Why is Syrskyi unable to hold front?
The stream is dedicated to the critical situation at the front and the fact that in some areas we have no stable front. The frontline is collapsing, and almost every day the enemy is making advances and, unfortunately, capturing very important settlements, which, in principle, make it impossible to hold the southern part of Donbas, which we have been defending for so long.
All of this, of course, raises questions. Our military command is very fond of telling us that the wrong soldiers are being sent and that soldiers are needed. But, in fact, let's look at the situation. In reality, the situation does not seem to be a problem with soldiers at all.
So, the reason we are talking today about the actions of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, is the heavy defeats we have suffered in Donbas. In recent days, unfortunately, the enemy has managed to capture very important towns - the town of Hirnyk and the town of Selydove. Before that, we lost Vuhledar in the last two months and we lost Novohrodivka. What does this mean? We can look at the map. Let's see what Hirnyk is.
Hirnyk
The town of Hirnyk is the highest spot in Donbas. It is the highest elevated plain, a built-up area that dominates all other heights. And controlling Hirnyk allowed us to have a lot of control, gave us radio horizons, made it possible to monitor all the enemy's actions around us with drones, at a very long distance. I think that everyone understands that we are now in a drone war, so the one who controls the highest points has the best radio ranges for drone antennas, the longest range, the best signal quality. Of course, he has a key tactical advantage in the war. So, Hirnyk was lost. There were practically no battles for the city itself. The battles were fought near the city. Now they want to make the soldiers of the 210th battalion of the 120th Territorial Defense Brigade responsible for the loss of Hirnyk. Nevertheless, I cannot overestimate the importance of the combat capability of individual battalions. I want to say that handing over the defense of the city to one battalion, understaffed, with no weapons and no serious support, is not a problem of the soldiers. This is a problem of the command.
Why is this happening?
The loss of Hirnyk, unfortunately, makes it almost impossible to further defend the town of Kurakhove, which is being heroically defended by our soldiers of the 79th Air Assault Brigade and many of their attached units.
Kurakhove is also a height, building, and our troops have been skillfully using this height to destroy the Russian occupiers in huge numbers for many months. After the loss of Hirnyk, unfortunately, the fate of Kurakhove, to put it mildly, becomes problematic. Now the enemy has a tactical advantage in the area. From the heights near Hirnyk, the enemy is actually destroying our flank north of Kurakhove, gaining a tactical advantage there, its drones are starting to work, they are hitting our communication routes to Kurakhove. And in fact, the loss of Kurakhove is now, unfortunately, a matter of time. No amount of heroism in one direction can stop such a failure on this front. It can only be suspended, but unfortunately, the situation there cannot be corrected, as there are no reserves to recapture Hirnyk, and Hirnyk is a key point on this section of the front, unfortunately, as we understand it, there will be none now.
Next is the second city we lost. According to the video, it was actually lost there in one day, the enemy entered the town of Hirnyk. There were no street battles there. It was just an empty town, the enemy entered with minimal resistance and quickly occupied it. There were no prolonged attacks, no assaults, none of that. It was simply left without adequate cover. The higher military command simply did not allocate forces to defend such a key position. I can't wrap my head around how this could have happened. What is in the minds, how does our Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi, the General Staff, the command of the OSGT, the OTG plan combat operations? If there are heavy battles in the plantations near the city, our forces are being eliminated there, and then the most convenient position for defense is the building zone at a height. It seems to be almost without resistance. What kind of planning can there be for combat operations? And now, because of this, no stabilization of the front is possible again. It will continue to collapse. Because this is an adequate situation, which is now determined by tactical conditions. Now the enemy has the advantage.
Now let's look at Selydove.
Similarly, the enemy has entered Selydove almost without heavy fighting in recent days. And we see that there were battles on the outskirts. But in Selydove, how did the enemy manage to enter this town so quickly? Very quickly. Most of the buildings in Selydove were not destroyed. There were no long street battles. The enemy just managed to pass through Selydove. And now they are behind Selydove. What does this mean? Now the enemy is threatening our grouping in Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad from the flank. Now he will develop the offensive. There are no further border-lines there. The enemy will now enter Pokrovsk from the south. Again, he will improve the conditions for the offensive, as they have improved significantly in Pokrovsk. And he will continue to advance. He will disassemble the front to Velyka Novosilka. That is, to the Zaporizhzhia region. And to Pokrovsk. In order to reach the borders with the Dnipropetrovsk region. Now the enemy is only 27 kilometers away from the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region near Pokrovsk. 27. This is very close, as we all know. If you drive fast, you can get to zero line from Dnipro in an hour and a half. It's very fast. And this is Dnipro. This is already the center. Central Ukraine.
