RUSSIA’S OFFENSIVE HAS INTENSIFIED: 8 UKRAINIAN CITIES IN DONBAS ARE UNDER ATTACK
The situation in Donbas continues to deteriorate. Russia is not scaling back its offensive, but is trying to expand it. The Russian command is throwing all its forces into the battle and trying to use the situation at the front to maximize the strain on our defense and our troops along the entire armed struggle.
So, let's look at the main direction, which is the most critical now. This is the direction of Pokrovsk. What we are recording now is in the direction of Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad and Selydove.
This is the situation on September 2.
Now let's look at the map, where we have distances marked.
The enemy has approached, continues to launch an offensive from the town of Novohrodivka, and as of today, the enemy is practically nothing left to Myrnohrad - 3.5 kilometers. The Russian troops also have a short distance to Pokrovsk, about 8 kilometers to go before the construction. The enemy has approached and captured almost all of Mykhailivka. This village is actually a suburb of Selydove. However, the enemy was not able to enter the town of Selydove. So the fight continues on the outskirts of Selydove. Soldiers of the 15th National Guard Brigade are holding the line.
What the enemy managed to achieve, over what period of time.
We had a map on August 29. On August 29, Myrnohrad was 4 kilometers away, and Pokrovsk was about 10 kilometers away. In fact, in 3 days, the enemy managed to advance 500 meters to Myrnohrad and about 1.5-2 km to Pokrovsk. We must realize that there is no such stable front line there. This is the position that we can clearly see that the enemy has really reached.
Now let's see what happened in the week before August 29.
On August 22, Myrnohrad was 6 kilometers away, and Pokrovsk was 12 kilometers away. That is, in fact, in 11 days the enemy managed to reach about 4 km to Pokrovsk and about 2.5 km to Myrnohrad. The pace of advance is quite serious. The enemy also managed to capture, see below on this map on August 22, Novoselivka-1, Yasnobrodivka, Karlivka, Halytsynivka. On August 22, Selydove was 6 kilometers away. And now the enemy has come close, which means that from August 22 to September 2, in 11 days, the enemy has advanced 6 km to Selydove, 4 km to Pokrovsk and 2.5 km to Myrnohrad.
They advanced very, very far. After they reached Selydove, they began to advance, to launch an offensive on Ukrainsk, Halytsynivka, so they went north of their breakthrough zone in order to expand it and secure their flanks. And look, let's look at August 22 again. Halytsynivka was still far from the front, Novoselivka I, Yasnobrodivka, Karlivka, Netailove were still fighting. And now let's see where the enemy has stopped.
Halytsynivka was 6-7 kilometers from zero line, and now the map for today. Now look, Halytsynivka has been captured by Russian troops almost completely. Novoselivka 1 has been completely captured, this is the deepest area that we held, so everything has completely fallen away. Our defense line near Karlivka was very favorable. A large number of reservoirs allowed us to build a very convenient defense around them. Unfortunately, all this has been lost. The enemy is in Halytsynivka, the enemy is on the outskirts of Ukrainsk, but did not enter this village. The enemy is on the outskirts of the town of Selydove, but they did not enter it either. In other words, the enemy advanced quite rapidly and in general, in August, the Russians managed to advance very far in the Donetsk direction.
On August 29, the maximum advance was up to 18 kilometers. At the moment, we can say that the maximum advance of Russian troops during this August offensive was up to 20 kilometers in the Pokrovsk direction. That is a lot, and we understand that the enemy is actually advancing every day at an average rate of 500 meters, at least 500 meters, that is, 700-800 kilometers on some days. The main thing about the situation is that we are not able to stop the Russian offensive. In other words, the Russians are bumping into our defense system in some places, for example, near Hrodivka, where they are stuck, the pace of advance has slowed down, and they are looking for workarounds. We have built a defense in this place, there are our positions, so let's try to outflank them somehow. Then we went to Selydove, reached it quickly, and our units appeared on the outskirts of Selydove. I would like to remind you of the panicked post by Mariana Bezuhla, a member of the Defense Committee, who inspected the positions on the outskirts of Selydove behind our troops and found no troops there, but in fact there were troops there. It's just that since they are all arranged in one echelon, of course, they retreat and our units can be found, organized defense can only be found on the front line. Our defense is not deployed in the second echelon. This is the main problem, including in this area, which, unfortunately, is the case in all parts of the frontline, and this is a very big problem for our troops, this defense structure. And now we see that the enemy has approached Selydove, the pace of the offensive on Pokrovsk is very slow, but it continues, they do not stop and every day they try to crawl within 300-400-500 meters. The enemy bumps into a position, starts to outflank it, and that's it. So what is happening in this area? Despite the fact that Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, visited this area, and we saw the post of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, despite the fact that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated at the meeting of Headquarters that he was monitoring the Pokrovsk direction, all these words, unfortunately, are not confirmed by deeds, the offensive has been going on for several months, four months, and it has not yet been possible to stop this creeping offensive.
