Ukraine’s military leaders expressed gratitude to their adversaries for helping them expel “racist occupiers” from the Zaporizhzhya region.
In another terrible loss for Vladimir Putin’s forces involving “flamethrowers,” Russian soldiers were killed by members of their own army.
Military leaders in Ukraine said the friendly fire was “positively perceived” and praised their adversaries for assisting in driving away “racist occupiers.”
It is believed to have occurred on Sunday in the Zaporizhzhya province.
“The leadership of the 97th Infantry Battalion expresses its satisfaction with the actions of the Russian occupiers,” the 97th Infantry Battalion said on Facebook, “who today, using the heavy Zantsepek flamethrower system in the Zaporizhzhya direction, used it against their positions and actually burned the racist occupiers from Ukrainian soil.
“Such actions are positively perceived and supported in every way by the Ukrainian military.”
According to reports, thermobaric flamethrowers and TOS-1 rocket launchers were used in the strike.
Russia has made no public statements on the incident, and it’s unclear how much damage Putin’s troops sustained.
According to reports from the same region, demoralized Russian troops have vandalized their own trucks, preventing them from being sent into fight.
“According to local residents,” the Zaporizhzhia Military Administration wrote on Telegram, “Russian troops have shelled 20 of their own vehicles in Polohy in order to avoid going to the front line; they blamed the shelling on [Ukrainian] resistance fighters in the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia.”
According to a veteran NATO commander, a desperate Putin may “escalate” the Ukraine invasion as the only way out, perhaps using nuclear weapons.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in significantly more casualties than many feared, and the Russian military failed to make substantial breakthroughs into their neighboring country.
Putin struck a somber figure at Moscow’s Victory Day celebrations on Monday, unable to announce the successes he had hoped for.
With the pressure mounting, Sir James Everard, a former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, predicted that Putin may “significantly escalate” the invasion by sending in over 600,000 troops or possibly go nuclear.
He claimed that, as a result of the failure in Ukraine thus far, the Russian president is now under threat from army generals.
“He is in a terrible place. It was entirely of his own making. I can’t see him achieving his objectives without escalating conventionally,” said Sir James Everard.
But according to him, “where Putin has an advantage over the West is that he has a family of nuclear weapons. From the very small to the big city destroyers. In the UK, we have the city destroyers, but not the small ones. Perhaps for Putin, nuclear escalation isn’t as big as we see it to be. I still think it would be horrific.”
At the same time, US Vice President Joe Biden expressed concern on Monday that Putin did not have a way out of the Ukraine conflict, and US President Barack Obama said he was trying to find out what to do about it.
During his Victory Day speech, Putin stated that Russia carried out a “preventative” strike on Ukraine and defended his actions.
Putin, whose health has been the subject of repeated rumors, spoke to the nation at the annual military parade commemorating Nazi Germany’s defeat.
The Russian president attempted to legitimize his invasion by arguing that Russia was in danger.
He told the gathering that the deadly action in Ukraine was necessary because the West was “preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea”.
“You’re fighting for our people in Donbas, for the security of our motherland, Russia,” the Kremlin chief remarked to troops.
Image Credit: Getty
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