So, all these sudden losses of cities, of course, have their own responsibility. And the responsibility for this, as we understand it, is the fact that Novohrodivka, next to Pokrovsk, was lost almost without a fight. Selydove was lost with minimal fighting. Hirnyk was simply opened up. Vuhledar, which had been fighting for two and a half years, had to surrender a very convenient position. All of this, as we understand it, is not accidental. These are systemic things that happen at the front. The frontline is collapsing, and the enemy, unfortunately, is making daily advances on this front. And this is not a problem of the soldiers.
We like to say that our soldiers are bad. Yes, of course, in 2022, the most motivated people went to the front, who went to give their lives, but not to surrender. Those who went to stop a surprise attack, who realized that their lives made it possible for the whole country to mobilize. It was a desperate self-mobilization, and it was this self-mobilization that defeated the Russian army, which had an absolute advantage in all forces, means, and numbers. So, of course, the generals want to have soldiers like this, who go to the army on their own, provide for themselves, and don't need any logistics. They go into battle with the ammunition they have. They organize their own reconnaissance, search for maviks, and plan themselves. If necessary, they say what they can and cannot do, go forward and stand to the death. Of course, such people who made a miracle for the Ukrainian people in 2022 are no longer alive in such numbers now, three years later.
But I understand Moshchun's complex, when it's simple to say: "go, go, go" - people go and stop the Russian army. Of course, this cannot happen all the time. This is the first thing. And secondly, let's see who is breaking through our front. It seems that if you look at the explanations of our government and military command, the problem is that we have the wrong soldiers, the wrong system. Well, not the right kind. Give us good soldiers, like in 2022, and we will win. But let's face it. What kind of soldiers does the enemy use to attack? With the same cadre army as in 2022? No. Absolutely not. Our frontline is being broken through not by any special forces, but by Russian mobiki (newly mobilized soldiers - ed.note), just like in 2024. Moreover, while the basic military training course in the Ukrainian army is a month, and in many units a week or two of additional training is added to this month, in the Russian army the standard basic training course is two weeks. Two weeks. Our front is being broken through by Russian mobilized and contract soldiers who were driven there through prison, through the police, through some kind of contract, who were driven to the assault under the threat of execution. But these people are newly mobilized soldiers in the same way in 2024. These are not some astronauts coming down. These are ordinary people who also have very limited individual combat capabilities. The enemy sends them in small groups, without adequate control, under mavics, along a certain route, and they are told on the walkie-talkie to take a step to the right, a step to the left. And these people, who have just learned to shoot and most of them do not even know how to apply any kind of tourniquets, they move forward. And with these forces, the enemy breaks through the front.
The Russians are breaking through the front with huge losses. All their new contract soldiers, of course, are being killed with all kinds of weapons, but they are breaking through the front. The same people, the same year of 2024, who joined the army. Why is this happening? Perhaps, again, what our information resources, the official ones, tell us, the second idea that the Russians have an infinite number of people. Let's look at the facts. How great is the enemy's numerical advantage? Yes, it is. It is certainly great. But this does not mean that thousands of Russian infantrymen are running to attack our positions every day. It turns out that if you look objectively at the situation at the front, the enemy does not have endless resources of people. The enemy's resources are limited. They talk about 30 thousand people they conscript into the army, they conscript into the army per month. I think that this is really the maximum. I think that even sometimes they manage to send even fewer to the assault. But the enemy has a very limited resource. It is not infinite.
And we can see it by the intensity of the fighting. The enemy is dispersing its replenishment in approximately the same way. He concentrates more resources in some directions. But this direction is not a 100-fold advantage, not 50-fold, not even 20-fold. This advantage, in Vuhledar, the commander of the 72nd Brigade said that the advantage was 1 to 9. I think it was actually 1 to 9, a real advantage in forces over ours. But let's see now, not all parts of the front are collapsing under this pressure. There is an area that we are all looking at, for example, the K2 battalion of the 54th Brigade, the "Svoboda" ("Freedom") battalion, the 3rd Assault Brigade, the "Charter" brigade, and various other brigades. The 58th Brigade has been holding its front in its area for a long time. We have a sufficient number of well-organized troops who are also constantly under attack and pressure, but the enemy cannot advance there. The assault groups are going the same way, and everyone is dying. They are destroyed one by one. Because the enemy, in fact, does not use this advantage, not by simply sending a crowd in one place. In fact, they attack constantly, they try to attack every day, in small groups, on the battalion front, in a squad, in a platoon at most. Up to a platoon can attack one position at a time. And of course, they never send more than 15 armored vehicles. As a rule, the enemy uses 3-5-7 armored vehicles. Very rarely.