This is not a problem, in my opinion, as well as in the opinion of all those who are fighting there, at the level of a brigade battalion. This problem is related to the problems of the operational and tactical group that is there. The commander in this area is Colonel Lutsenko, and in the Toretsk-New York direction, it is Colonel Ledovyi. So, unfortunately, the operational and tactical groups, the operational and strategic groups of Hnatov, they cannot cope with these tasks. We just need to figure out why, for what reasons, this is the second question. They cannot organize, there is very poor interaction at the unit level, very poorly organized work and interaction between UAV units, electronic warfare units, very serious problems of interaction between our troops. All of this is the reason, I want to say, from what the soldiers and commanders themselves say in the area, that there is no planning for defense. Words about strategic defense remain words. That is, unfortunately, there are no positions built in the rear, at least 5-6 km away, I'm not talking about the first line, at least the second line, 5-6 km away, so that there would be normal shelters, normal camouflage, shelters, at least from drones dropped by the FPV and mortar shells, camouflage, deployment of troops in advance, burning or uprooting of plantations so that they do not have to spend shells and mines to clear these plantations later. There are no kill zones, or, as they say, zones for the enemy infantry, that is, completely open spaces, pre-cleared spaces of any kind of vegetation that allows Russian infantry to hide. And to be able to work on these points from their camouflaged hiding places. There are no mines. Everything is mined at the last moment when the enemy has already broken through, and then they try to mine it by other means. There is no mining and that's it. And we do not fight planned. Unfortunately, people are fighting. For example, they send us a combat-ready unit. They fight for a position to the last. They will never be given an order to withdraw, to a favorable line, never. And there is no such thing as someone in the firing line, 5-6 kilometers behind them, building a high-quality defensive line while people are fighting on the front line, zeroing on everything, clearing everything, mining everything. And then, when the men of this combat-ready unit, which is fighting ahead of them, get exhausted, suffer losses, retreat, there is no such thing as them having already retreated, and behind them, our units, already organized, camouflaged, protected, meet the enemy at this line. Well, it never happens. Although, what I'm telling you now is not some unique, new knowledge in the art of war. These are so banal things that have already been done so many hundreds of times in world history, in world wars, they are so obvious to most people, officers, brigade commanders, battalion commanders, deputies, company commanders, sergeants, soldiers, many. It's just incredible. But none of this is done. It is not being done, because such decisions that we are fighting at this position are not made to just hold on to it until the end and spend all the people and then force back to who knows where. There is no planning that we are fighting on the front lines to gain time and secure the rear boundary. And there, at this rear boundary, the enemy will be met by much better-organized troops. We do not have this approach. Ours is always holding on, holding on, holding on, and then the combat capability ends, people start to withdraw. And then the generals, colonels, and commanders of the OTG write off all responsibility for this failure. On whom? On the soldiers who failed to hold their positions. In our army, in the defense forces, there is no responsibility of the commanders-in-chief, commanders. They always write everything in such a way that later they can present a pile of their reports and demands for internal investigations to the SBI investigator and say, "I'm not guilty. I wrote all the papers. Instead of commanders, we have finger-pointers promoted to the highest positions. I mean, the finger-pointers are the ones who move their fingers around the map and point, hold it here, this is the line, and go here. Do you think it's possible that this is an exaggeration for the sake of humor, satire? Actually, no. You will be surprised how many combat orders are transmitted via WhatsApp, recording video from the phone, by the commanders of the OTG, OSGT, and pointing their fingers, going here, going to this point, standing here. You will be amazed that this is one of the main methods of control in general. That's what I call finger-pointers. These are people who ignore the real capabilities of the troops. They ignore the enemy's superiority in numbers, in the number of weapons, in the number of drones, they ignore it. And instead of taking responsibility for the result, for the defeat of the enemy in a certain direction, for maintaining the combat capability of our troops, they are responsible for one thing - to send someone to a point, to tell them to drive there, to hold on, and then we are no longer interested. This is no longer our problem, not our responsibility. Hold on, you've already been taken there. If you have a few dozen more people there, it doesn't matter who they are - wounded, sick, drivers, cooks - we don't care, let's go. But why hold on? What's the point of holding on? You need to hold on for a purpose. In a war, war is a process of eliminating the enemy and preserving your forces, technologically speaking. And in this case, you need to hold on if this delay gives you any advantages later. Tactical advantages, organizational advantages. Right now, it's not clear why we are holding out, and then our troops are falling apart and can't get a foothold in any place. Because there are either no positions there, or they are unequipped, or unprotected from drones, or the plantings are dense, right up to them, and the enemy can march straight through. Or they have run out of people who can hold the position. Unfortunately, this is why we cannot stop the Russian offensive. There are no tank columns in the Pokrovske direction, no hordes of infantry of thousands. They are attacking in small groups of 3, 4, 5, maximum 6 people. They are attacking under drones, with drones, with drone bombardments, with artillery and mortar attacks. But these are groups of 3-6 people, no more. And there are not many of them. The Russians are suffering heavy losses. They are not going with armored vehicles because they have suffered terrible losses in armored vehicles. They cannot move