastructure such as energy supplies, water networks, and civil aviation. Recorded incidents included attacks on DHL cargo planes and an assassination attempt on the CEO of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. Professor of Terrorism and Political Violence Bart Schuurman explains: ‘What we are witnessing is a clear escalation of Russian tactics. These are no longer limited to cyberattacks or propaganda but now include actions with direct consequences for physical infrastructure and civilian safety.’
The analysis shows that Russia is escalating its efforts to destabilise European nations. While previous operations mainly focused on disinformation and cyberattacks, recent activities demonstrate a shift towards hybrid warfare, including physical sabotage and political assassinations."
Research: Europe increasingly targeted by Russian sabotage
Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been conducting a covert sabotage campaign against Europe. The ‘Bewaken en Beveiligen’ (Surveillance and Security) project team at Leiden University has investigated the scale of these operations and compiled its findings in the report Russian...
www.universiteitleiden.nl
American fighters are dying in Ukraine in growing numbers. Bringing their bodies home is a complex task
More than 20 Americans are missing in action on the front lines in Ukraine, with a spike in casualties over the past six months as foreigners fill urgent gaps in the country’s embattled defenses, according to a CNN investigation.
The bodies of at least five American volunteers who signed up to the Ukrainian military could not be retrieved from the battlefield after being killed in action in the past six months, CNN found. Two of these were repatriated from Russian-occupied territory on Friday to Ukrainian soil after lengthy negotiations.
The stark testimony of their surviving colleagues, and the growing toll, portrays the obscure yet important role of American frontline fighters in a war President Donald Trump has called “ridiculous” and has pushed Russian President Vladimir Putin to end diplomatically.
The relatives of the missing Americans have told CNN of the distressing lack of closure in not being able to bury their sons, of the legal limbo of not being able to officially declare their loved ones dead, and also of the torment inflicted by Russian internet trolls who harass them online. The intensity of fighting across Ukraine’s front eastern lines means the corpses of soldiers from both sides often cannot be collected and litter the battlefield.
Two American volunteers were killed in a single incident just outside Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine in late September, according to survivors and relatives. Neither’s body has been recovered. Former US soldier Zachary Ford, 25, from Missouri, and another American without military experience, whose family requested to be identified only by his callsign ‘Gunther,’ were killed by a drone while tasked with blowing up a bridge near the village of Novohrodivka.
The surviving American, who asked to be known by his callsign ‘Redneck,’ described a mission with a limited chance of success, where the group of three US volunteers were swiftly trapped by Russian fire in a trench about 500 meters from their bridge target.
“Russian drones start coming down the treeline, to try to crash through the roof of the bunker,” he recalled in an interview with CNN last week from the United States. A log in the roof fell and hit him in the face, he said. “I had the shotgun, I was trying to shoot these things down.”
Ford told his commanders on the radio they would abort the mission but was instructed to continue and that no evacuation was possible for another day, Redneck said. As the assault began, Redneck said he fired his machine gun at Russians directly in front of him, and that Ukrainians manning a grenade launcher and anti-tank Javelin weapon system died while holding back Russian armor.
He said he stepped into a bunker to get ammunition, narrowly missing the drone strike that wounded Ford and Gunther. Ford’s injuries required two tourniquets to stem the bleeding, Redneck said, which he applied before rejoining the defense and seeing a Ukrainian soldier fatally shot in the face in front of him.
Minutes later, he heard Ford yell, “Gunther is dead,” he told CNN. “I came down to check, and the Ukrainian that was in there, and just looked at me and said, ‘friend dead.’” Redneck said Ford remained stable, and their commander warned on the radio that another Russian attack was imminent.
“He knew we weren’t going to make it through another attack,” said Redneck of Ford, “so he started asking me to kill him so he wouldn’t be captured.” Redneck said he refused and told Ford they would find a way through this, before continuing to reload their weapons ahead of the anticipated assault.
“He went really quiet,” said Redneck of Ford. “A couple minutes later, (he) called me over and said he had loosened his tourniquets.” Redneck said he reapplied them, but Ford had lost too much blood.
Redneck said Ford’s last request was to see the sunlight as he died. “I laid him down with his head towards the door, so he could look out, see the sun, and I just held his hand. The last really intelligible thing he said was, ‘never let it be said that the bastards killed me.’”
