German Soldiers Are Driving German
Leopard Tanks on Ukraine’s Battlefields
Sputnik News
(September 25, 2023) — Russian Armed Forces reconnaissance group operating near frontline with Armed Forces of Ukraine or AFU recently have destroyed a Leopard tank handed over to Ukraine with a fully German crew consisting of the soldiers of the German Armed Forces, the commander of the Russian team operating in the Zaporozhye Region with the call sign ‘Legend’ has told mass media.
The group commander said that when the Russian team stopped near [Ukrainian] ‘meat assault’ line and hit Leopard tank with the help of anti-tank missile system, it approached to the burned tank in the hope of taking a POW for interrogation. Russians found out that the tank driver was alive though badly wounded, and the others GIs were killed. While seeing Russian military men the tank driver started shouting ‘Nicht schissen!’ in German that means ‘Do not shoot!’ in English. The ‘Legend’ emphasized that he knows German very well.
He confessed that the German driver pronounced several times that he is not a mercenary, but a soldier of the German Bundeswehr and the entire crew is from the same German military company. While the German serviceman was receiving first medical aid, he named his Brigade and its location in Ukraine.
The commander added that wounded German serviceman had lost a lot of blood and his wound was very serious. His last words before he died were in the form of very short saying that he loved his child and spouse very much and regretted agreeing to come here to fight. As the commander of the reconnaissance group admitted, he was at first a little surprised to find a German soldier in the destroyed Leopard tank.
The ’Legend’ appealed to Western instructors to think twice before going to participate in the aggression launched by Ukraine and NATO. “Let them think with their heads — about their children, their spouses — before fighting Russians,” the reconnaissance group commander clearly stated.
Moscow has already sent a note to NATO countries last spring over the inadmissibility of supplying of military aid to Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly noted that any arms shipments for Kiev would be a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently said that the USA and the NATO alliance are directly involved in the aggression — not only by supplying weapons, but also by training Ukrainian military personnel in the USA, the UK, Germany, Italy and other countries.
It was not the first case the Germans have been killed or wounded on the battlefield of Ukraine. But earlier they have been identified as mercenaries dressed in Ukrainian military uniform and equipped with an assault rifles and grenade launchers only.
President Putin lays a wreath at the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex in Volgograd
Putin on World War II Redux: 80 Years On
and We Are Facing German Tanks Again
BBC News
LONDON (February 3, 2023) — Vladimir Putin has compared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the fight against Nazi Germany, in a speech to mark the 80th anniversary of the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Citing Germany’s decision to send tanks to Ukraine, the Russian president said history was repeating itself.
“It’s unbelievable but true,” he said. “We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks.”
Germany is one of many countries helping Ukraine defend its territory.
Russia launched its bloody, full-scale invasion almost one year ago, prompting Western countries to send weapons and aid to the government in Kyiv.
Speaking in Volgograd — the modern name for Stalingrad — Mr Putin hinted that he could seek to move beyond conventional weapons.
“As new weapons are delivered by the collective West,
Russia will make greater use of its potential to respond.”
“Those who hope to defeat Russia on the battlefield do not understand, it seems, that a modern war with Russia will be very different for them,” the 70-year-old leader said. “We are not sending our tanks to their borders, but we have the means to respond. It won’t be limited to the use of armored hardware. Everyone must understand this.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to elaborate on Mr. Putin’s comments but did tell reporters that “as new weapons are delivered by the collective West, Russia will make greater use of its potential to respond”.
Mr. Putin was in Volgograd to mark the anniversary of the end of World War Two’s Battle of Stalingrad, which saw the Soviet army capture nearly 91,000 German troops in a major turning point of the war.
Over a million people perished in the battle — the bloodiest of the conflict.
Volgograd was temporarily renamed Stalingrad for the day to mark the anniversary, and earlier this week a new bust of the former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unveiled.
Stalin — who led the Soviet Union between 1924 and his death in 1953 — was accused of orchestrating a famine in Ukraine between 1932-33.
The event — called the Holodomor by Ukrainians — killed an estimated five million people and was recognised as a genocide earlier this week in Bulgaria.
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Mr. Putin has falsely sought to present Russia’s invasion as a battle against nationalists and Nazis — who he says are leading the Kyiv government. And he returned to the theme throughout his speech.
“Now, unfortunately, we see that the ideology of Nazism, already in its modern guise, in its modern manifestation, again creates direct threats to the security of our country,” he said. “Again and again we have to repel the aggression of the collective West.”
But he vowed that while it was “unbelievable but true” that Russia was again being threatened by German tanks, Moscow had an answer for any country that threatened it.
Berlin has agreed to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, prompting the Russian company Fores — a Urals-based energy industry firm — to offer five million roubles (£58,250) to the first Russian soldier to destroy or capture one.
Mr. Putin also laid flowers at the grave of the Soviet marshal who oversaw the defence of the city, and visited the main memorial complex where he led a moment of silence for those that died in the battle.
Meanwhile, thousands of Volgograd residents lined the city’s streets to watch a military parade. As planes roared overhead, modern and World War Two-era tanks rolled along the centre of the city. Some of the modern vehicles were marked with the letter Z, which has become the symbol of Russia’s invasion.
Local media reported that regional Governor Andrey Bocharov — who accompanied Mr Putin to the memorial complex — was not at the parade. He had not been seen since 24 January, leading to speculation that he was isolating before meeting the president.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was preparing to take “revenge” against the West for aiding Ukraine. “Now Russia is concentrating its forces. We all know that. It is preparing to try to take revenge, not only against Ukraine, but against a free Europe and the free world,” Mr Zelensky said in Kyiv.
Speaking alongside EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Mr. Zelensky said Russia was “increasing the pace of adaptation to sanctions” and urged the EU leader to impose additional restrictions on the Russian economy.
Later, addressing the National Prayer Breakfast in the US via videolink, Mr. Zelensky thanked US President Joe Biden for his support and set Ukrainian forces a goal of defeating the Russian invasion in the next year.
“We must do everything we can together so that next year — on the first Thursday of February — we will be able to pray simply with thanks for the obtained salvation from evil,” Mr. Zelensky said.
US Army Hospital in Germany Is Treating
Americans Hurt Fighting in Ukraine
The New York Times
(September 23, 2023) — The Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center has quietly started admitting Ukrainian Army soldiers who were wounded in combat, most of them American volunteers.
A group of Ukrainian Army soldiers pierced by Russian grenades and mortar shells arrived at a hospital recently in need of surgery. It would have been a familiar scene from the bloody war grinding on in Ukraine, except for two crucial differences: Most of the wounded soldiers were American, and so was the hospital — the US Army’s flagship medical center in Germany.
The Army has quietly started to treat wounded Americans and other fighters evacuated from Ukraine at its Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Though the number so far is small — currently 14 — it marks a notable new step in the United States’ deepening involvement in the conflict.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
