Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has been going on for 62 days. Ukrainian defenders repel the Russian occupiers and fight bravely against the enemy every day.
At the same time, the invaders continue to launch missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, shell residential buildings and kill civilians.
Military expert Oleg Zhdanov explains what the Kremlin has been hoping for since the first days of the offensive, on what principle our Armed Forces are fighting and what is happening in Donbas.
– The Russians immediately launched missile strikes and a ground invasion of Ukraine. What did they expect?
– I think that Putin made this decision in accordance with the reports of the FSB which were preparing an assessment of the situation and the assessment of the enemy. So he, apparently, after reading or listening to her (and it could be either Patrushev or Bortnikov), decided: why wait a whole month? This month, the external situation may change, and Ukraine, I think, he assumed that Ukraine could not receive assistance from partner countries to the extent that it is. Then he decided that it was necessary to go together: a fire raid, a massive missile-bomb attack and an invasion by a ground group.
By the way, as a “special operation” – they started all right. The first was a missile-bomb attack, then the capture of the airfield in Gostomel. If they had captured the airfield in Gostomel, an airborne division would have landed here and it would have captured Kyiv in a few hours.
The paratroopers capture Kyiv, destroy the country’s leadership or take prisoners, as far as I know, there was more to destroy because they have Yanukovych. Why – because Putin has always called the Maidan a coup and Yanukovych has always positioned himself as a legitimate president.
And then, on the second day, the main forces in the columns come. And what they have in armor is a ceremonial uniform. And they immediately ride. That was the idea. But they did not expect such resistance. And I will note that the Gostomel landing party was probably the most tenacious. Despite the fact that it was blocked immediately, the National Guard worked very well there and the helicopters abandoned the landing at random. They had to land him and provide him with fire support and after we shot down three helicopters, they just moved away. But the landing lasted about six or eight hours.
– That is, the calculation was that there will be no resistance?
– The FSB stole money, wrote a fake report. According to these reports, there should be up to 5,000 supporters in each major city ready to rally with Russian flags, and up to 2,000 militants ready to take up arms and seize administrative buildings, as in 2014. But it turned out that there was nothing but a small agency. And so there was no support.
– Is it a failure of the invaders or is it a plus for our military that our air defense is still working, despite the fact that the occupiers allegedly destroyed it several times a long time ago?
– One mistake leads to another. The scale of the invasion does not match the strength of the country they are invading. I would appreciate it from a military point of view. Because the massive missile and air strike had to be five times more powerful. After all, they did not even cover all the locations of systems, stationary systems, air defense. That’s why it worked, and it’s still alive.
This is insider information, but at the time of the first massive strike, our aircraft was almost all in the air. And that’s why the airfields were damaged but we didn’t lose the planes. And then we redeployed them to the airfields that survived.
The first mistake – the assessment of the enemy, it led to a bunch of other mistakes. And when the flywheel of the military machine is already untwisted, it is impossible to stop it. And it is very difficult to correct it. The only thing we have noticed so far is that they have become very careful and do not go on the frontal attack at once, but come forward in small groups and feel our defenses.
If they meet resistance, they immediately roll back. And, as a rule, fall into the trap of our artillery. They just became more careful, but it is impossible to change the system of hostilities in two or three days, even in a week.
– What the Armed Forces are doing now is really similar to modern maneuverable defense? Not really?
– No, it really is. By the way, we have taken a break from these seven years, I count from Minsk-2 when the active phase of hostilities ended. The only thing we endured and saved us was that we learned modern methods of modern warfare.
Russia today does not even understand some ways of waging modern war. They fight in patterns. I look at their actions and remember my military school, the combat statute of the Soviet Union. They are the same: heavy armored columns, poorly maneuverable and massive strikes, massive attacks in a single armored order. With the support of aviation and artillery. This is World War II! Guys, this is World War II.
Were it not for mobile defense we would have lost most of the Armed Forces. And perhaps a breakthrough in our defense would be catastrophic for the whole country. The only place we have to be more or less attached to our positions is Donbas. There is a positional war now and we are trying to maneuver.
And I will tell you that we have not yet used all the techniques. Now everyone is waiting for the “green”, I will say that there will be another very interesting thing in terms of maneuver warfare. That’s right, not defense, but maneuverable war. And we will see what our Armed Forces will demonstrate during this maneuvering war.
– We see that the invaders even ignore the Soviet military statutes. For example, a direct ban on pontoon crossings in the area of enemy artillery, they completely ignore it.
– They have no choice. This is the same as with Chornobayivka. Yes, it is the only bridgehead to accumulate material stocks and troops for development of attack on Mykolayiv or Voznesensk. And that’s why they are constantly accumulating there, but they can’t provide security for themselves. Either air cover, control of the entire area around, or artillery control. Artillery. They can’t do that.
We strike every time and every time – not from the place where it was before. Our artillery, thank God, gets it. And now, if we get more Western artillery, which has a range of almost twice as long as those of the models that are in service in our country and in Russia, the situation will change even more in our favor.
– Returning to the attack on Kyiv. Was it the direction of the main strike or one of the directions?
– From the very beginning, the whole plan broke. I understand that Kyiv was the second blow. The main blow was still in the Donbas. Russia wanted to immediately advance to the administrative borders of the regions, to show that it had won. And at the same time the second blow was to Kyiv. Then, when it became clear that there was success near Kyiv and in Donbas they did not advance even a meter, because there is a line of defense, like Maginot or Mannerheim (we equipped it for seven years), then we saw that they reached Kyiv.
