Russian General gives an honest assessment of the Ukraine operation so far. ‘Our main losses came in the first three days.’

 Wed 9:55 am +01:00, 23 Mar 2022  7

posted by Tapestry

Translated by AlexD exclusively for SouthFront

Vladimir Chirkin, March 08, 2022

Let’s try to understand the situation without hysterics and insults.

It’s hard for everyone. Our guys are dying. Citizens of the Ukraine are dying. But the hardest thing is for the military, both active and reserve, Russian and Ukrainian, who have been through “hot” conflicts”. I grit my teeth with helplessness, I’m not personally sure if I could have carried out the Commander-in-Chief’s order if I had been in the ranks today. To keep civilian casualties to a minimum is understandable, we are one people. I have little idea how to try to not cause critical damage to the Ukrainian army within the tactics of my own unit.

I categorically object to the release of the number of combat casualties before the operation has ended its final phase. This is a gift for someone else’s information war, a trump card in the hands of the enemy, dispelling false information among outspoken alarmists inside the country: “they are lying, hiding, under-reporting everything”, “no war”, “mother, don’t let your sons so”, “how I want peace”, “how much blood can be shed”…

You can and should. Soldiers die, heroes. They didn’t come to the army to polish paving stones with their boots. They came to defend their country. Even at the cost of their own lives. It was a mistake of the General Staff, the people should clearly understand the purpose of the operation, its necessity, the inevitability of victims. But not the current price.

It sounds harsh, but this is the harsh reality of war. Let us wipe away our own and women’s tears after the Victory, let us worship every widow, mother, bride, sister for the feat of their men.

The first stage of the operation…

We underestimated the enemy in its strength of informational, ideological, psychological repulsion, they were waiting for us. Literally on the very first day, with a snap of American bloody fingers – we deprived the support of civilians and the units of the Ukrainian armed forces ready to become neutral. Millions of dollars, thousands of IT specialists, global media corporations cut off Ukraine from any objective information, stinking up our country.

Our main losses were in the first three days. Now they are rapidly diminishing, the Russian Army is no longer conducting a peacekeeping and humanitarian operation similar to the Crimean operation. The fighters received other orders, got involved, became angry, gathered, and their hopes for active support of civilians and the conscious units of the Ukrainian army were dashed.

There are few flowers and loaves, people are crushed by propaganda and lies, and terrified into insanity by the Nazis. The calculations miss another important point – almost 600 thousand Ukrainians have gone through the ATO (Anti-Terrorism Operation) zone in Donbass since 2014, today they have joined the territorial defence all over the place, many have something to fear. Especially on the wave of fake executions without trial by the ATO personnel.

Imagine that during the year of service there, what the Nazis stuffed into their heads, gave them the opportunity to shoot at the settlements of “quilted jackets and colorads” with impunity, to mock the civilian population there. So, the calculation for local help and the Ukrainian army did not work, the cancer in Ukrainian society is simply monstrous. But… we will cure it.

If we explain our tactics of the first twenty-four hours…it is a creatively reworked “reconnaissance battle” of the Great Patriotic War. Only with deep and rapid penetration into Nazi-occupied territory. We provoked the enemy’s activity by tactical groups, deliberately pulling Ukrainian army units and National Security Forces from their locations. Withstanding with small numbers the terrible counterattacks by tanks and armoured vehicles, outnumbered by the motorised infantry.

Sometimes it was impossible to suppress Grads, artillery and mortars hidden in residential areas that were raining on you. Urban areas could not be cleared methodically by combat formations, by calling supporting fire, attack helicopters, sappers, flamethrowers, tanks to blow-up machine-gun points in houses and civilian infrastructure facilities.

This is a war unfamiliar to us veterans. Especially when the skies are under your full control, airfields are jammed with attack planes and bombers, operational-tactical missile systems are in service and there is a mass of heavy artillery. It is now clear even to civilians: the correct name for what is happening is really a “special military operation on denazification”. The demilitarisation of the Independent was completed at the end of the third day.

The Ukrainian army, as a unified, manageable and effective structure, has ceased to exist. Today, there are dozens of groups of different sizes, isolated from one another, hiding in towns and villages. There is no centralised supply, no air support and no reinforcements. They are unable to act within the framework of any plans of the Ukrainian General Staff. Just crowds of armed men with orders to stand to the death.

The main groups North and East, that’s the 22 brigades charged with the honourable duty of drowning Donbass in blood in early March, have been decapitated and deprived of command. We beat them to it by a week or two by launching our own special operation. Now 150,000 people (together with the National Security Forces) are marinating in “cauldrons”, cut off from each other. As a matter of fact, this was done by a smaller Russian force…and in five days.

