QuoteProkhorenko : They have spotted me, there are shooting everywhere, I am pinned, requesting immediate extraction.
Command: Extraction request acknowledged.
Prokhorenko : Please hurry I am low on ammo, they seem to [be]everywhere, I can't hold them for too long please hurry.
Command: Confirmed, hold them off, continue returning fire, retreat to a safe position, air support is monitoring, state your coordinates
Prokhorenko : [gives coordinates which are blurred in the transcript]
Command: [command repeats coordinates which are blurred.]Confirm
Prokhorenko : Confirmed, please hurry I am low on ammo, they are surroundig me, bastards!
Command: ETA on evacuation 12 minutes, return to the green line, I repeat return to the green line.
Prokhorenko : They are close, I am surrounded, this may be the end, tell my family I love them dearly.
Command: Return to the green line, continue returning fire, help is on the way, followed by air support.
Prokhorenko : Negative, I am surrounded, they are so many of these bastards!
Prokhorenko : They are outside, conduct the airstrike now please hurry, this is the end, tell my family I love them and i died fighting for my motherland.
Command: Negative, return to the green line.
Prokhorenko : Unable command, I am surrounded, they are outside, I don't want them to take me and parade me, conduct the airstrike, they will make a mockery of me and this uniform. I want to die with dignity and take all these bastards with me. please my last wish, conduct the airstrike, they will kill me either way.
Command: Please confirm your request.
Prokhorenko : They [are] outside, this is the end commander, thank you, tell my family and my country I love them. Tell them I was brave and I fought until I could no longer. Please take care of my family, avenge my death, good bye commander, tell my family I love them!
Command: [No response, orders the airstrike]
:o
Alexander Prokhorenko, RIP. May your government someday be worthy of you.
I dunno
I am somewhat skeptical of anything that comes from Putin's propaganda machine coupled with he needs to make the military look good in their Syria actions cause they really didn't achieve anything apart from PR. Lastly I know Russians are prone to melancholy prose but I sure wouldn't be talking about the motherland and reciting an epitaph fit for a heroic statue as my last words. I would probably be saying something along the lines of how F'd up this mission was and how shitty is my luck.
I hope I am wrong I am sure there is more than a kernel of truth here but my cynical side thinks that it didn't go down just like this.
Con
Where did you find this, Brant?
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on April 02, 2016, 05:53:09 AM
Where did you find this, Brant?
Several different locations have republished it, but I cut & pasted this one from one of the veterans groups on FB.
I know Pravda.ru published the transcript at some point, but I don't know if they were the first ones.
The Russians will make Prokhorenko a hero and decorate him to inspire other Russian soldiers to take out as many enemies as they can even if it means dying as Prokhorenko did.
Edit: Just a thought -- Were there any other Russian soldiers with him when Prokhorenko ordered the airstrike on his location?
Quote from: Greybriar on April 02, 2016, 07:57:42 AM
The Russians will make Prokhorenko a hero and decorate him to inspire other Russian soldiers to take out as many enemies as they can even if it means dying as Prokhorenko did.
Edit: Just a thought -- Were there any other Russian soldiers with him when Prokhorenko ordered the airstrike on his location?
Good point. Have the Russians released the actual audio? What if this whole thing is a coverup for either a huge mistake or, even worse, a cynical decision by Russian Brass and not Prokhorenko himself to deny IS-Hole their Russian soldier propaganda prize.
Look, there is a lot of (justified) cynicism about what Russia is doing around the world today. They are an adversary and potential enemy of NATO and the United States, and their media outlets are propaganda rags (though effective ones, tending to use different narratives of the truth rather than telling outright lies).
However, that doesn't mean that Russian soldiers aren't every bit as brave, professional, or honorable as soldiers from elsewhere. Russian officers have a tendency to lead from far forward, which has been a problem for them in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria, where high ranking officers have been killed for being too far forward, but you can't accuse them of cowardice.
If this ends up being genuine, I would hope that we could all agree that it is admirable for soldier in a hopeless position to use his death to kill as many ISIS fighters as possible.
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on April 02, 2016, 11:20:47 AM
If this ends up being genuine, I would hope that we could all agree that it is admirable for soldier in a hopeless position to use his death to kill as many ISIS fighters as possible.
Absolutely.
I agree that Russian soldiers are brave and certainly as capable of being honorable as any others. I'll even believe this guy called in an airstrike on his own position and died doing it. I'm with Con though. The transcript sounds like typical BS Russian propaganda.
There are apparently radio intercepts that the US has that confirms the Russian guy calling in the airstrike on himself. How much of the transcript is verbatim I can't tell you, but the situation matches everything else we know about airstrike based on other US SIGINT.
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on April 02, 2016, 11:20:47 AM
Look, there is a lot of (justified) cynicism about what Russia is doing around the world today. They are an adversary and potential enemy of NATO and the United States, and their media outlets are propaganda rags (though effective ones, tending to use different narratives of the truth rather than telling outright lies).
However, that doesn't mean that Russian soldiers aren't every bit as brave, professional, or honorable as soldiers from elsewhere. Russian officers have a tendency to lead from far forward, which has been a problem for them in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria, where high ranking officers have been killed for being too far forward, but you can't accuse them of cowardice.