Remember, on the second day there were already armored groups in Obolon. And on the Zhytomyr route the breakthrough of armored groups was separate. We urgently blew up bridges there. They immediately change the direction of the main strike and focus on the capital: we take Kyiv, then we will solve everything. And when the invaders got into positional battles near Kyiv and we began to inflict damage, they realized that they were locked in this forest and swampy space.
There is no maneuver, we are constantly destroying them. The occupiers realized that they needed to return to the original plan. And again the direction of the main blow – on Donbas. And then they realized that it is necessary to collect everything that is in one direction. And, focusing on one direction, try to succeed. What we are watching now. They have gathered everything there and are trying to break through our defenses with the forces they have.
The invaders understand that there is no more reserve, it can be collected. By the way, according to estimates, do you know what human reserve is there? 18 million. They can put 18 million under the gun if a general mobilization is announced. What they will be armed with, fed and clothed is another question. But there is a crazy mobilization resource. Much bigger than ours.
The main combat unit of this army no longer actually exists. Among the generals of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces was a proposal to Putin not to conduct this second offensive. Because the next wave can be collected and exposed not earlier than in three or four months. This is the situation.
And if there are other tasks for today, everyone has forgotten something about the Taliban, who are waiting for the pass to dry up a bit. And there are no 201 bases in Tajikistan. She is here. And what they will do is still unknown. And this is their long-standing goal, the Taliban, to cross the Fergana Valley and conquer these territories, bring fundamentalist Islam there, and expand their sphere of influence in Asia.
What will Russia do? They do not have an operational reserve that could go into battle tomorrow. That is why today they are acting for the last time in Donbas. They are attacking, despite the loss of equipment and personnel. After all, for them this is really the last battle. Either they lost or they won. And our main task is to keep the defense and inflict as much fire damage as possible on the enemy’s manpower and equipment.
– By the way, what is happening in Donbass now, according to your data?
– The offensive began but we forced the invaders to start it not as they planned. Everything went wrong again. You see, they were trying to form a large strike group, which was to break through our defenses in a small area and develop an offensive and success towards the tasks. And this is Severodonetsk and Kramatorsk. To surround our troops in the Joint Forces Operation area.
However, the situation with reserves, both human and technical reserves, turned out to be very bad for the Russians. Up to 20 battalion tactical groups are still located in Russia, receive equipment, personnel and have not yet been introduced here. But we, inflicting fire damage, forced the Russian Federation to take active not offensive, but offensive actions.
From the position of direct confrontation with our troops, they began attacking our positions. And by introducing those battalion tactical groups that have already regained combat capability, they are trying to increase efforts. However, we have organized a kind of conveyor belt: we have time to defeat those who are at the forefront, they clean them, and the next come. And so there is no such massive offensive as we expected.
Instead of a massive offensive, we got an offensive stretched out in time. Judging by what I hear in Mariupol today. By the way, that’s what’s going on there too? Why did Putin suddenly set a task to stop Azovstal’s assault? And this indicates that they withdrew troops from there. Troops, battalion tactical groups or units that stormed Azovstal stormed Mariupol. They are needed in another direction.
Again, we come to the conclusion that the reserves in the Russian army are very bad. And they overthrow regular and more combat-ready units. I understand that somewhere they sent them to Donbas. Therefore, the order is given not to storm, but to take a tight perimeter, as he said: so that the fly does not fly.
I think the bombing and artillery shelling will continue to exhaust the defenders and force them to surrender. But there is an area of more than 20 square meters. km, and to close the perimeter tightly, perhaps tens of thousands of troops are needed.
It will be a little easier for the defenders of Mariupol in terms of storming. Although air and artillery strikes do not completely relieve the tension that exists there in Azovstal.
– According to open sources, now we have more of the same tanks than before the war. Even without the deliveries from Europe that are starting and at the expense of the captured trophies. How normal is this? Is this also a phenomenal phenomenon?
– This is a phenomenal phenomenon. Because even earlier, when the occupiers retreated, they always managed to disable this technique. And now the staff is just running away. However, this was the case in the first period. And in the Donbas it is unlikely to happen. Because they learned to fight a little and became more careful. In this sense.
The Russians will no longer go into battle like that. And here – yes, here it was phenomenal. Without expecting such resistance, they did not prepare personnel for real hostilities. And so the diesel ran out, the car stopped, the crew does not know what to do, where are these commanders. And then, when the resistance began in our territory, they just started to run away.
– And here is this cruelty to the local population, mass graves with hundreds of purposefully killed people. What is it for?
– Remember, last summer there was information that in Russia there are shooting lists for you and me, for Ukrainians? And there were three categories: someone to shoot, someone to a concentration camp, and someone to deportation. Then we saw it in an article published in RIA Novosti, a Russian publication. This is actually a plan of genocide, the destruction of the Ukrainian nation. Us with you as a nation. And the state, respectively. So, it turned out to be true.
When the troops came, who came at once? At once special forces came and carried out punitive operations. They are counting activists, those who were in leadership positions during our rule, and they are shooting them. They are being interrogated and shot. Torture and executions. And the rest of the troops are watching. Yeah, they can, and no one will punish them. And the commanders are watching the locals and they also understand that it is possible. And the fighters go and start: take a sledgehammer from the tank, break down the door and rob the apartment.
There is even a gradation of looting: officers collect jewelry and money, take away from soldiers, there is already competition. In fact, this criminal organization is already growing. And impunity, it gives rise to such crimes. Now there will be another disappointment. After all, if there was something to plunder near Kyiv, there is a more or less wealthy population and the standard of living is much higher, then there is nothing to plunder in Donbas. And they will now have another disappointment with this war. Which for us, by the way, will be very positive.