If you look at the statistics, for example, for the last day, I collect this information, how many Russian infantrymen were seen in the Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad directions, how many Russian infantrymen were spotted by our aerial reconnaissance means. In fact, there are not thousands of them. It is up to three hundred Russian infantrymen. The movement on the front is about 30 kilometers. They were moving around. They were not attacking, they were moving around the positions, bringing supplies, taking out something, evacuating, bringing in. In fact, the enemy does not attack there in crowds of thousands. That is, small, basic means of breakthrough are infantry groups of three to ten people at most. Three to five, mostly. Three to five to 10 infantrymen at most. Almost all of them - 95% - are people who joined the army in 2024 on a contract basis, who have a very limited course of combat training. And yet, the enemy manages to concentrate these small human waves and break through, push through our front. How is this done? Well, not due to the outstanding combat qualities of these people, but due to the superiority of the Russian command at the operational, strategic level in the management of the organization. It's not that the Russians are more skilled, they just act more purposefully, more organized.
What do we see in Vuhledar? The enemy did not increase the number of troops, they just concentrated against one of our 72nd brigades. They concentrated for a long time, they concentrated because they needed Vuhledar, they concentrated 5 brigades. They suffered huge losses because they were storming the hill and the soldiers of the 72nd Brigade were well aware of the situation, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy, the enemy was advancing. What did they do? They created a narrow offensive front from the very beginning. That is, their brigades were given a narrow line on which one or two battalions could advance, and they provided constant pressure. That is, one battalion would be destroyed, and the other would recover. After the one that was destroyed, the second one entered and continued to attack again. What do we have now? We have brigades stretched out on the frontline for 30-40-50 kilometers, these brigades are in one line, they have no second echelons, unlike the Russians. And when they collapse, i.e., people run out under this pressure, everyone runs out, the defense also loses personnel for various reasons. Instead of narrowing the front in time for the enemy's attack, they do not reinforce troops in time, do not narrow the front in time for the attack. Five brigades are advancing, and one is standing still. But then they gradually start to add more forces, one battalion from there, one company from there, another battalion from there. Not simultaneously, but gradually. One day, then the next. That is, there is no planning. The second echelon cannot be created, because the reserves that come too late are already being used to maintain what is no longer possible to maintain. They are used to plug holes. Instead of imposing a massive offensive on the enemy and calmly operating with fresh forces, rotating units from the first to the second line and then again in time, as the enemy does, we are getting exhausted. We stand, stand, stand - and then the reserves come only when the front falls apart. This is an important difference, unfortunately. Everyone at the front knows this. And as a result, the enemy concentrates its forces for a long time against individual strongpoints. For a long time, for several months, he exerts pressure and succeeds. These 2024 contract soldiers, after two weeks of training. This is the vast majority. Yes, they conduct reconnaissance in combat, yes, they suffer huge losses. The Russians' losses are very high. They are obviously even greater than ours. They are probably much higher. But they achieve their goal. After they take some key city, of course, after that they get a big advantage, and they quickly push the front further.
So, this is a systemic problem that is not being solved at the front. The problem of disorganization in management. You think that maybe someone sees it, someone talks about it. Unfortunately, no. At the highest level, at the level of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, at the level of the General Staff, there are complete lies and reports in the style of such pink ponies. If you look, for example, at the report prepared by the Land Forces Command on the reasons for the loss of Soledar, I want to tell you that nothing has changed in the generals' assessment of the situation. It said that Soledar was lost because brigade commanders did not prepare their subordinate personnel well. And the fact that troops were deployed inadequately, that reserves entered late, that they did not have time to coordinate and train people, that they did not have time to equip the second rear lines of defense, that there was no adequate use of troops to determine the area of responsibility, zone, and width of the lines. That is what generals are responsible for. The command of the Khortytsia OSGT at that time, OTG Soledar. There is no responsibility here. Our command, Oleksandr Syrskyi, does not see his responsibility in anything. It is forbidden to even think that Syrskyi could be wrong. It is sacrilege. So do all his subordinate generals. Because who should always be to blame? Only the soldier, first of all. Soldiers are not like that. Give me good soldiers who do not retreat, who go forward by themselves. Battalion commanders, because it must be said that the battalion commander did something wrong, not the general. Not the OTG. Not the General Staff with its planning. And at most a brigade commander.