There is no organised resistance in other operational areas. Separate Ukrainian army units, National Security Forces, sabotage groups. Each operates at its own discretion, with varying degrees of activity. There is no way to move in columns, regroup, replenish ammunition, fuel and lubricants or equipment even in local warehouses, everything is systematically destroyed by high-precision weapons and aircraft.

In a week, 80% of the Ukrainian armed forces will be completely deprived of ammunition, fuel, medicine and food. Mentally and physically exhausted, without a unified command, goals and objectives. This is a terrible thing for an army, dejection and decay. Especially for the Ukrainian army, which is sustained by fear, propped up by the Bandera detachments. Soldiers fear for the fate of their families on the home front.

Second stage of the operation…

Recognisably, the Syrian scenario. A neutral or terrorist-fearing population, among which it is almost impossible to identify militants. The Russian Army does not take such settlements, it surrounds cities with Bandera National Security Forces. Soon we will be observing buses and “export tours” in the direction of the Western region. How they will get burned without any support and assistance from outside.

Elsewhere in the city they take on a semi-enclave, thereby inviting the defenders to leave the area on their own. No organised military columns, no heavy equipment, this stuff is destroyed. Privately, expensive. Yes, there is the danger of large numbers of sabotage groups, but strategically the three main tasks of the special operation are being resolved: minimising losses among civilians and infrastructure, our units and the Ukrainian army.

It is too luxurious a gift for Washington and the EuroReich to have Russians and Ukrainians slaughtering each other with gusto. The Bandera “partisan units” will have a nerve-racking experience, but the commanders’ idea is not bad. They will become lawful prey to the counter-terrorist units, the military police and Ramzan Kadyrov’s men from the National Guard. Who do not take terrorists as prisoners, who kill them where they find them. Denazification in the truest sense of the word.

An even sadder fate awaits the numerous mercenaries of the EuroReich, from which they form not military units (sometimes), but sabotage and tactical groups. Our General Staff has already stated that it does not consider them combatants with all the ensuring consequences, no conventions on prisoners of war work here. I am sure that a special, cruel and purposeful hunt will be conducted for these “soldiers of fortune”. Poor devils…

Third stage of the operation

I will not tell you in detail how and where the fighting unfolds, there is enough information from professional experts in the public domain. But everything is happening strictly according to plans, we have not even started transferring reserves, and they are standing in columns in the border areas. Losses are not just tolerable (from a military statistical point of view) – insignificant. Not a single unit has been allocated for re-formation or rest, which means it is fully combat-ready.

Look at the map, calculate the distances, marching, constant fighting, regrouping, manoeuvring for dozens of kilometres, and remember – our guys are up against the third largest army in Europe and prohibitively motivated Nazi formations. We have to bring up the rear, take basic rest, maintain equipment, and perform a lot of previously unintended actions.

There is no need to hound anyone, to demand more decisive action, Victory flags over Mariupol, Sumy, Chernigov, Kharkov, Odessa and even less so over useless Kiev with three million panic-stricken, propaganda-pumped citizens. The objectives of the operation, strategy and tactics are a whole new page in the art of war; haste is unacceptable.

A classmate of mine from the academy asked in a “private” thread yesterday:

1. Why isn’t the military aid to Ukraine being destroyed right at the airport upon arrival?
2. Why is it even possible for NATO transporters to enter Ukrainian airspace?
3. Do you get the feeling that our diplomats are beginning to discharge the army of its efforts? I have all sorts of bad thoughts running through my head.

On point number three. There will be no discharging, all the goals of the special operation will be fulfilled. This has been categorically repeated every day by the hardened Lavrov, announced yesterday by V.V. Putin. French “peacemaker” Macron wiped out with his mediation. And Medinsky in Belovezhskaya Pushcha is subtly mocking the metrosexuals from the Ukrainian delegation. There is not one there to talk to.

Look at brave Commander-in-Chief Ze, the way he looks. A complete personality breakdown on drugs. He will not be allowed to negotiate by the Americans and his own Nazis will kill him. The task is different – to completely ruin the country, to drown it in chaos, but no one will get it.

The special operation does not stop, there will be no more delays. Every day of delay hurts us categorically, unplanned diplomatic, political, economic, and military problems appear. Only swiftness and onslaught, before the situation in the West starts to be assessed with a cool head.

About flying transports with NATO insignia to deliver weapons. This is impossible, the skies over the Independent and southern Russia are closed to flights. They will be ground transported from Poland. And we will not destroy such “humanitarian aid” convoys. Why, you may ask? Ask another question: who exactly is in power in the Ukraine?

