Yurii Butusov: "The next commander of the Armed Forces will hang on every word of "Servants of the People"
Yurii Butusov, Editor-in-Chief of Censor.NET, on the campaign against Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the problems of the Armed Forces and the current state of affairs at the front.
- You know that we should discuss with you what is happening around our military leadership. I mean, how do representatives of the managing team comment on their actions. We saw literally identical messages from Davyd Arakhamia, the head of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, and the People's Deputy from the Servant of the People, Mariana Bezuhla. Both of them, a couple of days apart, stated that the military leadership had not provided an action plan for 2024, and Mariana Bezuhla, moreover, also said that Valerii Zaluzhnyi should resign. How do you understand these actions? Is it an attempt to find someone to blame for the lack of progress on the frontline? Or is it an attempt to remove Valerii Zaluzhnyi?
- Of course, what we see is a desire, a preparatory political campaign, to remove the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces from office. We can see this from Supreme Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy's interview with the British newspaper The Sun and from the fact that Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee Bezuhla started writing about criticizing Zaluzhnyi almost every day. You and I understand that such things are a planned, organized campaign. But I would like to say that there is, of course, an election behind it. The preparations. That is, accusing of politicization, Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself is preparing for the elections in fact. And since we know that, in addition to political statements, a criminal case is being prepared by the State Bureau of Investigation on the surrender of southern Ukraine. This case also considers the responsibility of troop commanders and military command only. In other words, the case does not consider the responsibility of the political leadership of the country or the leadership of the Security Service of Ukraine, but only the military command. So, of course, this is an attempt to fight back before the elections, to absolve themselves of responsibility for failures in preparing for the Russian invasion, for failures in preparing for the defense of the country, and to shift this responsibility to the military, exclusively to the military.
- Yurii, there are many surveys: open and closed. These surveys, among other things, allow both the government team and citizens to see the level of support for Valerii Zaluzhnyi. It is high. Therefore, to imagine that these attacks will be perceived by society as something positive is very naive. Isn't it a kind of suicidal strategy to try to pin some blame on someone or to get the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to resign?
- Frankly speaking, I am not interested in political nuances and popularity right now. This is absolutely unacceptable from the point of view of managing the country's defense at such a critical moment as this. That is, instead of discussing the competence of senior commanders at the Supreme Command Staff, at the Defence Committee, we should be making informed decisions. In other words, criticism must be absolutely justified by some real problems that need to be solved. Instead of organizing such criticism professionally and competently and addressing the issue of responsibility, we see that Zaluzhnyi and the military command are simply being discredited, accused of cheap politics, although they are silent...You know, if generals are dismissed like this, there will be no conclusions, and there will be even less responsibility in the event of a subsequent appointment. This is a threat. And the fact that the president is doing this, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, during such intense hostilities, says that, unfortunately, the Supreme Command Staff does not understand the situation and is incompetent in assessing events in general. The question arises as to whether President Zelenskyy is interested in winning the war at all. It is simply impossible with this system of governance. It is absurd to attack your own subordinate military commanders.
- Yurii, we usually talk to the military who are at the frontline, who risk their lives and health every day, defending our country. And among other things, we hear from them the following: look, certain things that Mariana Bezuhla says are true. When she talks about the reforms that have not been carried out in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The only problem - a big problem - is that this is voiced by Mariana Bezuhla. I mean, this is a person who is constantly used for various scandals and shit. That is, the reputation is not the same at all. And talking about problems in the army is very politicized. Because one way or another, we come back to which government is more criminal: is it Zelenskyy, is it Poroshenko, is it... I don't know yet, Kuchma, Yushchenko, and so on. But if you look at the army - and you really know much more than we do here in the studio, because you communicate with the military directly on the demarcation line. What are the most important problems that we can voice now?
