Comparison of the war experience in the Middle East and Ukraine
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Matthew Sampson, a US Marine Sniper, has fought in Ukraine for two years in the International Legion of the MID. Before that, he spent more than 9 years in the Iraq war.
Exclusively for Novyny.LIVE, he shared his observations about the wars and compared his combat experience in Iraq and Ukraine.
How the war in Ukraine differs from the war in Iraq
According to Sampson, the war in Ukraine is fundamentally different from the war in the Middle East. For example, there is a lot of trench warfare in Ukraine, which is typical for European conflicts. At the same time, the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was reduced to counter-insurgency. Nobody wore a uniform during such conflicts, and every civilian could pose a threat anywhere.
"Whereas we are fighting against real soldiers here, dressed in uniforms, and it doesn’t matter whether they are good soldiers or not. But this is a real uniform and a real front line. And when there is time, we can move away from the front line and do more ordinary things, like what was usual during World War II. However, Afghanistan is not the case," he noted.
The soldier also drew attention to the technological level of the war in Ukraine — on both sides. Both armies have powerful weapons. This is significantly different from the experience in Iraq, where coalition forces completely dominated over local insurgents in the use of high technology:
"You know, the US or coalition forces were the only ones who dropped bombs with the help of artillery, drones or something like that. And now, the fight is equal on most of the front lines, both sides have planes, drones, electronic warfare, artillery, as a rule, constantly, depending on the availability of ammunition".
Matthew Sampson also emphasized that although the Russian army turned out to be less powerful than previously thought, it still has a large amount of hardware and resources, so it is dangerous to underestimate such an enemy.
As a reminder, Ukraine has already produced long-range UAVs, which can reach Russian territory up to 1,800 kilometers of distance.
Let us recall that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has explained the reason why Ukraine cannot liberate its territories now.
