Harley Whitehead was living in Kyiv when Russians launched an #invasion in February 2022.
A citizen of the UK, he moved to #Ukraine in 2019 and was teaching English. But after the invasion began, he went to study how to become an #EOD tech in Kosovo.
Returning to Ukraine, he now clears minefields as a self-funded volunteer.
“The content of metal on the ground is extremely high, clearing these mines will take decades if not centuries,” Harley said. “Russia [uses it] as economic warfare [against] farming."
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Landmines are designed to create dilemmas, or impossible choices for your enemy.
The idea is to lure troops into the minefield and open fire. Then the friendly troops are faced with a dilemma. If they stay in place, they get cut down; if they advance forward, they hit mines.
There are basically two types of landmines used by Russia in Ukraine, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle.
Russian doctrine typically mixes anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines in the same fields. They create minefields that are between 200-400 meters deep.
This standoff distance between anti-vehicle mines is designed to prevent “sympathetic detonation,” where the detonation of one mine sets off a chain reaction with adjacent anti-vehicle mines.
Read more about the types of Russian mines used -- anti-tank TM-62Ms, anti-personnel 'petal' mines, and much more, in @RyanMcbeth
and I's deep dive on http://counteroffensive.news
Pictured: Homemade probes and shovels for demining, and the fuse removal tool for an anti-tank mine.
“We are using thermal technology – during dusk around 8pm we can use a drone which will pick up heat signatures from the mines that have been retaining heat from being sat in the sunshine all day."
Combat engineers are vital to the fight, but there aren’t many of them.
We spoke to a new Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) volunteer for the Ukrainian side, a man named Borys – he declined to give his last name due to the sensitivity of his new role.
Ukraine is mourning the loss of one of its most revered fighter pilots, Andriy Pilshchykov, a.k.a. his call-sign, ‘Juice.’
Juice had campaigned for the provision of F-16s to Ukraine, but will not live to see them arrive in-country.
"Juice" told me about everything in the world related to aviation and SAM [surface-to-air-missiles], [and] wrote thousands of messages,” reflected his friend, Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat. “How can I live without it now?”
President Zelenskyy weighed in on the midair accident that took the life of Juice and two other pilots over the Zhytomyr region: “Ukrainians will never forget anyone who defended Ukraine's free sky," he said. "May they always be remembered!"
POSSIBLE BREAKTHROUGH? A Ukrainian commander, known by his call-sign Skala and pictured above, confirmed that his forces had retaken the town of Robotyne in the southern front, breaking through the most difficult line of Russian defenses.
RUSSIA PRESSES IN THE NE: Russian forces killed two civilians by shelling a cafe in Kupiansk, which had been liberated by Ukr forces.
There are fears in the region that further Russian advances could lead to a second period of occupation.
Everywhere I travel in Europe, from Italy to the U.K. to Germany, I see signs of support for Ukraine in the form of its flag hanging on balconies, patios and doorways.
A pro-Ukrainian demonstration outside a Hugo Boss in Berlin earlier this summer:
We’ve talked a little about the GOP base’s opposition to funding Ukraine aid.
71% of Republicans now oppose additional funding for Ukrainians in the fight for their lives.
Over the last day a Twitter post went viral for suggesting that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., changed its position on Russia because they made a deal with a Hungarian think tank to collaborate on research.
@timkmak The Russian embassy in London has had to put up two layers of temporary fencing to keep people away, although it hasn't protected them from milkshakes (or the occasional brick, by the looks of it)
When petulant conservatives say they support something they used to oppose, what they really mean is that they're planning on destroying it from within. Steve Bannon oversaw Biosphere 2. Participants were so afraid of him that they broke a window to escape. Elon Musk has often made statements that were later revealed as diametrically oppositional to his actions behind the curtain, Hyperloop being a famous example. Conservatives are pathologically dishonest, never to be trusted.
@timkmak No surprise. Uniformed still do not understand NATO
Resent cost of this alliance without appreciating value
Post-policy irrational party ready to break stuff regardless— Brexit is this impulse
Heritage Foundation has always been a think tank where the research followed the political agenda, rather than vice versa.
With a base so hostile to funding Ukraine aid, there doesn’t need to be some secret back room Hungary deal to incentivize Heritage to change positions.
It is true that Heritage supported previous Ukraine funding, but now says it will support it no further. The reason Heritage changed its position on further Ukrainian aid is pretty obvious to me: its base won’t permit it.