quickly. But even these small groups of infantry - we cannot yet organize their destruction. Why? Because the enemy's decentralized actions, the attacks of small infantry groups, which are aimed simply as reconnaissance by combat to identify our defense nodes and then defeat them with various means, in order to stop them, we need a similarly decentralized organization of actions in defense. In order to fight small groups on the offensive, we need to counter this tactic with small groups on the defense. This requires masking positions so that the enemy cannot use their advantage in drones and firepower. So that they do not know where we are. For the troops on the defense to be able to maneuver from a dugout that is under fire to another. To move from a position that is hit to another. To have reconnaissance and flanking fire cover. To do this, there must be some troops who still have strength, physical and moral strength. None of this is being done. We are doing everything we can to the last - hold on, hold on, the troops are being exhausted. And then, when the enemy has already entered a city, they think, well, we can't lose the city quickly, so let's send someone there to fight a little bit. But when the enemy reaches the city, they already have basements, high-rise buildings. Houses. He has a place to hide. We make it easier for them to fight. It's just unique. And there are no conclusions. I'm talking about an after-action review. Dear friends, nothing has changed. The reasons for the loss of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Soledar, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Novohrodske. It's just like a copycat. It's one to one. Now the same thing is happening in other cities. New York, Toretsk, and now Selydove. And it reaches Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. No conclusions are drawn. It's all about PR. Chatter that something is under control. And what is under control is tense, but controlled, in fact, not controlled at all. Uncontrolled and irresponsible. That's what I would say. This is the assessment of the situation. We cannot say that we have no forces there at all. First of all, according to the soldiers and commanders in the area, we do not have an organization of defense planning. This is the main problem.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Could the failure at Pokrovsk have been avoided if we had a divisional system?
Well, I mean, friends, yes, there is no panacea in war. The divisional system improves the organization, command and control of troops and the responsibility of commanders. But, of course, it all depends not on the form, but on how it is implemented. In my opinion, if our well-organized brigades, such as the 3rd Assault Brigade, the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade, the 13th National Guard Charter, and the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade, were expanded to divisions, it would significantly increase their scale. Well, there are a few more brigades to name. This has significantly improved the controllability of the troops, the effectiveness of combat use of troops. Those brigades with good command, with a cadre of sergeants and officers, should be deployed into divisions
How do you think communication between the brigades in Pokrovsk could be improved?
These are obvious things to improve. There must be an OTG and OSGT commander who are interested in this. The point is not for the operational instructions to write down who should stand where, but for the commanders to arrive, realistically understand the capabilities of the troops, prepare a second line of defense and reliably stop the enemy on this line for a long time. Instead, we are fighting for plantations for one or two days. The landings are not equipped, people are sent there, they do not have time to deploy and are quickly knocked out. There are no reserves for counterattacks, no second line of defense. And this has been going on for several months. Well, what can I say, friends. This is not the way to fight anywhere. It does not depend on the Pokrovsk direction. It is the responsibility of the commanders. New York, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad, Selydove - we need to take the commanders of the OGT, Commander Lutsenko, Commander Ledovyi, colonels, the commander of the OTG Khortytsia, General Hnatov. And the commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, should sit with them and receive an order from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's office to stop the enemy. They have to present to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief how they will defend the key strategic hub in Donbas. Where is this plan? There is no such plan. There is just a lot of talk. Zelenskyy says that some fortifications are being built, but where are they? Why don't they stop the enemy if they are being built? The question arises as to where these 17 billion have been spent. There are no organizational measures. Where is the plan? We were told that Zaluzhnyi was removed so that there would be a war plan. I support this. Where is this plan? I would like to see it. There are words about the plan, but no implementation. And we are losing village after village. In August, we lost more than 20 settlements and the town of Novohrodivka in the Pokrovsk direction. The Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is not concerned about this at all. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not even come to Pokrovsk yet. He has other plans. He came to the Sumy region to tell something about Kursk. This is just rare irresponsibility. Rare. And absolute disregard for the real needs and problems at the front. In other words, Zelenskyy again shows that he is only for the good. He only wants to comment on the good. And he does not even comment on the problems. And it doesn't. It doesn't even solve it. It's just strange. What are people thinking? It's so irresponsible, they're just surrendering Ukrainian cities and they don't care at all. Even from a moral point of view. How can they do this? People live there, citizens of Ukraine. There are enterprises, big businesses, important strategic mineral deposits there. How can you just surrender this silently and do nothing? For more than a month, we've been advancing continuously, 500 meters a day. And nothing works. Who is responsible for this? Nobody. As it turns out, no one in our state is responsible. Only the State Bureau of Investigation writes some criminal cases against soldiers. And there are no criminal cases against those who are ineptly managing it.