Redneck said Ford had expressed a sentiment common among foreign fighters.
His most vivid memory of Ford was the tiny blue speaker he carried with him, on which he would constantly play the UK artist Artemas’ song, “I like the way you kiss me.” “He always was playing music and dancing around that speaker,” he said.
He said the likelihood of foreign volunteer fighters surviving on the front line depended on their level of experience but also on the tasks given by the brigades they joined. While some officers gave foreigners and Ukrainians equal tasks, he said, others “will sell you out and get you killed just as quick.”
“At this point, you cannot say it’s not America’s fight,” he said. Critics of the war are “trying to say, ‘well, this is Ukraine’s problem. If we can just make peace now, we won’t have to deal with this.’ The truth is, it’s not going to stop,” Redneck added.
He blamed the losses in his brigade on a “bad officer… who didn’t really see a difference between anyone. It was meat for the grinder, and he just sent whoever he could get.”
Redneck, speaking from the United States, said his unit was evacuated from the area and he later saw drone footage of Ford and Gunther’s bodies. The area where they fought is now under Russian control.
The process of retrieving the dead from the front lines is arduous and emotional. Former US Marine Corey Nawrocki, 41, from Pennsylvania, died fighting in Russia’s Bryansk region in October.
His body was paraded by Russian soldiers on Telegram, but after complex negotiations was one of nearly 800 dead returned to Ukraine by Russia on Friday, as was that of another missing American.
His mother, Sandy Nawrocki, wept as she described feeling a “whirlwind of emotions – relief, but sadness. A weight is lifted off my shoulder because now I don’t have to worry about what they might be doing to him over there.”
She described Nawrocki, a marine veteran of two decades with six tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, as a “smartass” who loved to make her laugh and was driven to fight in Ukraine because of the toll he had seen on civilians.
“Innocent people getting killed, babies being slaughtered,” she said. “I think that really bothered him.”
Nawrocki died after being shot while trying to help an injured colleague, his mother said she was told.
Images of his body and weapons were widely shared on Russian social media and she says her address and video of her home, were also posted. When she tried to notify Nawrocki’s Marine friends on social media of his death, pro-Russian trolls “would post all these nasty comments and, smiley faces,” she said.
She did not want her son to go to Ukraine but this “was an unprovoked war,” she said. “This is everyone’s war. If Russia wins, wins over Ukraine, that affects Poland, that affects all the European countries.”
The repatriation of dead Americans is the culmination of a complex and emotional path for those involved. Lauren Guillaume, an American living in Kyiv and working for the non-profit RT Weatherman Foundation, assists foreign families in finding their loved ones, often by trawling through morgues with the foundation’s Ukrainian investigator, Iryna Khoroshayeva.
Positive identification is possible through a combination of visual identification methods and DNA testing, Guillaume said.
Ukrainian officials said the task of identifying the dead is more complex when remains are returned from the Russian side. “After a body swap, we may be given a bag with 10 body remains belonging to different people,” said Artur Dobroserdov, Ukraine’s commissioner for missing persons under the Ministry of the Interior.
Dobroserdov confirmed that more than 20 Americans were missing in action, and said they could only release any part of the remains for repatriation once they had identified all of them, as they did not want families to bury part of a loved one only to be later given more remains.
One of the first cases in which Guillaume was able to assist was that of US Army veteran Cedric Hamm, from Texas, who was killed in the northern border region of Sumy in March. Hamm’s family were able to identify the unique mixture of Aztec and US military tattoos on his body in a video livestream Guillaume set up from the morgue. The body was then repatriated to San Antonio in December.
for the rest of the article...
"A Russian assault group was completely annihilated by artillery and drones of the Ukrainian 60th Mechanized Brigade in the direction"
Not sure both were previously posted.
I wonder if this technique makes it dangerous for Russian private pilots to fly around....I am not concerned for them, I just wonder
I wonder if this technique makes it dangerous for Russian private pilots to fly around....I am not concerned for them, I just wonder
"BBC 47 of the Magura 47th Brigade gives the occupiers no chance"
Wonder if Ukraine after hitting so many refineries will go after the distribution points. It would be cool if Russia was unable to sell a lot of the oil they produce.
Wonder if Ukraine after hitting so many refineries will go after the distribution points. It would be cool if Russia was unable to sell a lot of the oil they produce.
May be a good sign for Ukraine.
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