beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,025
...
Some of the Russian regulars who've escaped Lyman will be good soldiers who just caught in an overall manoeuvre by the Ukrainians, and after regrouping they will fight again, and they will kill Ukrainians. Ukraine will not win this war by releasing Russian soldiers for free. And given that they could exchange POWs for Ukrainian POWs, it would make even less sense. Try explaining that to the families of lost Ukrainian soldiers - yeah, we could have got your son back in exchange for some Russians, but we decided not to bother.
maybe they are good soliders poorly led or maybe they are poor soldiers, they have just been defeated. strongly negative either way, having demoralised troops being pressed back either way is negative for the Russians. they havent been "released" simply allowed to rout in a particular direction. this will raise questions among them why Ukrainians are behaving so much better than thier leaders, further demoralising and destablising the Russian forces.
i understood the better Russian units are in the south, where they were expected to push through to take Odessa. the north is supposed to be a holding army, a large amount of DPR milita. and in the south there is a steady psuhing back of the Russian forces, not getting same attention but certainly positive.