| Drakrami said: 1) Why are the rebels in Eastern Ukraine so heavily armed and trained? 2) Why are the rebels risking their own lives to attack Ukrainian soldiers? First of all, I doubt they hated their Ukrainian lives so much that they would risk their lives to overthrow the government? Second of all, if the answer to the previous question is: "yes, they hated their Ukrainian lives that much", then why did they not rebel much earlier? |
1) I'm not sure what training you're referring to? As far as I'm aware lack of training is severe problem for rebels, they even installed few training facilities for new recruits. I'd assume few 50+ years old Afghanistan vets are the best officers rebels could dream of, plus some volunteers from Russia and Ossetia that might have military experience. Strelkov, the de-facto commander near Slavyansk, has issued a note not so long time ago to the people of Donbass with plea to support them, especially those with military experience.
All arms they have have been either captured in Ukrainian security service and police buildings, or handed to them by Ukrainian military who refused to fight against them. 6 BMD's, NSV machine gun, 2 mortars, few ATGMs and unknown number of RPGs -- that's all they have aside from small arms. BMDs came from Ukrainian 95th VDV brigade, that partially have been disarmed by the locals, ATGMs most likely came from the Ukrainian military as well.