Blatant Nazis. Taking millions of civilian hostages in cities without humanitarian corridors, driving terrified people into basements and underground stations. By poisoning them with lies about “Russian atrocities”, mass shootings, executions, violence, carpet bombings. Placing civilians with machine guns near strategic control and command facilities. Like in Kiev outside the SBU building adjacent to Sofia Kyevskaya [Translator’s note: St-Sophia of Kiev Cathedral].

Zelensky’s handlers and the Bandera battalions are setting up a humanitarian disaster, leaving towns and villages in Donbass to blow up everything: bridges, substations, pumping stations. Remember the liberation of Ukraine and 1945, the agony of the Third Reich. A quote from a demoniac, framed orders to destroy the entire infrastructure of Germany: “if the war is lost, it makes absolutely no difference that the people die”.

It is useful to know history in order to predict Nazi behaviour. It is such an ideology, a social norm of life, a world view.

Now, military convoys will not be destroyed for three reasons. First, they are trophies. Second, the weapons will not reach the combat-ready units of the Ukrainian army and the national battalions of the south-east: the addressees are in “cauldrons”. Third, everything will be transported by regular civilian trucks, the rear transport of the Ukrainian army units being with their units or destroyed in parking lots.

Track down and hit container trucks? Yes, we can. Just keep in mind – all roads to border checkpoints with “kind-hearted Europe” are jammed with convoys of vehicles of fleeing Ukrainians for a good hundred kilometres, the traffic there is terrible. There are women and children in the cars. And Poland and Hungary have not moved the checkpoints deep into their territories, nor have they increased the capacity of the checkpoints with additional staff.

In other words, Ukrainian border guards and their “colleagues” are keeping people waiting 24 hours to cross the border. Shall I go on describing the scenario that Kiev and Washington are counting on? Or can you think for yourself what kind of television picture the whole “civilized world” is expecting? Dreaming that the bloodthirsty Russians will start bombing civilian cars… Or the railways.

But there is little faith in such scenarios, it is clear to everyone – Ukraine is completely lost, any amount of weapons will not help it any more. But some part is sure to be delivered to Lvov, getting mercenaries with Bandera ideologues. And then groups will go out to commit sabotage, to intimidate local administrations across the country, to try to disrupt our communications and supply lines.

But this is another special operation, a police operation. Which the Ukrainians themselves are capable of carrying out with minimal Russian help once they get over the shock. This is their land; they have to live there. If they proclaim a reward of five thousand dollars for an anonymous denunciation, all the saboteurs and partisans will be gone in a day. It’s a country like that.

But we’ll succeed before …

I want to reassure you, it’s the twelfth day our guys are operating in a different operational and tactical reality, casualties will be rapidly decreasing. If before there was a strict order not to cause even hypothetical harm to civilians and civilian objects…today it has been changed. In a single phrase: “not to the detriment of unit personnel”. As a military man I am completely satisfied: now the humanitarian facetious remarks are over, the real work will begin.

You fire on a convoy – you get hit back across the military technical menu. Orders like this only work that way. Civilian casualties? Yes, some casualties are inevitable, but it’s not our fault. We don’t storm cities according to the Charters, we bypass them or operate surgically with special forces, as in Kharkov. Using a previously unknown tactic of urban combat by night manoeuvre groups. We will talk about this separately.

Let the Ukrainians marinate in the cities themselves, digesting the Banderites and the “territorial battalions” duped by Nazi propaganda. They can no longer cope with the looters, what kind of “reflection of aggression” is it? This is not our problem now, however harsh the words may sound.

The final breakthrough will come after Kharkov is cleared, Odessa is blockaded or taken. All the heroic self-defence forces of the other settlements will dissipate on their own, and there are already clear signs of humanitarian disaster in the encircled cities. The morass, when it is scrupulously false, subsides most quickly in darkness, refreshing coolness and on an empty stomach.

The population is not mentally prepared to stand their ground to the last, Ukrainian social media is already full of messages from places where local administrations have been left behind by the Russian army, food supplies are uninterrupted, street lights are on and local police are controlling the streets. With each passing day, the fake hysteria will subside and the drugged-out minds will wonder: what’s next?

Will the encircled Banderites begin to brutalise in their powerless rage? Well, the Ukrainians also have to bear this cross on their own. Of course, we will try to do everything we can to rescue the children and the elderly. But Putin will not allow us to take sensitive losses, this is not that kind of war.

We are not the ones who raised, nurtured and allowed to seize power and hostage an entire nation. We did not arm them and send them to kill Donbass and teach them to hate Russians. Criminal indifference and complicity are also a punishable act. Not by us, by life itself.

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