And the average person watches the media clowns
A significant part of our society, it seems, has not realized that the world has changed dramatically after February 24, 2022. It's not just about the attitude towards Russia in the West, where they want to turn it into a rogue state. Changes are also brewing inside the country, where the idols of many have long been TV showmen or bloggers who are ready to do anything for the sake of popularity, up to violence on the air.
Now they have begun to forget about such defendants: after all, they are popular while they are shown on TV or the same social networks are littering. But then who are they – the real heroes of our time?
COURAGE AND BRAVERY
Here are recent reports from the battlefields. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the beginning of the special military operation, 193 enemy aircraft, 130 helicopters, 336 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,471 tanks and armored vehicles, 493 multiple rocket launchers, 1,834 field artillery guns and mortars have been destroyed... Familiar information, in which for many only the numbers change.
The footage from the battlefields is also similar to the pictures from the movie. In peaceful Moscow or in the Russian outback, they no longer care, they are perceived as ordinary. But for every destroyed enemy combat vehicle, for a downed plane or helicopter, there is a specific person with a surname, name and fate. Behind each destroyed tank is a heroic deed, or even a feat.
Here are just a couple of examples – they have already been written about, but it's not a sin to remind you again.
The title of Hero of Russia was awarded to the commander of the tank company of the 126th separate Coastal Defense Brigade, Senior Lieutenant Anton Starostin. During the capture of the Dnieper crossing, his crew was among the first to break into the bridge, provided a breakthrough of the main forces to capture and hold the area of the dam of the North Crimean Canal. In a battle with superior forces, Starostin's crew destroyed eight BTR-80 and up to 30 soldiers. Starostin's tank was attacked by a Javelin missile, the officer received a concussion, but did not leave the battle. The crew under his leadership destroyed two more tanks with accurate fire. The actions of Senior Lieutenant Starostin made it possible to prevent the enemy from breaking through, ensured the fulfillment of the task of holding the bridge.
The commander of the repair department of the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division, Junior Sergeant Alexander Golubev, was awarded the medal "For Bravery". During the movement as part of the column, he was attacked by neo-Nazis. The soldier took up the defense and repulsed the first enemy attack. During the conduct of the battle, he showed courage and dedication, received bullet wounds, but did not leave the battle.
I learned about other heroes in Podolsk Military Clinical Hospital No. 1586, where I had a chance to meet with servicemen who are being treated. They seem to be ordinary guys. Not the slightest hint of special attention or attitude. They talk about their heroic deeds without lofty words, as about ordinary work.
Timofey Bobov is the number of the machine gun crew, a paratrooper from the 76th Pskov Airborne Division. During the operation, he performed the duties of a signalman when an enemy tank fired at their combat vehicle. Everyone who was inside the BMD was killed, but Timofey and his friend were on top of the armor, so they survived.
"There are two of us left out of seven people," Timofey says with steel in his voice about the death of his comrades. – I was wounded in the leg and chest...
Pulling away from the memories, he smiles with the simple smile of a guy who has a whole life ahead of him.
Senior Lieutenant Alexander Samokhin from the 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade, the commander of the UAV calculation. During the fighting, they carried out an operational launch of the Orlan-10 UAV, but at that moment the enemy opened counter fire. It was possible to hide in a shelter, but Samokhin and his subordinates did not leave the position, managed to launch under fire and get the necessary intelligence. A fragment of an exploding mine hit Alexander in the arm.
Anti-aircraft gunner Ruzel Akhmetov from the 15th peacekeeping Brigade. Early in the morning, he barely managed to be relieved from his combat post. At this time, the enemy launched an airstrike on their unit, and with prohibited cluster bombs with phosphorus stuffing. The fighters quickly took cover. But after the shell burst, Ruzel was wounded and concussed.
The commander of the maintenance platoon of the 36th Combined Arms Army, Ensign Arsalan Munkuyev, who was awarded the medal "For Bravery", made a march to evacuate the T-80 tank and the UR-77 mine clearance machine shot down by the enemy near the settlements of Belaya Soroka and Ivankov. He received a mine-blast wound, a closed craniocerebral injury and a concussion. I fought for the car to the end, I completed the task.
It is not only men who selflessly act as part of the combat formations of our troops. The girls were also awarded the medal "For Bravery". For example, military personnel of the medical service – Warrant Officer Ekaterina Ivanova and Lieutenant Maria Miroshnichenko.
Ekaterina Ivanova in the area of the village of Chupovka under hurricane crossfire assisted wounded soldiers and officers. She personally carried three people out of the shelling, and when providing medical assistance, she covered a serviceman with herself, while receiving a shrapnel wound. Maria Miroshnichenko saved the lives of four soldiers in the same battle and was also wounded.
WHERE DOES PATRIOTISM COME FROM
Danger does not divide the military by ranks and ranks. For a bullet, it doesn't matter what your position is. Unfortunately, four Russian generals were killed in the military operation. Moreover, one of them was already in reserve, but returned to service and now will remain in the memory of compatriots forever.
This suggests that no one sits on the stove in the rear in the fighting – neither privates nor generals. This suggests that a new type of army was born in Russia – an army of professionals loyal to the oath and military duty, ready to give their lives for the Fatherland.