Does the 110th receive FPV from the state?
Yes, that's a very good question. Thank you, Raynor NLS. The 110th Mechanized Brigade, like all the brigades in the area, receives these FPV drones from the state. If we talk about the percentage of the actual needs, well, it is so. Most of the drones of all types are supplied by volunteers, of course. And unfortunately, this does not come from the state. Therefore, we cannot ensure the density of use. There are not enough drones. Our soldiers are saving them. They can see the enemy infantry target, but cannot strike it again because there are not enough drones. The shortage of drones like Mavic and Autel is especially great. In some areas, the enemy has a great advantage in drones of this type.
How to make commanders criminally liable for the loss of personnel?
In fact, all this is provided for by law. There is a liability called wartime negligence, which leads to severe consequences. This is an article of the Criminal Code, up to eight years in prison. The problem we have at war, in my opinion, is that there is no responsibility, first and foremost, official responsibility. Why am I constantly talking about after-action reviews, about the standard procedure in all NATO armies? Because first, at the level of army leadership, we need to clearly understand what actions of commanders are right or wrong in the first place, and what they lead to. These conclusions are not being made. There is no analysis at the professional level, no evaluation at the service level. There are talentless brigade commanders who do not even know the situation. Just like the brigade commander of the 59th Brigade, Bohdan Shevchuk, who was given a combat-ready brigade, he simply destroyed it with his inept command. He simply does not know the situation. He has the same information as the battalion commanders, and other people in the brigade treat him with great distrust. But the commanders like him, so they do nothing to him, he just sits in his position. So what does this say? Friends, in Ukraine, if you have personal sympathy and personal support from your bosses, it doesn't matter if you lose one position and the brigade commander is dismissed. But he can be an effective brigade commander, kill many enemies, it doesn't matter. They will dismiss. Or you can be someone's favorite, always say "yes, sir," love your commanders and chiefs, and, in principle, have a quiet career. I want to tell you that the Israeli army also has many problems. As we can see, the fact that there is a war going on there, we also see that there are big problems in management and organization. But there is a very good principle there. There are mechanisms in the military teams themselves to express distrust of the commander from subordinates. We have no such mechanisms. Because our military command forbids any criticism of itself at all levels, creates big problems for those who dare to criticize, fires people, transfers them, and causes problems. That's why these abuses are not normally evaluated either at the level of the army command itself or later, when criminal cases need to be investigated. I want to tell you that in 2014 I wrote about the problems of army management in Donbas, about the causes of the tragedy in Ilovaisk, about the failure in Debaltseve, the same problems as Ilovaisk, Debaltseve, Lohvinove, other points of that front in the ATO are directly reflected now. Nothing has changed. Leaders simply do not draw conclusions. Because that's the way they were brought up, that if you admit a mistake, it means you admit that you were wrong, and you get fired for it. And we cannot admit mistakes. Our army system is so incompetent, it does not want to learn, it does not recognize anything, because it simply perceives mistakes as an insult, as weakness. That's why it's such a mess. Generals do not learn from our own war. And everyone wants to train soldiers. Everyone says, let us train soldiers. I want to tell you that it is much more important for us to train generals. Our generals are not trained as much as our soldiers. We have soldiers who have been in Germany a couple of times, and in France, and they already have experience, analyze, and think. But generals don't have all this. They don't think, they don't apply NATO standards, they just talk about them on TV airtime. That's all. Unfortunately.
Why aren't more capable brigades, or at least their battalion tactical groups, being redeployed to Pokrovsk?