The brigade commanders are also divided into good ones, who should never be dismissed because Syrskyi likes them. And the bad ones, who are not to be pitied, because they report the true situation. The most outrageous case of this, just cynical, happened recently, which led to the loss of New York and the fact that the enemy has already, unfortunately, captured most parts of Toretsk. The 24th Mechanized Brigade under the command of Colonel Ivan Halishevskyi defended the Toretsk-New York area. It defended it for almost 2 years. It did it effectively, professionally, constantly striking at the enemy, preventing him from approaching our positions. Absolutely without any logic, without any analysis of the situation, by the decision of Oleksandr Syrskyi and the commander of the Khortytsia OSGT, Hnatov, which was unfortunately supported by the command of the OTG, Colonel Ledovyi, the 24th Brigade was suddenly withdrawn. The 24th Brigade was withdrawn from a position that was well held by it, and transferred to Chasiv Yar nearby. The defense of Chasiv Yar has already been breached. And the 24th Brigade had to be sent in to restore the situation. And on the spot, the defense was broken through in the 41st Brigade's line, Colonel Ramashko. And instead of the 41st Brigade, they put the 24th Brigade. As a result, the enemy sees this rotation, and the 24th cannot stop the breakthrough in the 41st Brigade's line, which has already occurred, because the positions that the 41st Brigade had reported to the OTG as being there, in fact, were no longer there, and it is impossible to restore them. And no one was preparing the rear line of defense, no one was going to prepare it, and the 24th was not given the opportunity. As a result, the brigade was sent into a counterattack. This did not lead to the establishment of a defense line, did not allow us to stop the enemy for a long time, did not allow us to take a convenient defense line.
At that time, instead of the 24th Brigade, the 41st Brigade was deployed to Toretsk, New York, which lost its combat capability. Of course, it was unable to hold its ground. In a few days, the enemy launched an offensive and the 41st Brigade collapsed. It was in a very difficult situation after the battles for Chasiv Yar. It could not fulfill this task. Nevertheless, it was deployed there. As a result, in addition to Chasiv Yar, as a result of this decision of Oleksandr Syrskyi and his subordinates in the Khortytsia OSGT in the Luhansk OTG, unfortunately, New York was lost, and the enemy was advanced to Toretsk, and the entire front collapsed there. And they failed to stop the enemy at Chasovyi Yar. What did Syrskyi do after that? Instead of recognizing that this was his critical mistake and the mistake of the Khortytsia OSGT, they first blamed brigade commander Holishevskyi of the 24th Brigade, a competent officer, for the planning of the fighting. Then, instead of Holishevskyi, they appointed a competent brigadier, also from the 24th Brigade, who commanded a battalion there, Serhii Mazurchuk. But Mazurchuk didn't even take command for two months, because he had already been dismissed. A complete personnel charade. And for what purpose? To cover up their own irresponsibility, to blame their own mistakes on their subordinates, to mislead, I don't know who. Why is this being done? Why is this lie simply multiplied? And what do you think is the fault of Holishevskyi and Mazurchuk? What angered the command the most? The 24th Brigade did not run away, it inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, it retreated under pressure, but the enemy was beaten, and the Russian airborne troops suffered heavy losses. What happened?
It just so happened that both Holishevskyi and Mazurchuk had the courage to report the real situation at the front. They reported the loss of positions, that the positions they had been given were actually empty. That the enemy is actually there, they are not empty. It is impossible to go there without an offensive operation. They were reporting the true situation, and they were dismissed and punished for it. And now it's been three months since we've had the third brigade commander. Just imagine. That is, the brigade has experienced the frontline moving to another area, two brigade commanders changing, and now the third. And this is the kind of chaos and disorder created by who? The enemy? It is the Ukrainian military command that creates this charade, which has no objective reasons. This is just Oleksandr Syrskyi's subjective impression of how to lead troops. Absolutely absurd, not motivated by anything. It seems that the man is playing with lives and military formations, and he is not interested in anything other than saying that we have appointed the guilty. This is cowardice and irresponsibility for his subordinates. This is a lie to his subordinates, first of all, a lie to the army. And the military can see it all.
