This really sucks. Unbelievable Ukraine video.

[Igel]

15. Some of the shields were metal. Others, wood-based.

The wood-based ones would stop the rubber bullets. They were found to not work if the bullets were metal.

The metal shields are heavier. They'll stop the bullets if they're lead and not fired from too close a range. Also helps to have them at an angle to the bullet's trajectory. In the vid, one guy was knocked down by sniper fire hitting his shield.

Even if the shields don't always stop the bullet, they can slow them down.


As for the video, they were walking towards the sniper. Considering the steady diet of "murderous fascists out to kill you" about the protesters that the snipers would have been fed, having a group of men approach your position is not likely to get you to break out the hot cocoa. Esp. when they're wearing heavy coats and walking from the Maidan--their location is clear from the rubble behind them, the break in the cobbles, and the fact that as they go back some of the rubble is burning. What's under those coats? Perhaps additional hot cocoa mix? Ledentsy?

Snaipers come in various forms. Some are positioned on rooftops to kill innocents. Some are there to try to take out leaders. And yet others are there to protect the building from those who would seize it. The first are unconscionable; the second I can understand even across a political and group divide; the latter pretty much anybody can understand except those who, when subject to an invasion, assume that the invaders are swell and dandy and let them in unopposed.


This makes it sound like I'm pro-Yanukovich. I'm decidedly not. Just used to shifting my frame of reference.