I think the better question for supporters of Ukraine is this: How best to convince Republicans who are persuadable to support more Ukrainian aid?
I hope to have a better answer for you – based on evidence – in a future issue.
But in the meantime, if you’ve been having conversations with conservatives (or lefties) in your life about Ukraine, what points have you found to be most persuasive?
i've asked that & know what? the reality is anyone who still identifies as GOP is pro-fascist & pro-Russian >no argument i make matters to them
i've also pointed to WW2 & how appeasement didn't work, giving up ground to invaders encourages them to keep invading-- know what? they still don't care> they believe Hitler should have won, that's what all the 88 stuff is about
no fascist ever changed their mind because of logic, science, or decency
Maybe the answer is to worry less about republicans and more about fence-sitters. It is a lot harder to convince someone to reverse their beliefs than it is to convince someone who doesn't have a strong opinion in the first place.
If enough fence sitters decide to use their votes to deny republicans power it won't matter what republicans believe.
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@timkmak at least when talking to the moderate conservatives in my life, I've found it useful to discuss how cheap this aid is in relation to the damage it is doing to one of America's most implacable foes, and how much cheaper it is than dealing with the aftermath of a successful Russian conquest of Ukraine and subsequent direct threats to NATO. I've tried to emphasize how the biggest deterrent to China would be their witnessing a Russian defeat and Western resolve. I've tried to emphasize the moral arguments in opposing Russian war crimes and attempted genocide. The fact that Ukraine is seeing at least some modest success in the battlefield makes all these arguments easier.
The biggest challenge I see is that many right wing Americans are culture-bound to oppose Ukraine. They are saturating themselves in right wing media and social networking that continuously reinforces pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine narratives. They receive social credit within their tribe when they repeat and amplify those narratives. It's impossible to break through while someone's entire sense of identity and belonging are centered around these narratives. My brief interactions, no matter how cleverly crafted, cannot overcome the stickiness of someone's daily media consumption habits or tribal identity.
@timkmak For me, it just boils down to the ideas that 1) Ukraine has every right to defend itself against a hostile invasion and 2) that Ukraine has a right to determine its own path, including things like joining the EU and/or NATO.
@timkmak To be crude, Trump's base are a bunch of L's looking for a W. If support for Ukraine can be articulated as a Republican value--which historically it actually is--this might be especially appealing in the context of his current legal problems.
Trouble with that, of course, is that the Dems are playing support for Ukraine as a particularly 'Democratic' value.
Re talking to American movement conservatives: go on Birdsite and ask Lyman Stone? He's very deep in the movement, and also is very hawkish and pro-Ukraine, and talked in 2020 about how to talk to conservatives about corona (he lived in HK in early 2020, warned people against corona early, and thinks little of the denialists).
@timkmak
The simple pitch to Republicans is that funding #Ukraine and supplying F16’s will finally remove Russia from the board, allowing the focus to entirely become China. Not only that, proving old F16’s massively increases European government spending on F35’s.
Not only will that pump money into the next generation of fighter jets, it secures the industry and therefore the jobs of thousands and thousands of Americans.
@timkmak
Elbridge Colby is a fucking realist moron who somehow thinks that his preferred #war with #China will somehow not get enough attention if the #USA sends #coldwar era surplus kit to #Ukraine (nevermind #Russia's "unlimited partnership" with China). Now he's aping the "invade #Mexico cuz #drugcartels" from the far right corners of the #Republican party.
@timkmak I really wish that intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama would clearly state why they have left the Republican Party and why the base has become toxic. Fukuyama is affiliated with some of these think tanks and he and others need to speak up.
@timkmak GOP hostility toward Ukraine isn't organic. It comes from the same place as GOP hostility toward public health measures: Russia's desire to weaken the US. We recently saw an analysis of a Russian program to plant the idea that Ukrainian aid was depriving Lahaina of support. This was not a unique program at all, it was just one prong of an effort to stir insurrection in our country, gladly embraced by the traitor party. Heritage is another prong.
@timkmak I suspect that Ukraine's priority may be to strategically cut Russia's supply lines to Crimea, which would have enormous military and political consequences.
I am sure that any re-occupation by the Russians in the east will only be temporary, made much shorter by strategic victories in Crimea and the west.
@timkmak I equate EOD to Vietnam era "tunnel rats." I can't imagine having the nerves to do either. I wish him and all men/women fighting for UKR a speedy and just end to this atrocity.
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