A military man from Odessa, who defected to the Donbass side, gave a press conference
Former Ukrainian contract soldier from Odessa Oleg Popov, who killed his commander in the ATO zone and fled in an infantry fighting vehicle to the side of the LPR, gave a press conference in Lugansk today.
Popov said that he realized: the Ukrainian army today is destroying its own people. A significant reason, it also seems, was that the contract soldier had no chance of returning from the front before the end of the so-called. ATO.
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“The military structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is completely degrading. What is shown on TV is more of a movie than a fact. Real everyday life is 70 years ago, 30-40 years. There is nothing, poverty, everything is done manually...
The commanding staff are not military people, but simply those with higher education who receive stars. In 2-3 months they undergo some kind of training, narrow specialization, they are not able to manage units,” Popov said.
He had been preparing to escape for several days - an opportunity arose when most of his colleagues went to get a new uniform, and only the commander remained next to him.
“I didn’t know what to do, how it would happen. My platoon commander was lying on the bed and watching TV. I changed my clothes, looked at what, where, how, took my things, went up to him and said: “Oleg, I want to go to the other side.” He got up from the bed, and on my right side I had an RPK, a long barrel... I took off the safety with my hand and pressed the automatic fire, pulled the trigger, and a burst of fire started firing at him.
I took my things and ran to the BMP. He started it up and took the position that what will happen will happen. I pressed the gas pedal and went. Having passed the field, it is 840 meters to the railway... Before that, I looked at the railway from different angles, I thought that there should be a soft descent, I gently move onto the “piece of iron” and continue on. But in practice it turned out that I reached the end of the field, sharply down and a very sharp rise up. I turned to the right, where the forest goes, thin trees, I think to go for a ram, go down and continue on. I went to ram a tree, the car went in and stalled. I tried to take it out of gear and start it again, but it wouldn't start. But, considering that I have five seconds at my disposal, because they can cover me, because it’s already clear that the car has started moving, I jumped out of the car, took the RPK, walkie-talkie, tablet with maps and walked along the “piece of hardware”, crossing the front line. He walked about two kilometers and came across the local population and asked who he could surrender to. The LPR police received me there,” the defector admitted.
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