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From the university to the military in Ukraine: "I have to help protect my country against Russian terrorists"

2022-02-28T05:06:30.323Z


Thousands of civilian volunteers join the resistance to repel the advance of Putin's troops A month ago, Lev Tiskin was playing online video games and going out with his friends for drinks almost every weekend. He had just started his freshman year in college, business school, and was dreaming of spring break somewhere hot and on the beach. Today, the small, blue-gray-eyed young man carries a duffel bag slung over his shoulder with a few changes of clothes and waits among dozens of peopl


A month ago, Lev Tiskin was playing

online

video games and going out with his friends for drinks almost every weekend.

He had just started his freshman year in college, business school, and was dreaming of spring break somewhere hot and on the beach.

Today, the small, blue-gray-eyed young man carries a duffel bag slung over his shoulder with a few changes of clothes and waits among dozens of people in a Dnipro Administration building for instructions, perhaps a weapon, and to leave for his assigned destination. defend the city.

"I have to help protect my country from Russian terrorists," he says.

As Russia sharpens its offensive against Ukraine and heightens its threat by putting its nuclear weapons on alert, thousands of volunteers across the country have rolled up their sleeves and joined territorial defense brigades, volunteer battalions or protection groups.

They prepare for total war.

The troops sent by Vladimir Putin, who have invaded from three flanks - north, east and south - and attack by land, sea and air, have already encountered resistance not only from the Ukrainian Army, which is trying to contain their advance, but also from part of groups of civilians who, with or without weapons, try to shield their cities and towns and repel the attack of troops that double the number and power of the Ukrainians.

In four days of war, Moscow has not yet taken any major cities;

although it does besiege Kiev and Kharkov.

More information

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, live

In Dnipro, home to nearly a million people, where nearly every entrance to the city is guarded by armed soldiers, volunteers deploy tank traps and sandbags.

Russian troops have not reached the city in central-eastern Ukraine, with a Russian-speaking majority and a large Jewish community.

Although this Sunday the alarms of anti-aircraft attacks have sounded strongly.

Also next to the Friendship of the Peoples park, where Tiskin and his friends wait.

The alarm thunders above the voices with a clear indication: "Run, cover."

And a flood of people rush in and crouch against the walls of a nearby building or huddle on the ground.

Recruitment points are key targets.

If before Tiskin, 18, said that he was "a little scared" now he admits that he is scared.

"My parents didn't like it at all.

They tried to stop me, but I came anyway.

I have to do something.

If not, in a few days there may be no Ukraine left,” he says.

Olga, dressed in gray sweatpants and blue feathers, has just received a rifle.

"I've always been a pacifist, but this is about protecting my own," she says.

She is 33 years old and has a nine-year-old son.

He is an economist and works in an agency.

When Russia massed tens of thousands of troops along the Ukrainian borders and territorial defense groups, run by the Defense Ministry, began to form, he enlisted.

More for protection, for security, to learn how to make tourniquets and first aid.

"I thought that in the end it would not be necessary, but this is not a drill," she says.

She assures that if she has to use it she will do it without hesitation: “It's a nightmare.

Putin is after us.

And then he will go for Europe.”

Now, Olga waits for a car that will take her to defend an objective that she cannot reveal.

The Territorial Defense Brigades, which the Ministry defined as a "resistance force" and a deterrent, protect basic infrastructure, such as bridges, roads, tunnels.

The economist likes that concept of resistance.

She ensures that everyone around her is ready to contribute to the defense.

“Putin is an idiot.

This has united us more, if possible.

Ukraine will pass this test and come out stronger and with honor,” she says.

Internet tutorials to prepare a Molotov cocktail

When the Russian president announced the "military operation in Donbas" to "denazify" Ukraine - an attack that has actually turned into an open war throughout the country - the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called on the population to calm down. and resist.

After a day of attacks on strategic infrastructures and siege of key cities such as Kiev, the capital, or Kharkov, Zelensky called on the civilian population to help in the defense with everything in their power.

Like the Molotov cocktails that dozens of people are preparing in a Dnipro square, where a tide of people is organized to cut polystyrene strips, prepare beer bottles, fill them with flammable liquid to create a homemade bomb, pack boxes, organize supplies and prepare the cars of the volunteers who repair domestic explosives.

Residents of Uzhhorod prepared Molotov cocktails this Sunday.

DPA via Europa Press (Europa Press)

Two days ago, Natalia Valerievna learned how to make a Molotov cocktail using instructions she found on the Internet.

But now, in Ukraine, various media and even the radio give instructions to civilians to prepare the explosive.

Natalia (who prefers to give her patronymic and not her last name) says that she has not thought —and prefers not to think— about the possibility of having to use it.

It would mean the siege of Dnipro, on the banks of the Dnieper River, the arrival of Russian troops and the departure of the saboteurs who, according to the Government, have infiltrated cities throughout the country ready to act at any moment.

“I contribute more with organizational tasks,” says the 37-year-old engineer, “but I am prepared to fight for my life.

And if that means throwing an explosive at a tank or someone, I would."

In 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in an illegal referendum and the Donbas war broke out against Moscow-backed pro-Russian separatists, Kiev already turned to volunteer battalions to try to fill the gaps in its disorganized and ill-equipped army.

Then, paramilitary groups —some with clear roots of the extreme right and neo-Nazi ideology, which fish so well in territories in conflict— went to fight in the east.

This time it is different.

Most of these groups have gone on to form a unit within the Army and the mobilization that is taking place these days in Dnipro and in most Ukrainian cities has more the color of civil resistance in all structures: from volunteers to bring food to soldiers, donate blood for the wounded, prepare material for the barricades, enforce curfew, organize cyber surveillance battalions or take to the streets in the defense brigades.

There is no room in Alexander Klasko's battalion.

They have filled all the positions and are rejecting people, says this 57-year-old driver.

A veteran of the Afghan war, he fought in Kabul and Kandahar in 1982. With a rifle over his shoulder, he explains that he enlisted right after Putin launched the invasion because his military experience can be useful.

"War is war, what can I say, but this is our house and we can't let anyone in without permission."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-02-28

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