Machor

Hear hear! Sweating a little is good for you as you grow older, and the sweat spilled in the exercises...
Edit: and to be honest, my grandpa, apart from fighting the Nazis, took part in the "Wisła" operation, fighting the Banderite partisans and participated in ethnic cleansing of south-eastern Poland from the Ukrainians after the war. Nothing to be proud of, it highlights how complicated CEE history is...

I so get that. My grandfather was a partisan in WW2 and part of Prague Uprising. I am now trying to become part of our Active Reserves - turns out I need to get somewhat fitter first  
Before this all happened, I thought this is only for "weirdo nationalist people". It is incredible how easily a world turn upside down.
 
EDIT: I am sure this is something a lot of people share. At the same time, we're the lucky ones who can chose whether to join instead of having to.

All right guys, this is a post where I spill my guts in quite an emotional manner, please move along if your're not up for it.
I'll start with stating that I'm really fond of this community that I accidentally found thanks to @Der Zeitgeist. While we differ in perception of some minutiae of the events unraveling in front of us, we all seem to share the same view on whats right and moral in this context. And that is really a lot, more that I could expect from most of my average 'real', 'physical' acquaintances.
For my whole life, since I was an 8 years old kid listening to my grandpa's war tales, I was deeply interested in all things military related. It is easy to get a young boy interested  in this kind of stuff - the power, the agency, the feeling of purpose this provides is unmatched by anything else in the world. Of course  when you're still an adolescent, your understanding of what war/ armed conflict means cannot be deep enough. As I was entering my adulthood, even studying military history academically, I grew to hate the very notion of armed conflict and violence. I guess getting the real grasp of what war means to a regular person was too much to me at this point. I retained my interest, but didn't really pursue it apart from theoretical knowledge. Especially, I dodged the last years of draft i Poland - neither me, nor Polish civil society in general was really ready for it in early 2000's. I was living my life happily since then, like if "The End of History" was and undisputed fact of life.
And it really changed with the start of war in Ukraine. I could easily picture myself in the position of average Kyiv or Kharkiv citizen, a guy in his late 30s, with a reasonable career in IT, concentrated on making a living for his wife and young kids, who is suddenly confronted with the need to physically fight for all that is important for him. 
Of course, in this great community we mostly  concentrate of relatively coldly analysing what is going on, trying to get a grasp of events the way a historian narrates the Battle of Kursk - it is of course THE WAY to practically understand the events and be able to draw conclusions. That's how a commander should look at it, putting his feeling aside. This however isn't the only way to talk about war, especially it isn't the only "right" way to do so. 
On a personal or local society level, what this war is is the fight between right and wrong, between liberty and slavery, between good and evil. Of course, if you are a mature individual, you understand that the good and bad are very relative terms, and it's best to avoid such violent situations at all. Yet, it if comes to the conflict like this, for me the only true way to talk about the people on the very front line, in the trenches facing The Enemy, is poetry and epic prose. The cold analysis is of course important to practical understanding of the situation, yet it doesn't do justice to a person giving his or her life for a greater cause. Having said that, I run at a few videos kept very much in the spirit I outlined here:
A music video to Sabaton's 40:1 song, really fitting the evens of the first few weeks of war. We might've forget it already, but the first days were about the grassroots citizen resistance that in many cases stopped the orcs. Videos from February and March are really reminding of what it is all about:
Here's an Azov oath from 2015, it's as powerful as it gets:
And a subtitled Ukrainian anthem:
There's a conclusion to this rant - today I sent a letter to my local Territorial Defense brigade. They are overflowing with volunteers at the moment, but I'll should be able to join in the winter, early next year at the latest.
It's OK, I'll have the time to get used to morning jogs I guess.

Without wishing to derail the thread with discussion of old Polish TV shows again, I can't help noticing three tankers and a dog in front of the Polish-flagged T-72. Something tells me the homage is deliberate...

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

So much for the 'NATO threat' - Russian troops no longer needed on the Finnish border:
Ukrainians using PTS-2 - Soviet equivalent of the LVT - in the retreat from Severodonetsk; it was Vietnam in the air, the Pacific on the ground:
Motorized Infantry, 2022:

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

So much for the 'NATO threat' - Russian troops no longer needed on the Finnish border:
Ukrainians using PTS-2 - Soviet equivalent of the LVT - in the retreat from Severodonetsk; it was Vietnam in the air, the Pacific on the ground:
Motorized Infantry, 2022:

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

So much for the 'NATO threat' - Russian troops no longer needed on the Finnish border:
Ukrainians using PTS-2 - Soviet equivalent of the LVT - in the retreat from Severodonetsk; it was Vietnam in the air, the Pacific on the ground:
Motorized Infantry, 2022:

So much for the 'NATO threat' - Russian troops no longer needed on the Finnish border:
Ukrainians using PTS-2 - Soviet equivalent of the LVT - in the retreat from Severodonetsk; it was Vietnam in the air, the Pacific on the ground:
Motorized Infantry, 2022:

I'm starting to think we were wrong to call Putin 'Putler'... we should be calling him 'Putini' instead, remembering how Fascist Italy was able to take Ethiopia and Albania after great effort and losses, and had to be bailed out by Nazi Germany in Greece and North Africa.

Been out there twice now, as a civilian aid worker, different this last time, aid convoy was shelled, no one hurt, but the signs that the Russians are shelling villages etc for fun very obvious, more widespread firing. Watched a massive firefight  (from safety of a cellar) lots of night time artillery. Things more tense. Last time  I am going, as my missus says at 64 I am to old, hey in my head I'm still a 21 year old soldier. Sadly i see peace has more chance of platting fog than stopping this war at the moment.
 

Yes ) Or "...all will be Ukraine". The letters ЗСУ (AFU) stylized in the trident 

akd already posted this, but reposting for folks who can't read Russian: That bridge is now protected with decoys against radar-guided missiles:
@Kinophile

Interesting tidbits in this article:
Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive to retake Kherson province
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/03/ukraine-prepares-a-counter-offensive-to-retake-kherson-province
 

Interesting tidbits in this article:
Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive to retake Kherson province
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/03/ukraine-prepares-a-counter-offensive-to-retake-kherson-province
 

Interesting tidbits in this article:
Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive to retake Kherson province
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/03/ukraine-prepares-a-counter-offensive-to-retake-kherson-province
 

akd already posted this, but reposting for folks who can't read Russian: That bridge is now protected with decoys against radar-guided missiles:
@Kinophile

Interesting tidbits in this article:
Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive to retake Kherson province
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/07/03/ukraine-prepares-a-counter-offensive-to-retake-kherson-province