- You assessed several events, and I want to tell you, first of all, that there are a lot of problems in the army. Of course, we partially write about them, partially do not write about them - they are of different scales. There are different ways of solving these problems. After all, if we want to win the war, the quality of management will win. And what kind of quality of governance can there be when the deputy chairman of the defense committee, to whom the country has given power and authority, instead of using the power given by the citizens of Ukraine, this people's deputy, a "servant of the people," discusses all these problems on Facebook. So maybe, should she be a blogger? Because everyone has to act within their powers. The Defense Committee has great powers. They can listen to the problems that deputies write about and make decisions on them. For example, they can recommend the dismissal of certain officials and determine their responsibility. This is a legitimate method. For this, members of the Defense Committee are paid by taxpayers. But not for Facebook posts that are provocative because they don't contain any decisions. Why do this? It's one thing when a blogger or journalist writes. It should attract the attention of the authorities. How does the government, if they are bloggers, start working? They are supposed to make decisions. We demand that they make decisions, not just observation of problems. The statement can be made without them. And even if it is not done at a deep enough level. Therefore, we have a systemic problem: instead of making decisions aimed at strengthening defense, the government is engaged in PR. Both Zelenskyy and the Servants of the People are preparing for the elections and want to accuse the military of not being prepared for the war. This is a completely unfair and dishonest position that sows discord in the top leadership and that will teach no one anything... If, after such a discrediting campaign that Zelenskyy organized against Zaluzhnyi, the military leadership is now removed, then, you know, the next person who is appointed will think before telling some individual servants of the people how to hang on every word, what to say so that they don't get angry with him. But there will be no substantive decisions. And there will be much less responsibility, not more. This is the problem with the war that Zelenskyy and the "servants of the people" have launched against the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
- I think you are absolutely right here. To imagine that a new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces appears and he is completely a person who is controlled by the political rear, is, of course, completely different from a general and a professional who is engaged in military operations and the defense of our country. We now also understand that, pardon the word, all this shit is also related to the fact that the plans for 2023, unfortunately, for many reasons, were not implemented on the battlefield, despite what our defenders went through and continue to go through at the front. How could you summarize what we saw during the summer-autumn or spring-summer-autumn campaign of 2023?
We saw that we have a gap in Ukraine, a major gap between strategy and tactics, between wishes and promises and achieving results. Between expectations and planning real steps. This is our gap. The fact that we did not achieve the results we expected is the result of the fact that our expectations were too high and did not correspond to the real situation. This is primarily a strategic problem. It is a problem of incorrect assessment of the situation, inadequate decision-making by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Office, which approved this offensive. Which provided this offensive with resources, people, and reserves. However, the planning was not comprehensive, not systematic. It did not take into account the enemy's strength. There was a serious underestimation of the enemy. This is the problem of our intelligence services, which did not provide such an integrated assessment. The problems of the Intelligence Committee under the President of Ukraine, which did not provide the Supreme Commander-in-Chief with a full assessment of the situation, and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. That is, if we take into account the enemy's forces and the construction of the defense system, then, of course, offensive actions should have been planned, and now it is obvious that this is different. The military itself recognizes this. However, this is, once again, a major global problem - the administration of war. The problem of the gap is between strategic plans and their implementation, the tactics of implementation. This problem is very acute in our country. To solve it, this problem requires trust. Trust in all service levels. Trust between the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the army command. Between civilian and military structures. Between our allies. Intelligence services. And instead of creating such trust, we see that Zelenskyy himself is destroying and undermining this trust between the ranks. It's just crazy to do this in such a difficult situation. I am very critical of such actions by the "servants of the people" and the President's Office.
- I see. Yurii, how would you characterize the situation we found ourselves in at the beginning of winter? We understand that certain actions on the part of our enemy and the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been suspended due to the bad weather. But there will still be frosts. So what can we predict, what can we expect this winter? Of course, we are mindful of the situation in the East, of the daily attacks of the Russian occupiers on Avdiivka, on the Kupiansk direction, and of course, we are aware of what is happening in the South. How would you characterize where we are now?
