Both described 2025 as a turning point, defined largely by the collapse of the long-standing myth of a “safe Russian rear.” According to them, Russian forces no longer feel secure, even far from the front.
“If earlier the occupier felt threatened only in Crimea or near Donetsk, today they flinch at every sound in the Moscow region or Volgograd. Atesh has become a truly all-Russian network,” one of them said.
The movement, he added, is no longer a loose group of sympathizers but a systemic force embedded across Russia’s military infrastructure.
…
Today, an underground movement agent is not necessarily a person with a rifle in the forest. It is a waiter who overhears officers’ conversations in a café; a railway worker who knows the exact schedule of military trains; a technician who can “accidentally” disable an expensive radar.
The actual quote in the article has no grammatical issues, only the edited headline quote (which I still struggle to call a quote) has issues.
I was just meaning it’s not a common turn of phrase in English and possibly the author isn’t a native English speaker, so they’re trying to make a Ukrainian idiom fit the headline when it doesn’t.
I’m saying the quote is correct in the article but it was edited to sound odd, and they still put quotes around it. It’s just strange to me. The verbatim quote is fine, so I don’t think it’s translation that can be blamed.