Ukraine Sends Qualified Anti-Aircraft Gunners to Front Line Trenches

During his annual press conference on December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin challenged the USA and NATO to a sort of “technological duel” over Russia’s new hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile to prove that it cannot be shot down by Western air defenses. “Let them (Ukraine, the USA, and NATO) identify a target in Kiev, concentrate all their most advanced missile defense systems there, they can also use the anti-missile systems located in Romania and Poland, after which we will launch our Oreshnik,” Putin said, adding that the missile now has a range of 5500 kilometers. “We’re ready for such an experiment, and we’ll see what happens. That would be interesting for us. Such a technological duel will be useful for both us and them,” the Russian leader emphasized.

While the West remains silent, “the answer,” so to speak, from Kiev did not take long to arrive: Ukraine is increasingly short of soldiers, and for this reason many highly trained soldiers working in anti-aircraft units are sent to fight in the trenches. This was told to the British newspaper The Guardian by two very well-informed sources in the Ukrainian air defense forces.

After nearly three years of war and ever-increasing pressure from Russian forces, Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches are at the limit of their strength, and those replacing them are increasingly older and inexperienced men and women, told the British newspaper a soldier with the 114th Territorial Defense Brigade.

The Ukrainian government has rejected outgoing US President Joe Biden’s idea to “lower the draft age from the current 25 to 18.” And that’s because Ukraine’s leaders fear the measure would be “too unpopular in a country where there is already talk of a lost generation and demographic crisis.”