- We are now conducting a difficult holding warfare. Our offensive has stopped not because of the weather. It is because we are attacking an enemy that outnumbers us. And we are fighting against an enemy that has been outnumbered throughout the war. So, of course, if we want to achieve certain operational goals, we have to take into account the enemy's superiority factors, use them, and think about how to level them and how to strengthen our forces in this holding warfare, how to reduce the losses of our troops, how to increase the enemy's losses. All this requires systemic solutions. Not just military ones. This is what the political leadership is constantly silent about. We need resources. An army without resources, without ammunition, without supplies, without weapons cannot produce results. We also need systemic qualitative changes in the mobilization system. Someone has to deal with this as well. There are persons responsible for this, as defined by the Constitution. First and foremost, the main responsibility for management now lies with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Office. It concentrates all the power and control of all the defense forces, so they must take the initiative. The military has limited powers. They have no influence on many things during an all-out war. Instead of making strategic decisions, we see that we have political intrigues. That's all. Look at the frontline. The military is looking at it: the enemy is systematically digging defensive lines along the entire front line. Even though they outnumber us. And Ukraine is inferior and does not dig defensive structures, because it is a large amount of equipment, personnel, and construction materials that the army does not have. The government has to mobilize them. The Russian government is doing this. The Ukrainian government is not. Drones. Most of the drones that we have at the front at the moment are volunteer drones. These are the drones that Ukrainian citizens themselves are assembling for our soldiers. Both FPV strike drones and reconnaissance Mavic drones - the vast majority come from volunteers. And let's look at Russia. The vast majority of drones come from the state. They are financing it. There is a gap that this bad authoritarian Russia, which does not have such intellectual resources, such support in the world, is gradually, simply by being more systematic, more organized at the highest level, creating an advantage where initially we seemed to have an advantage. Unfortunately, we are inferior. Our management quality is worse. This must be recognized. This can be seen in specific things that everyone sees in the war.
- You know, I've heard analysts say, and I'm not sure if it's a fair assessment, that Russia is such an authoritarian country, that it's very easy for them to build all these processes because nobody cares what they might think, what else you might be doing. You need to do what you have to do. And we are a democracy, so we cannot build such processes quickly. Could this be the reason?
- No, I don't think so. Look, our governance form is quite flexible. It provides us with changes in power. This is not a problem of democracy. This is a problem of incompetence of the top political leadership, which does not draw any conclusions. I mean, okay, we may not understand something. This is normal. I'm fine with the fact that there is no preparation, the country's leadership has not prepared for war. Okay. But this full-scale war has been going on for more than a year and a half. We need to learn from our mistakes, from what doesn't work, from what everyone says is obvious. But we don't even conclude. We have no such practice. Instead of concluding, correcting mistakes, and getting ahead of the enemy, President Zelenskyy and the "servants of the people" are now looking for someone to blame for their failures, which they have made and are involved in. Unfortunately, this is our weakness. This is simply irresponsibility. And this is incompetence. This is not a fault of democracy. It is simply the belief that voters and citizens of Ukraine can be deceived. Which is what the government and the "servants of the people" are trying to do now.
- Now we understand that mobilization is also a very important issue that has been discussed for a long time. By the way, we also hear this from representatives of the Presidential Office. Serhii Leshchenko, for example, has already become a military expert and in a telethon he talks about the problems among the military, that the average age is 54. I may be a little bit wrong. But I have seen this quote, and I have not checked it to see if it is really an accurate quote. So what are the solutions here?
- Concerning mobilization, we must understand that the army needs to change its organizational and staff structure. It does not meet the conditions of modern warfare. Combat operations that are based on technology, on the use of modern optoelectronic intelligence systems, on the massive use of drones, and on the fact that combat operations are now being conducted in a fairly limited area of the front. We need changes in the organizational and staff structure that will allow us to increase the technical and technological components of the army and thus reduce the burden on the infantry. Otherwise, we have a constant consumption of attack aircraft, a constant consumption of infantrymen. And why is it? Because we are forced to fight with infantry instead of increasing the amount of technology and fighting more with drones. We need to rebuild ourselves. Then our mobilization should be based on the fact that we do not need to increase the number of heroes at the front with assault rifles, but the number of people with joysticks and screens that control drones and weapons systems. This is what we need to change. Then mobilization will be more adequate. Losses will be reduced, and thus troop replenishment, troop rotations, and people's rest will be organized. That's the way it should be. All this requires systemic changes. There are no simple solutions. Decisions in times of war must be comprehensive. For this, there must be a strategy and a systemic vision. Unfortunately, civil society cannot formulate it on Facebook. This is the responsibility of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Staff. And only that. And first of all, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to the Constitution, there is no other person. Not even Zaluzhnyi can deploy a hundred tractors, excavators, and concrete pavers by his own order. He cannot build powerful defense lines on his own, without a military administration, without resources, without construction companies. The Russians did this. They hired civilian construction companies and built reliable rear positions for themselves. And we have to do the same. I'm just talking about defense and military planning, about purchasing drones. This is how it should be done. Systemic integrated solutions.
