"Russian warship, go f--- yourself!" (a.k.a. "Nuts!")

I.

December 22, 1944.  Battle of the Bulge.  German General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz attacks the 101st Airborne with a superior force and issues an ultimatum (excerpted):

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

         The German Commander.

The response of General Anthony McAuliffe:

          To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander.

The 101st held off the Germans for two days until relieved by the 4th Armored Division.  Those dudes had Nuts....

II.

February 25, 2021.  Invasion of Ukraine.  A Russian warship confronts 13 Ukrainian border guards stationed on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island:

“This is a Russian military warship. I suggest you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and needless casualties. Otherwise, you will be bombed.”

 The Ukrainian response:

"Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

The 13 border guards were all killed.  (Or were they?  27/02:  The guards may have in fact been captured and taken to Sevastopol...Good news for the guards, but the propaganda value is somewhat diminished.  Dying for one's country against unwinnable odds, Russian ruthlessness....There's a good lesson here.  In war, truth is often the first casualty.  Gonna have to hold my tongue a few days before reacting to news from Ukraine, perhaps.  Also, the article to which I've linked says many people are comparing the "Russian warship" riposte to McAuliffe's "Nuts!"  I knew I wouldn't be the only one to grok that....)

III.

13 guards on a 40-acre island.  It shows both the ruthlessness we can expect from Russian forces and the Ukrainian resolve to resist the invaders.  Apparently Ukrainian troops are putting up stiff resistance and have repulsed more than one Russian incursion.  Thousands of ordinary men and women are taking up arms.  I saw an interview with Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik who said she and her staff were armed and ready to fight.  In another interview ex-President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine will never surrender and showed CNN the Kalashnikov he will use to participate in the defense of Kyiv.  President Zelensky has urged citizens to start making Molotov cocktails.

Sadly, without heavy artillery and air support, the vastly outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainians have little chance of defeating the Russians.  But one never knows.  The Afghanis and Chechens proved superior firepower doesn't always ensure an easy victory over partisans with the will to fight.  Many Russians are aghast at Putin's invasion, and I'll bet many soldiers aren't that enthusiastic either.  And the Ukrainians don't want to live under the yoke of a Russian autocrat.

Ukraine has been described as corrupt, and the government has been heavy-handed with separatists in its eastern regions.  But the Ukrainian people clearly don't want to be occupied by the Russians and, while many have fled, many are gearing up to fight.  If and when the Russians force a military surrender, they can expect heavy losses to the citizen partisans who appear ready to die for their autonomy.  It's not Zelensky and the government I support, but the people who'd rather die than live under foreign domination.  Vive la Résistance!

Russia has just indicated a willingness to talk.  Maybe all Russia wants is to force Ukraine to abandon its desire to join the EU and NATO.  Maybe it's the first country on Putin's wish-list of countries to annex.  Russia might be coming to the table because Ukraine's military has performed better than expected.  Maybe seeing the people arming themselves has made them realize subduing Ukraine will require significant civilian, and Russian, casualties.  A lot of Russian soldiers may be hesitant to kill people who are in many ways their cousins.

One can argue that if the Allies had opposed Hitler from the get-go, after annexing Austria, WW2 could have been avoided.  Perhaps by stopping Putin now another European war can be avoided.  One hopes that Ukrainian military and civilian resistance, an unwillingness to kill large numbers of Ukrainians, and domestic dissent in Russia will make Putin reconsider.  Maybe the willingness to negotiate is another ruse.  Russia has been lying about its intentions up until and since the moment they actually invaded.

Maybe logic is something we can't even apply here.  Putin is either crazy like a fox, a "genius" as his biggest fan Comrade Trumpsky calls him, or he is, quite simply....Nuts.

P.S.  I'd be remiss not to mention the Ukrainian woman who went up to Russian soldiers and offered them sunflower seeds to carry around.  Sounds sweet.  Until she told them that the reason is so that flowers may bloom on the spot where they die.  That's Nuts in a nutshell.