© REUTERS/Marko Djurica
On Saturday, a group of self-defense fighters held talks with servicemen deployed at an airfield near Kramatorsk.
"They say they don't want war, they don't want to shoot or kill anyone. Many come from our region. But they refuse to surrender - they have orders to obey," a spokesman for the self-defense forces told reporters.
Discontent among the servicemen has been fueled by worsening food supplies, the spokesman said.
Also stationed at the airport are about 70 representatives of some unknown organizations, probably Right Sector radicals.
"They wear black uniforms without any insignia and don't communicate with the military," the spokesman said.
"They say they don't want war, they don't want to shoot or kill anyone. . . . But they refuse to surrender - they have orders to obey,"
Please spare us from the BS. Lackeys of all tyrants have probably expressed similar sentiments throughout history while they went about their oppression.
The Nuremberg war crimes trials established the precedent that a defense of "we merely obeyed orders" is not acceptable. So long as they obey the orders of the coup-installed gov't, they are fully complicit in the crimes of that gov't and remain enemies of the local population.
Until/unless they actually refuse to obey such orders, their feelings of anger, discontent, etc., although affecting their level of efficiency, does not completely eliminate their capacity to mete out violence to the locals. It makes no difference to the victims if they are shot by a soldier who is discontented or happy about carrying out his orders to shoot.