If this ends up being genuine, I would hope that we could all agree that it is admirable for soldier in a hopeless position to use his death to kill as many ISIS fighters as possible.
You have no argument from me. I have no dislike of Russians at all- they have many admirable qualities. They deserve better than who they have calling the shots.
They probably think the same about us...
No doubt. :(
Holy crap that is unreal.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on April 02, 2016, 02:43:47 PM
They probably think the same about us...
Quite so! :2funny:
Quote from: Staggerwing on April 02, 2016, 02:01:39 PM
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on April 02, 2016, 11:20:47 AM
Look, there is a lot of (justified) cynicism about what Russia is doing around the world today. They are an adversary and potential enemy of NATO and the United States, and their media outlets are propaganda rags (though effective ones, tending to use different narratives of the truth rather than telling outright lies).
However, that doesn't mean that Russian soldiers aren't every bit as brave, professional, or honorable as soldiers from elsewhere. Russian officers have a tendency to lead from far forward, which has been a problem for them in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria, where high ranking officers have been killed for being too far forward, but you can't accuse them of cowardice.
If this ends up being genuine, I would hope that we could all agree that it is admirable for soldier in a hopeless position to use his death to kill as many ISIS fighters as possible.
You have no argument from me. I have no dislike of Russians at all- they have many admirable qualities. They deserve better than who they have calling the shots.
+1 A brave hero in the fight against Satanic State. I am sorry for his family's loss. :(
My only reason for questioning it authenticity was how it read, which was like bad dialog from an AAR. However, I have no doubt that a Russian soldier wouldn't be capable of such a brave act.
During my tour of duty in Vietnam, the green lieutenant in command of our platoon called in artillery support very close to our position. He thought we were about to be overrun by North Vietnamese forces. The rest of us didn't think so and advised him he was calling in the artillery too close to our position. He replied, "I'll call it in right on top of us if I think it's necessary." I was reminded of that experience when I read this thread. So far, no one has answered my question as to how many other Russian soldiers were killed due to the young officer calling in the airstrike on his position. And was the air strike justified? Or was it the action of a young gung-ho officer who wanted to be a hero regardless of how many of his fellow countrymen would be killed?
Perhaps I am being too pessimistic and the young officer acted properly under the circumstances. But such behavior reminds me not only of my experience during the Vietnam War, but also of the Japanese kamikazes during World War II and the suicide bombers in more recent times, and even so didn't those latter individuals only kill themselves and their enemies? I was not aware of such fanatical behavior involving killing their comrades being the norm for modern warfare.
So if there were other Russian soldiers who died when Prokhorenko called in the air strike, are they heroes, too? Or just expendables that made it possible for Russian propaganda to create a hero?
I think it was just him from every account that I've read anywhere
Quote from: bayonetbrant on April 04, 2016, 03:13:27 PM
I think it was just him from every account that I've read anywhere
What was a Russian officer doing in a combat zone by himself?
Airstrike spotter, but I don't think he went in by himself. I think he ended up by himself.
Geez Greybriar. When described what happen in Nam, I was thinking of that scene from We Were Soldiers when they declared a Broken Arrow and had the airstrikes just about on top of them.
Quote from: Greybriar on April 04, 2016, 02:15:43 PM
During my tour of duty in Vietnam, the green lieutenant in command of our platoon called in artillery support very close to our position. He thought we were about to be overrun by North Vietnamese forces. The rest of us didn't think so and advised him he was calling in the artillery too close to our position. He replied, "I'll call it in right on top of us if I think it's necessary." I was reminded of that experience when I read this thread. So far, no one has answered my question as to how many other Russian soldiers were killed due to the young officer calling in the airstrike on his position. And was the air strike justified? Or was it the action of a young gung-ho officer who wanted to be a hero regardless of how many of his fellow countrymen would be killed?
Perhaps I am being too pessimistic and the young officer acted properly under the circumstances. But such behavior reminds me not only of my experience during the Vietnam War, but also of the Japanese kamikazes during World War II and the suicide bombers in more recent times, and even so didn't those latter individuals only kill themselves and their enemies? I was not aware of such fanatical behavior involving killing their comrades being the norm for modern warfare.
So if there were other Russian soldiers who died when Prokhorenko called in the air strike, are they heroes, too? Or just expendables that made it possible for Russian propaganda to create a hero?
You make an excellent point. You didn't mention though how these gung ho officer types sometimes get killed by friendly fire when the shooting starts... ::)
Body flown home. Being awarded Hero of the Russian Federation:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/30/europe/body-of-russian-rambo-flown-home/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/30/europe/body-of-russian-rambo-flown-home/index.html)
I'd be extremely skeptical of anything that Russians are saying. Russians are doing very little to fight ISIS if at all, so this could have been anywhere or just made up completely to cover up some incident. Don't make a mistake to think that same levels of decency exist in Russia today as in the West.
They say it was during Palmyra fighting, but then there's this: http://news.sky.com/story/1688756/is-files-reveal-assads-deals-with-militants (http://news.sky.com/story/1688756/is-files-reveal-assads-deals-with-militants)