In Pokrovsk, I don't know, the command has its own vision. Look, there are always not enough troops in a war. I can't say that we don't need to fight in other areas, let's throw everything at Pokrovsk. I have a complaint and a question about Pokrovsk, and not only I, but those who are fighting have a main complaint, not about the number of forces, but about the quality of their use, the mediocre, incompetent use by the army command, and the complete lack of desire to change the situation. For four months the enemy has been advancing and there has not been a single line in four months to stop them. How is that possible? It can be done with these small groups of infantry, they can be stopped with the forces that are available. Of course, reinforcement is needed there. Reinforcement, you have to understand, the enemy is not attacking there with some elite assaultmen. These are also people, most of whom have just been recruited into the army, and they are advancing. But they are going fresh, yes, under the threat of execution, but they go and go, because they are sent on missions, and then the reserves are sent in. And we have no defense line, we are actually at war, one army is driving forward to attack, the other is driving someone into a wooded area. You have to hold the line. And the winner is the one with more resources, more people at that point, who better- organized reconnaissance, defeat. But the battle is actually always a counter-battle. Yes, our troops manage to dig some trenches, but that's it. This is the main problem, we have no positions, no positions. There are only small strongholds that are not connected to each other, and unfortunately, it is impossible to hold on to these points. And all of Zelenskyy's stories about the fortifications, that his civil-military administrations are building something there, are a lie. I have actually seen several strongholds in the Pokrovsk direction, but none of them are appropriate for what needs to be done there. There is no a single checkpoint, not all the passages at this checkpoint are blocked. Someone has to do it, someone has to disguise it. Wooded areas are not cut down or burned in advance. That is, the main thing is that these positions are never deployed with the required number of troops. That is why they are not taken into account.
Is Pokrovsk being deliberately surrendered?
I want to say that Pokrovsk, in my opinion, is being surrendered because of total irresponsibility. And I just want to say that it's not just Pokrovsk that is being surrendered in this way. I believe that it is really being surrendered. Pokrovsk is being surrendered. The whole territory of Ukraine is being surrendered, not just one city. There are such problems in the organization of combat operations in many areas. But this is where the enemy is putting the most pressure, and this is where it is most evident. That's all. Yes, we no longer have the infantry that pulled out the war and gave us an advantage over the enemy in 2022-2023. When people were sent in, they built cooperation on their own, searched for ammunition and materials on their own, built defense lines in advance or quickly equipped them, despite the losses under enemy fire, and withstood these attacks, drones, and artillery. These volunteer fighters are gone now. Three years have passed. People can't fight in the infantry for that long without interruption. It is physically impossible. And the enemy does not have such people. Only a few. The enemy cannot fight like that either. They are fighting, all of them, all of them are assaultmen. This is 99% of the infantry, which they also mobilize and then throw into battle after a short training. Therefore, we must understand that on both sides, the key to victory is the right managerial and organizational tactical decisions, the planning of these hostilities. This is the key. In 2022-2023, we did not pay so much attention to this because the infantry was decisive. Our infantry had a quality advantage over the enemy. And this quality advantage provided an advantage in combat operations in certain areas. And now there is no such kind of people. People who have already been mobilized are leaving. And we cannot continue to rely solely on infantry. We need management, we need to rely on commanders. And the situation in Pokrovsk shows that we need not to throw away quality brigadiers, as Oleksandr Syrskyi is doing, who has dismissed a large number of quality brigade commanders. Well, to be fair, quality brigade commanders were removed under Zaluzhnyi, unfortunately. Because there were no proper criteria for assessing the results of combat operations. Objective criteria. That is, criteria where a commander is not evaluated by a report and a statement, as it is now, by false reports, as many have learned to do, but a commander should be evaluated by the number of videos of the enemy destroyed. This is number one. Second. The number of people the commander lost during the launch of these hostilities. Does he lose less than he destroys? This is the main thing. And then all the other criteria are secondary. Because if a commander is filming the enemy and kills more than he loses, it means that this commander immediately has intelligence, planning, and the use of munitions. He is protecting the infantry, not just paying lip service to it. He does not allow the enemy to come within assault distance but destroys the enemy at a distance. That is, the video of the destroyed enemy immediately reveals a lot about the commander in this area. We don't have to do that. In our country, you can lie in reports, say that everything is fine, lose people, lose positions, not kill anyone or inflict small losses on the enemy, and still make a career. Unfortunately, this is just a major problem in the army. We have the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. First of all, the General Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not have and does not have clearly defined criteria for the competence of brigade and battalion commanders. All of this is replaced by their own subjective judgments, which are not based on any objective indicators or any objective analysis. Like it or dislike it. Dislike is a purely subjective emotional assessment. I don't think there were any criteria that were clearly defined. No, there is no such thing. Well, this is a mess because the advantage in war is created by combat leaders and the planning system, that is, the logic in which these combat leaders prepare troops. Where do we have this logic? It's all just constant talks
