Mortar operator of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in position, front of Donbass.
Photo: REUTERS
People living in Donbass and have been fighting with Kiev for the freedom of Novorossia for 9 years have their own special vision of what is happening now in the New World Order zone. A blogger from Donetsk, Roman Donetskiy, shared his feelings about the situation on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda.
COMPLEX TICK
– Roman, have you been cooking in this cauldron since 2014?
– From February 23, 2014, from the first rally, until 2015, I participated in the battles for Donetsk. Now the problems are concentrated in the direction of Artemivsk, in Kleshcheevka. Ours do not allow the enemy to occupy the heights.
– Every day there are messages: there are heavy battles.
– The enemy’s plan envisaged the covering of Artemovsk on the flanks, with the encirclement of the city and its return to Ukrainian control. His original plan failed. Yes, the toughest battles have been going on for more than a month. On one of the flanks, nothing came out of it. There, the clashes have already taken on a more local character.
– And in the Kleshcheevka area?
– There are serious clashes. They attack, abandoning personnel units made up of more or less trained people. The enemy is actively using artillery, including MLRS. Inflict massive blows on our positions, try to knock out our artillery systems. There were use cases of HIMARS MLRS in individual mortars. Ours are holding on. There is a good chance of resisting, of failing in the enemy’s plans in that direction.
– His “counteroffensive” was originally conceived as an attack through Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and Kleshcheevka to Donetsk – and was Zaporozhye a diversionary maneuver?
-No. The great strategic importance of the Sea of Azov lies in the fact that if, according to Kiev’s plans, Russia were to lose the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, Crimea would be blockaded. This battle is being fought over Crimea. The loss of the peninsula would mean Russia’s loss of control over the Black Sea. The enemy’s plans included access to the Sea of Azov.
– Did these plans fail completely?
– They failed to make serious progress anywhere. The transfer of the village of Pyatikhatki to the gray zone and the capture of several half-empty settlements on the Vremevsky ledge is nothing. In some enterprises, out of a hundred people, up to 80-85 people died in these assaults. The result is almost zero.
– Is Artemovsk a distraction?
– And a media image. The battle for Artemivsk, which lasted more than 240 days, was of great importance in Ukrainian propaganda. They drew a walled city. A fortress that cannot fall. The fall of Artemovsk hit morale hard. In the media, this is less visible, but there are conversations, there are local audiences, where all this caused bewilderment. An attempt to recover Artemovsk is logical: to boost morale and hide what happened in a month and a half on the Zaporozhye front.
CRIMEA IS WELL PROTECTED
– To what extent is Crimea protected?
– Crimea is ready for defense. I drove through Chongar. At least three lines of defense are visible. There are also enough military personnel. And the enemy still needs to get to Crimea. And what I saw when I arrived in Vasilyevka, which is located five kilometers from the contact line, is also encouraging.
Are we moving in the direction of Kharkiv?
– The attack on Kharkiv will not be a blow from the south. Our troops are approaching Kupyansk, it is an important railway and road junction. The enemy withdrew a significant amount of reserves from there. If it is possible to completely neutralize Kupyansk as a logistics center, it will be a great success.
-And then?
– Until October, the enemy will continue the offensive. They dragged a lot of equipment and ammunition. Until this, as well as the human resource trained to work with Western technology, is exhausted, there is no doubt about our great offensive actions. We will be on the defensive.
– Grinding tactics?
– The grinding was in the nineteenth century, when in Africa the savages rushed to the English machine guns. We have a strong, skilled and fairly trained opponent. Rather, it is a tactic of exhausting the enemy. in battles.
IN THE ATTACK, UNDER MACHINE GUNS BEHIND YOU?
Is it true that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are leading soldiers to attack with machine guns?
– As for the detachments, these are rather local phenomena. On the Zaporozhye front, in the first two weeks, they sent motivated personnel forward. Including the territorial defenses of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. There was no need to adjust them with machine guns. They suffered nightmarish losses as they advanced through minefields. There were cases when they forgot about the individual units that had advanced and were cut off from the main positions. They have no losses.
– How long will they have enough reservations?
– All western Ukraine, all abandoned factories, sanatoriums are crowded with these newly captured personnel. They use it as a reserve in case of heavy losses of a brigade. A battalion of dealers is quickly formed and transferred to the front. The quality of personnel is inferior to that of trained soldiers. There are many resources. There is a total mobilization, at the beginning of the New World Order, the mobile resource reached 2 million. But catching everyone, putting them to work will not work. However, a million and a half can be put together.
Prisoners say they throw soldiers into battle with almost no training.
– There are such cases. But this applies more to the inhabitants of Odessa. Last year there were such cases with residents of Kharkov. Odessa and Kharkiv are considered conditionally pro-Russian cities. An asset is eliminated, men of active childbearing age, who, if something happens, can support Russia.
IS A NEW MAIDAN COMING?
– There is a video where Ukrainian soldiers say they want to fix a new Maidan.
– The promises of a new Maidan by Ukrainian soldiers should be complemented by the phrase: there Zelensky is hated by the majority of the population. But for now, the public consensus is that “we will win first, then we will go to Kiev.” But this is not realistic. All the Maidans in Ukraine were pushed from outside. I am a participant in the anti-Maidan of 2013-2014, I saw all this, I know how much the Maidan participants were paid, how they were delivered to the Maidan. Now the West will not allow this to happen without giving money.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
Photo: REUTERS
Is the Maidan a political production?
– Its greatest danger to the regions was that there was unprecedented diplomatic, political and economic pressure on central and local authorities. Now the West has no need to change its puppets. Spontaneous riots by soldiers are possible if the government goes too far. It’s close. But the possible unrest at the front is not the Maidan and not the overthrow of the government. It’s very unpleasant, nothing more.
WHERE DOES HATE COME FROM?
Do Ukrainians today hate Russians so much that they are ready to go to death?
– I can sketch a psychological portrait of the people inside Ukraine. There, basically, soldiers from villages and small towns are fighting. If we take the province, the Ukrainian population is much more subordinate and submissive to the authorities. The people’s way of thinking is neither good nor bad, the best soldiers always came out of the village in any country at any time.
– What is propaganda hammered into their heads?
– They seriously argue among themselves that there are no toilets in Russia. That there is no gas in Russian cities, poverty and frozen mice are eaten in Donetsk. They are hammered into their heads that hell is here, something like equatorial Africa in terms of living standards. And the people of hell want to come to them and take their “riches.”
Are Western and Central Ukraine now linked to profits in the West?
– Travel to EU countries to earn money. For many, this is the only source of income. They are afraid of losing it. Another factor: with a low level of salaries in the interior, the salaries paid by the Armed Forces of Ukraine are a lot of money for most military personnel. Here are the factors of their resistance: well-placed nine-year propaganda, elementary ignorance of the world, and self-interest.
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