Guest Post from SHTFplan.com
Editor’s Note: FerFAL has been a leading voice in the preparedness movement before there ever was a preparedness movement. In the early 2000′s Fernando personally witnessed financial and socio-economic collapse on a massive scale in Argentina. He witnessed the complete meltdown of his country’s currency and can speak first-hand about what hyperinflation looks like. As you might expect, following the Argentine destabilization FerFAL witnessed the panic, desperation, and violence that one might expect when the world around you collapses. He wrote about his experiences in his widely popular The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse. His book is loaded with practical information and advice, and remains a must-read for anyone who is serious about actionable strategies to prepare for similar events in their own locales. His most recent book, Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying Put Is Not An Option, delves into strategies for getting out of Dodge and finding a new home so that you can avoid what he lived through in Argentina.
In his latest article, generously shared with our community and originally posted at his website The Modern Survivalist, Fernando highlights twelve survival lessons we can learn from the Ukraine conflict. As he can attest, nothing provides as much valuable information as real world situations.
12 Survival Lessons from Ukraine
By Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre
The war in Ukraine is a tragic event but it’s one that we can all learn from. Nothing provides as much valuable information as real world situations where ordinary people are forced to deal with extraordinary events. At the end of the day, the war in Ukraine gives us plenty of examples of what works and what doesn’t, and while personal experience is important, the wise person learns from other people’s mistakes so as to not repeat them himself.
There are several articles explaining what people are going through in eastern Ukraine right now. This article over at dailymail provides a good visual image of what people are going through. There’s also a thread in survivalist boards where a Dunbass resident that goes by the name of George1980 has been posting, sharing his experiences. I highly recommend reading it if you have the time.
Using this information, here are twelve important lessons based what has happened so far in Ukraine:
1) Artillery & infantry beats survivalist hero fantasies. Every. Single. Time.
Maybe the most obvious lesson to be learned is how miserably all these fantasies about forming survival groups, living in a retreat while fighting against impossible odds would ultimately fail. There’s simply no surviving against an occupation force when facing them as an individual or small group. Houses, towns and even entire cities can eventually get surrounded and overpowered. A single house or compound represents a laughable resistance to organized armed forces, let alone ones with artillery and air support at their disposal. Once shooting at your position is no longer fun, they’ll just blow you up. It’s as simple as that.