What led to this? What happened there? Hirnyk is also a result. Why did the enemy come there at all? The dominant height, the building zone. A few months ago, Oleksandr Syrskyi decided to change the command of the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade. The 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade, as we know, was commanded by Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, who was appointed commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces in February. Since this appointment by Volodymyr Zelenskyi was not agreed with Oleksandr Syrskyi, he took it with great jealousy, very enviously, and decided that Sukharevskyi was a political opponent for him, that he might pose some kind of threat to his position. What did this lead to? Instead of the brigade commander who remained after Sukharevskyi, Maksym Stetsenko, another brigade commander, Bohdan Shevchuk, was appointed. I've already spoken about Shevchuk before, and I won't talk about his personal qualities now. I will say this: this man is 32 years old, and this is his first brigade management in his life. He has never commanded a brigade before. And the man is 32 years old, which means he has flown through all the personnel positions.
And what happened next? This brigade, after it had to withdraw from the town of Krasnohorivka, from many villages, was assigned a 45-kilometer front by Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Khortytsia OSGT, and the Donetsk OTG. 18 attached battalions were subordinated to the brigade, in addition to his own. And it was led by a young officer, for whom this was the first appointment of such a scale in his life. And the forces and units subordinated to him were not for a brigade, but for a division. Of course, no miracle happened. To put it mildly, the command on this front was difficult, to say the least, with combat actions. All the units and some of the unit commanders who fought from this line and saw this chaos, one of the commanders, an honest man, a volunteer fighter, even recorded a video explaining the reasons for such chaotic actions: why we were losing positions in the Hirnyk area, why we were exchanging people in open plantations in fields without any equipment, suffering losses and still having to withdraw. He recorded a video message, passed it on to the command, and everyone watched it, but no conclusions were drawn.
As a result, our troops were destroyed on this front, unable to stop the enemy, destroyed on the approaches in the empty plantations near Hirnyk, and the 210th TDF battalion was left to defend one of the key, most important heights on the front. And now it is being blamed for the fact that the soldiers there are not like that, that they fled somewhere else. The 210th Battalion fought as well as a single TDF battalion can fight on the frontline. After heavy losses and in the third year of the war. No more, no less. Maybe it was better to fight there? Perhaps, I think so. But are the soldiers responsible for this, for the organization of training, the use of troops?
Now they are going to shift all the responsibility back to them. This is absolutely insincere and dishonest. That is why I understand that we need to tell about it to someone, about such failures and consequences. Because what is happening in Hirnyk is happening in other parts of the frontline as well. What is happening in Toretsk, New York, Chasiv Yar is happening in all parts of the frontline. Total irresponsibility of the highest military command. And only where there is a brigade commander who can build some political connections, some relationships with all these different intermediate ties, who can adequately transform an order so that it is executed, who understands how to fulfill the task, save people and report correctly, these unique brilliant people still continue to hold their fronts. But of course, there are not many such brigade commanders in the army. That's because Oleksandr Syrskyi dismisses good brigade commanders, high-quality ones with independent thinking, and brings them down with all his might. It is Syrskyi who is against honest reports on the situation at the front. I can state this. Because we see the situation with the 24th Brigade and the same with the others. As soon as the brigade commander starts reporting. Here is Selydove, the 15th Brigade of the National Guard. We have the 15th National Guard Brigade in such an important area. Additionally, under the insistence of higher command, the brigade commander who reported that his flanks were vulnerable and not covered was dismissed. He began to report that there was a threat to the city, that there were specific weaknesses. What was done? The brigade commander was dismissed. They replaced him with someone who does not report bad news anymore. The command does not want to hear bad news. This is just absurd. What is the main reason, if you think about why we are losing positions? The first reason is that the army now has a system in place in the defense forces that comes from the top, when lies are required in reports. We can recall how Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on his website on February 8 that he was dismissing Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief, and replacing him with Syrskyi, because he had eight demands. One of the requirements is that the generals know the front, that they know the situation, and other things, that there is a plan written for the conduct of hostilities. I wonder, according to what plan is it that every day, every three days, another settlement is surrendered? Is this the plan of war from Syrskyi? Is this the plan that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had in mind? Or is the war plan in his mind what he read out in the Rada under the title "Victory Plan"? It's a kindergarten level of this kind of plan. That is, we have no planning now. The President, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, says we need a plan, but there is no plan. There are chaotic reflexive actions that are completely unpredictable. If you ask any brigade battalion commander now, how are they used? I can tell you a typical situation. They are sent into battle on alert, transferred from somewhere to somewhere. There are no timely replenishments, no timely coordination. You can stand somewhere, but they often won't give you people to work out. They will give you a large defense line that cannot be held. There will always be some positions that are marked as ours, but in fact the enemy is already there. And all this is based on lies. That's why the first reason that prevents us from holding on is a lie.
