Russian invasion of Ukraine

  • Alice Taylor (Telegraph Subscriber)
A tidbit to think about.
One of the big issues with the Russian army is and has always been communications. Many of the Russian troops don't speak good Russian! Some don't speak Russian at all. They speak obscure dialects from different "stans" that are not at all intelligible to the average Muscovite. With Putin trying to avoid call ups in the Russian major cities, we have known all along that many of his conscripts are from the stans and far east. The Wagner group, Syrians and Chechen...lord knows how much Russian those guys know.
So, the Russian officers can have a bit of an issue simply give out orders and making themselves understood and all you need is one language foul up to scupper an entire plan.
A thousand years ago, when I was training for listening, I had to recognise all of the east block languages even if I didn't know them. I had to be able to tell instantly if the target was speaking Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, whatever so I could hand off the signal to the correct linguist. I'm sure that in today's battlefield environment, the language issues are compounded.
Another tidbit. Russian and Ukrainian have one alphabet and share 60% of the vocabulary. Ukrainians generally know Russian very, very well and the pockets of native Russian speakers in the east often know Ukrainian. Together they speak a mish-mash of both and sometimes you'll hear one person in a conversation speak Ukrainian and the other Russian and they don't skip a beat.
However, Russians don't speak a bit of Ukrainian. It's is different enough that it's like an Italian talking to a Frenchman. It sounds the same, but it's not. So Russian soldiers sneaking back to their lines in civvies can be easily caught by Ukrainians. The Russians can't blend in once they open their mouths.
 
Bilboblue said:
The cheek of this fucking b*tch....
"The state that's hostile to us..."
I wonder why that is!

Click to expand...

The danger is that so many Russians think like that. If Putin gets taken out there is no guarantee that the next regime will be any better. But the chance is well worth taking.
 
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