Zelenskyy always likes to say, "Our main thing is the human-oriented nature of the army, people must be protected." Well, this is a lie, that's all. Zelenskyy does nothing to protect Ukrainians. Not at all. It's just talk. He does nothing. Where are the criteria? How to protect people? How to bury them? What to do with them? What does it mean to protect people? People, Zelenskyy said recently, are not a resource. I want to tell you that in war, people are not a resource - this is not true. People are a resource. The most valuable resource of war. And this resource must be used in such a way as not to lose it. We need planning, clear spending of people, first of all. Does the army have it? No, it is not. Look at the number of missing persons. What is a missing person? A missing person is a person who went into battle, and then the commanders who sent him there lost control, either they don't know where he is, lost their positions, didn't organize evacuation, didn't organize flanking cover, or damage to the enemy. And they simply lost people. Sometimes such situations happen in war. The enemy advances in large numbers. But, unfortunately, it often happens that we lose people because the organization of the battle in defense was poor. This happens very often. So we need to pay attention to this. How can we reduce the number of missing persons? How to reduce the number of dead? How can this be done? Why doesn't the Headquarters ask the generals anything? Why are the generals doing nothing to resolve this issue? This is the third year of a full-scale war, and Oleksandr Syrskyi has been in charge of the war for 10 years. He commanded the Debaltseve operation and the battles near Lohvynove. He has already been through all this. Why doesn't he draw any conclusions? This is absolutely incomprehensible. Well, it is incomprehensible to ordinary logic. From a political point of view, everyone up there likes everything. Why do they like it? Because none of our leaders have ever been to the front line, sat in a stronghold under fire, and thus do not realize what drones are in modern warfare, have not been trained in it, do not understand how the battlefield has changed, and cannot appreciate the importance of using precision weapons. They simply do not understand where they are working. And they don't even ask. They believe that their position makes them already smart in advance. And they don't need to learn. That's the way it is. That's why we have what we have.
Why was Kursk attacked and not Transnistria? It would have been more profitable. When do you think our government will decide to liquidate Transnistria?
By the way, this is a very good question. I have written about this many times. And the question arises. Why? There is Transnistria. And you know, there is a big scandal now. The Servants of the People allowed their deputy Dmytruk to escape. He was supposed to be served with a suspicion of treason. But, as usual, someone warned him, and he quietly left across the border. Today it has just been announced that he has crossed the border. He went across the border to Moldova. They organized his crossing unhindered. He didn't hide there, he just got in the car in the afternoon, came from Kyiv, and crossed the border in the evening in an hour. And an interesting report is that both of the organizers of Dmytruk's crossing of the border fled from Ukrainian justice to Transnistria. So, imagine the connection. Transnistria is not a territory of Moldova now. In fact, it is a territory controlled by the Russian occupation authorities. There is the Russian army, the Russian FSB, and special services waging war against Ukraine. Russian military bases are there. And the organizers of illegal border crossings, that is, a whole criminal group that secretly, unhindered, smuggles packs of people across the border, and smuggles a deputy, a servant of the people from Zelenskyy, across the border. Imagine, these people are Russian agents. They live in Transnistria and carry out tasks from there. They hide when they need to. And the People's Deputy of Ukraine, a servant of the people, whom Zelenskyy himself put on this electoral list, said that these are just the best people in the country, proven new faces. It turns out that this person, Dmytruk, is closely connected with Russian agents working against Ukraine from Transnistria, helping, i.e., Russians from Transnistria have set up a channel for the illegal smuggling of people from Ukraine to Moldova. And the Russians are making money on this, and the Russian special services are gaining influence in this way, including on Ukrainian politics. Just imagine, this is a report from the State Bureau of Investigation. This is how it is going on. So is it important for us to eliminate Transnistria and Russian bases in Transnistria? Of course, yes. We do not need an operation against Transnistria as such. We need an operation against Russian bases in Transnistria. Because this case of Dmytruk shows that Transnistria has been and is being actively used by Russia to conduct sabotage and subversive activities against Ukraine. Here is a clear case. Therefore, of course, Transnistria must be cleared of Russian agents. And we are proud of the fact that, according to the report of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, we have taken our troops, captured 600 Russian soldiers in the Kursk region during the fighting, and replenished the exchange fund. In Transnistria, the exchange fund is several times larger. And this, of course, would be very important and beneficial for us. Transnistria is the trump card, the region that Ukraine is directly interested in clearing from the Russian occupiers. And there we have the opportunity to create an absolute advantage, much greater than the advantage we had in Kursk.
Perhaps we do not have a second defence echelon because we simply do not have enough personnel?