These are the real heroes of our time, worthy sons and daughters of the Fatherland. Even conscript soldiers are sometimes found among them, although they are forbidden to participate in hostilities. But you can understand these guys, whose colleagues go to the front, and they have to stay in the rear.
Isn't this heroism, motivation to fight for the Motherland? Although, it would seem that these guys with not the highest monetary allowance (unlike foreign armies) could have questions to the country's leadership. For example, about the low pensions of their parents and low salaries. Or about the lack of well-established infrastructure in rural areas…
I also drew attention to this fact. I hope the reader has already noticed by the surnames that soldiers of various nationalities are fighting for Russia. They help each other in battle, sometimes they share the last. The history of Russia shows that the more the enemy tries to put pressure on us, the harder its defenders fight.
But it was precisely on interethnic discord that Hitler counted on in the Great Patriotic War. The fact that the country will be overwhelmed by national strife, the "fifth column" will raise its head. But I made a mistake – just as the strategists overseas and those in Ukraine who called Russians quilted jackets and barbarians made a mistake today.
WE DON'T ABANDON OUR OWN
In the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we see the opposite. Looting, general drunkenness, mockery of the civilian population. Even they do not spare their own, throwing the wounded on the battlefield.
Ours don't leave their own. Nikita Elizarov is the driver of the Ural tanker truck from the 15th Regiment. When the fight began, Nikita tried to get the car out of the fire, and he almost succeeded. But he received bullet wounds in both legs. Nikita's comrades did not abandon him. When the fight subsided, they pulled him to a safe place, made a dressing, saving him from a lot of blood loss. What he himself told me in the Podolsk hospital.
In the hospital wards, I met with a new young generation – guys who, not in the movies, but in reality, defend the country, carry out the order of Supreme Commander Vladimir Putin on demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine with weapons in their hands. They know what they're fighting for. They understand that our cause is right, the enemy will be defeated.
But not the entire Russian army is fighting with Ukrainian nationalists. Not even the entire grouping of the Ground Forces, which has 380 thousand people.
The layman asks the question: why has the advance of our troops slowed down? But imagine: Ukrainians have concentrated a 120-thousand-strong group in the Donbass. And to confront the enemy, a 90-thousandth army was assembled from our side, which has been fighting without rest for the fourth month, stubbornly moving forward. At the same time, it spares the civilian population as much as possible. Unlike, for example, the Americans in Iraq, who undertook carpet bombing of cities and villages, regardless of the victims.
Ukrainian nationalists behave in much the same way, blowing up peaceful houses and bridges during the retreat and shooting from tank guns. As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on a conference call on June 7, 2022, "by retreating, Ukrainian nationalists seek to cause maximum damage to economic sectors. In turn, the Russian military, liberating Donbass, take industrial facilities under their protection, thereby preserving the potential for the development of the region's economy."
We have seen footage of Ukrainians finishing off our wounded, cutting throats, and torturing them. Our attitude towards the surrendered is humane – in accordance with the International Convention on the Treatment of Combatants who have laid down their weapons. By the way, 6489 Ukrainian soldiers have already surrendered to date.
EDUCATION AND UPBRINGING
But what about our fellow citizens, who are dominated by clip thinking? As the president of the Board of Military experts of Russia, retired Major General Alexander Vladimirov, told me, the entire sphere of national education and upbringing of citizens was in a zone of strategic vulnerability.
The transition to the Bologna system and the liberal principles of education as a service destroyed the Soviet secondary school. This has led to negative consequences for the entire complex of Russia's national development and security. Let's remember: when Yuri Gagarin flew in 1961, American President John F. Kennedy said that the race for space was won by a Soviet teacher.
The problems of state-building of the conceptual plan in the Constitution of the Russian Federation remain unresolved in the country. The main objectives of Russia's national strategy are not specified. There is no chapter in which the duties of the state, society and the individual – a citizen of the Russian Federation – are defined in relation to the list of his rights guaranteed by the state. The fundamentals of the national state ideology of Russia and the ideology of military service are not presented.
And most importantly, the main directions of educational work have not been defined. In particular, the education of the state-patriotic worldview of citizens as the basis of their desire to build and defend the Fatherland. These flaws must be urgently eliminated. And the first step towards abandoning the Bologna education system has already been taken.
Reserve officers do not stand aside either. There are many of them who, on their own initiative, buy bulletproof vests, helmets, food and send it to Donbass. At the initiative of the chairman of the interregional public organization "Council of Veterans of the Military Financial and Economic Service of the Russian Federation", retired Colonel-General Vasily Vorobyov, it was decided to provide humanitarian assistance to a military hospital in Podolsk, as HVO has already written.
Alas, the Ministry of Defense has not formed an extra-budgetary account to which funds can be transferred from organizations, enterprises, ordinary citizens who have expressed a desire to contribute to the victory over the Ukrainian nationalists, to the rehabilitation of the wounded, to help the families of the victims.
But today, according to the same military financiers, the question should be raised more broadly: about the creation of the State Defense Fund, which was formed during the Great Patriotic War and made a great contribution to the victory over fascism.
Oleg Falichev
Oleg Valentinovich Falichev is a military observer.