We have always been short of personnel and will continue to be short, not because we don't have people, but because we don't have the right use of people. Our brigades are put in one line, stretched, grinded to zero, and then, when people are exhausted, they are placed there and they cannot hold their positions, the remaining people. Another brigade is sent in after all. So there are still losses. What does it mean when there is a second line of defense? This means that you have units that can properly rest troops in the first line to hold two lines of defense, invented long ago, and build troops in two, sometimes even three echelons to keep pressure on certain areas. Why is this effective? It seems, only at first glance, that it requires more troops. In fact, it requires fewer troops. By deploying troops in two echelons, it is possible not to keep people in positions for a long time, but to quickly rotate them, that is, to allow them to recover. This single echelon system leads to the fact that people are exhausted, and we have a large number of tens of thousands of AWOL units, those who just want to rest. There is a case, a team enters the area, a recent case. There was a breakthrough of the front because the brigade that held, for example, the 24th Brigade, which held Toretsk-New York securely, was for some reason deployed to Chasiv Yar. And the brigade from Chasiv Yar was for some reason redeployed to Toretsk-New York. It was already combat-ineffective. As a result, the enemy quickly broke through the defense and quickly entered Toretsk-New York. At that moment, only at that moment, reserves were sent to Toretsk-New York when the enemy had already entered the city. And these reserves come in to meet the enemy, and the soldiers are brought to their positions, and they hold on to some points. 25-30 days, just imagine. Can a person be combat-ready after 25 days on the positions? I want to tell you that even after 5 days in the field a person reaches the limit of his physical and moral strength. Under normal conditions, of course, you need to keep a person there for a much shorter time. If these people go to the rear after 25-30 days on the positions, they will not go there again. They should be given 2 months, maybe even 3, to rest and recover. Thus, when we put troops in one line, in one echelon, we force commanders to overload infantrymen, and we make our infantry virtually disposable. And that's why we always don't have enough troops. This is the main reason, not the total number. So, we lack Russian strikes in all directions. When the Russians attack us, they attack us in a deeply echeloned manner. They send infantry in one direction. But a Russian infantryman knows that if he reaches a position, gets a foothold and hands over the position to a consolidated unit, he will be taken away and go to rest. That's why they are thrown in one direction for 10 days, 15 days. They have to fight there until they reach it. Or they will be destroyed. Yes, they are disposable, and this is what the Russian command planned. But if they don't get through, there is a second echelon, a third echelon after them, one group is destroyed, the second group comes in, the third group comes in, the fourth group comes in. That is, they attack in echelons. They don't throw the whole company at once to assault one strong point. Rather, they throw it into one division today, into the second division tomorrow, and into the third division the day after tomorrow. That is, this company, the Russian assault company, does not attack simultaneously, but in separate units. Up to a platoon at most. That's why they can afford to constantly bring fresh forces into the battle with such echeloning. But we cannot do this. We have one echelon, we have no fresh forces. We can't put people to repel an attack, then withdraw them, replace them with new ones, let them recover, and then have them return to the battle after rest. We do not have such rotations. Therefore, friends, there are never enough troops for two echelons. There are never enough troops to use them in one echelon. That is, it is the other way around. Because we are creating a disposable infantry against the Russians, in fact, where such brigades are stretched for a large number of kilometers, we are making our infantry disposable in this way. This is the problem. Because people who are in one direction, in one of the places, who take up a position for 30 days, and I want to tell you that there are examples of 40 days, are disposable. They require a long rehabilitation, physical, moral, and mental. This is a wrong use of troops.
German analyst Bild Röpke wrote a text saying that the Ukrainian military is already preparing for the battle for Dnipro in the spring. Does this forecast seem too pessimistic to you?
Look, I never read Western analysts at all, because I don't believe that a person can sit there, not even knowing the country, and not having the opportunity to see what is really going on here, has a circle of contacts and can tell such nuances. I can tell you for sure that the Ukrainian military is not preparing for any battles for Dnipro. This is absolutely false information from Röpke. I can tell you this for sure, because the Ukrainian military is still not preparing for the battle for Pokrovsk. And we don't have a defense line there. What about the Dnipro? Our army simply does not have such planning horizons. Unfortunately. Of course, the enemy is advancing no more than 500 meters. There is no such threat that they will reach the Dnipro. This year it is not possible at all.
Zelensky said that the Chief of Staff had reported to him that there had been no advance in Donbas over the past two days.
Well, this is a lie. I don't know. So Zelenskyy, as we show again, is simply not aware of the situation. Friends, let's look at the map for August 29. And the map for September 2.
It is 4 kilometres to Myrnohrad, 10 to Pokrovsk.
8 kilometers to Pokrovsk, 3.5 to Myrnohrad. On August 29, we will see the area of Halytsynivka-Karlivka. It is south of Selydove. Look, the enemy was only approaching. And now they have moved further. Halytsynivka is completely occupied. So what can I say? I don't know. Zelenskyy's statements about the war are completely disconnected from reality. They are a lie. The enemy continues to advance in Donbas. How can this be said? I want to say that there is also an advance of the enemy in the Vuhledar area. It happened yesterday and today. These are obvious things. The enemy continues to advance in the area between Toretsk and New York. So why this lie? You know, this is a desire to constantly deceive people. To constantly deceive the population, people. This is not to calm people down. Because later it turns out that all these reassuring statements are not justified. And people suffer. They do not plan their actions. They watch the telethon, the president's evening addresses. They think that everything is fine in the war. And the government is thus doing nothing to change the course of the fighting. These are the scary things. I want to say that if anyone has questions, for example, about the reliability of the maps, I advise you all to talk to the military in this area. There are soldiers there, for example, Oleksandr Syrskyi named several of our formations in the area. You can talk to them and ask if these maps are true. Whether there is advancement or no advancement. It's easy in Ukraine. That's why when I put up such maps, I am responsible for it to the military, first of all, who are aware of the situation. And I'm saying this now because people at the front are concerned about the lack of an adequate response and analysis from the authorities. And the fact that today Zelenskyy says that there is no advancement, I have not heard his statement, but if it is true, it is simply a lie.
Please be specific about who is finger-pointing. It's Ze's (Zelenskyy`s - ed.note) style to speak without surnames. Specifics are needed, not endless criticism.
You probably just don't watch my broadcasts, and I always mention the names right away, so I'm a little surprised that you're not watching attentively, but you're already writing. I'm on this show as well, so you probably miss it and don't listen. I said who was in charge of the troops, who was responsible. First of all, I can repeat once again, this is the issue of the commander of the OTG Lutsenko, the commander of the OTG Ledovyi, the commander of the OSGT Hnatov, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrskyi and the Supreme Commander in Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who constantly tells false information to the citizens of Ukraine that everything is stabilized, there are no advances and so on. There is a pyramid of lies, and it goes down from Zelenskyy. He forces the military to report false positive news at the highest level. Why, why this is being done, I just can't understand. We have every opportunity to stop the enemy. We have a sufficient number of competent commanders, soldiers, sergeants. At all levels. I just don't understand why, instead of drawing conclusions, recognizing the problems and starting to do the basic things that people who are making war with their own hands on the ground demand, why instead there is this propaganda, lies, and the president himself is spreading them. I cannot understand it. This is how Donbas surrenders. It surrenders because of the lies of politicians who interfere in the management of the army. And they interfere incompetently. They have to interfere, but they have to interfere correctly, competently. The Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Zelenskyy. They appoint according to the Constitution, they appointed the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the combat arms commander, the commander of the operational and strategic grouping. Of course, they are responsible for their activities. They are not just appointed. They are responsible for monitoring their instructions. The president allocated 17 billion hryvnias for the construction of fortifications and issued a government order. He has to control and be responsible for what he has done. If he doesn't, he has to admit his mistakes. None of this is happening. It's all just lies. And for two days there was no advancement, I don't know about it. I am shocked by this.
Don't you think that globally there are already agreements on territories with Putin?
There are no agreements. War means that there are no agreements. War means that the enemy will want to seize as much territory as we can't hold. That is why Ukraine needs to move to strategic defense not in words but in deeds. This is a fundamental decision that must be made. And it should be done not in words but in deeds. Strategic defense means that there are positions and defense lines that are prepared in advance so that the enemy cannot break through the front with the tactics it is currently using, with small groups of these biorobots. How can this be? It is not tank columns or armadas of bombers that are breaking through the front at Pokrovsk. Small groups of infantry break through the front in cooperation with groups of drones with artillery mortar fire. This means of destruction can be used to hold the line. Only under one condition. If you prepare for this, have high-quality defensive positions, camouflaged, protected people, cleared sectors of fire, have the opportunity, have many positions, can maneuver in defense, if the enemy hits one node, the other node will cover the flank. Then these small groups begin to suffer, they cannot break through. These are obvious things, I'm telling you now. Absolutely nothing new, nothing special, obvious to all really professional military people. Unfortunately, they are not obvious to a large number of fools, of whom we also have many in various positions. Friends, I am very grateful to you for the broadcast. We have been on for a long time today, and I am very grateful to you, friends. A lot of unclear things are happening in the war, but I want to tell you that we have a large number of people in the army who understand even better than I do what is happening and what needs to be done, who can destroy the enemy, stop the front, stop the defense, and defeat Russian groups. And in many places on the frontline, this is exactly what is happening. We are talking about the problems because they need to be clearly understood and they need to be solved immediately, as is the case in those parts of the front where the Russians cannot advance a single step. That is why I am confident that we are able to win this war and defeat the aggressor. And today I am more confident in our victory than ever. Thank you for the broadcast and glory to Ukraine!