Now I want to say why, in my opinion, Oleksandr Syrskyi is not able to hold the front. First, he does not want to admit his responsibility for the war. Syrskyi seems to be the chief, the commander of the Kursk OTG. He is in charge of Kursk. Everything else - he gives orders to dismiss someone, to reshuffle someone without any logic. He does not know what is happening at the front. He has absolutely no command of the situation. His orders are not tied to the real situation. They are not motivated by anything. We have the same situation with General Hnatov, who is in charge of the Khortytsia OSGT. Sometimes there are adequate commanders of the OTGs, but they are all subordinate to the top and carry out combat orders from somewhere else. Therefore, unfortunately, it does not always seem to be adequate management. So, first, irresponsibility. Unwillingness to recognize responsibility for the front. Unwillingness to be responsible for people. A desire to be responsible only for reports to the Headquarters. That is, first of all, irresponsibility. And Oleksandr Syrskyi, unfortunately, shows no such responsibility at all.
Second, Syrskyi is very afraid. Not of the enemy, and not of responsibility, and not of the fact that someone might say it to his face one day and that he will have to answer for it. He is infinitely afraid of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He is afraid of the president's nervous reactions when he is told something bad, and he is very afraid of being dismissed from his chair. As it turned out, Oleksandr Stanislavovych's love for his chair is boundless. I always see in our security forces that people who are afraid of their superiors are appointed to general positions. No one tries not to argue with them. And Zaluzhnyi did not argue, he very rarely said no to Zelenskyy. But I could not even imagine such an irresponsible attitude, a desire to fulfill any instruction, a lack of a position in relations with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Compared to Zaluzhnyi, Oleksandr Syrskyi is a soft person who has no position at all, to whom you can say anything, and he will do anything for the sake of his chair, so that Zelenskyy doesn't yell at him, without even thinking. This is what is happening here, when all the attention is focused on Kursk, and Donbas has been abandoned, and there is a loss of city after city, is a consequence of the fact that Oleksandr Syrskyi is a coward who is afraid for his chair and because of anger, some kind of nervous reaction of Zelenskyy and Yermak, much more than he is worried about the fate of Ukraine and those people who carry out his orders at the front. This is simply the saddest thing about this situation. For Oleksandr Stanislavovych, the chair has weighed down the fate of the army, the fate of the country.
Third. Manageability. Manageability of troops. The manageability of troops does not start with some infantrymen running away from a position. It begins with a lie. It starts with lies, when a brigade or battalion commander is dismissed for any honest report. It starts with lies when we find out that only positions are drawn on the map. In order not to be dismissed, the commander does not report these positions. Then the OTG does not report either, the brigade does not report. Then the enemy has long since accumulated there somewhere. The unit is changed, but it is impossible to gain a foothold in these positions because the enemy has already advanced. No one controls this, and those who report honestly that the enemy has broken through the defense are simply dismissed. That is, Syrskyi does not tolerate honest people in command positions. He only tolerates loyalists who always say "yes, sir" and are sent with their eyes closed to die anywhere. There is no responsibility for his life. I think this is because, of course, due to his age, Oleksandr Stanislavovych himself cannot go further than the command and observation post of battalion, objectively. He doesn't feel or understand the war as it is now, with drones and precision strikes. And it appoints many people, including its subordinates, who are also unaware of this. And it can't advise anything, or is afraid to advise, lest it lose its position. And this system of lies is growing from the top, it is getting stronger and stronger, and lies are killing people. Lies are the cause of manageability. Lies in reporting the situation, in mapping the borders, in assessing the combat capability of the troops, in the advance of the enemy, and then they surrender cities. It's not the soldiers who surrender cities, it's the generals who are not responsible for it.
First of all, the loss of cities in Donbas is not a problem of bad soldiers. This is a problem of inadequate perception of the situation. Absolutely. And it comes from the top, this chaos. When our main battle tactic is now defense, we seem to be on the defensive, but in fact we are not. This is also a lie. That's right, the next point is about tactics. We have no defense, Syrskyi is not organizing a defense. We have a encounter battle, a continuous encounter battle. Because they are constantly lying about the situation, because they do not want to hear reports from the cities. Instead of preparing defensive positions, entrenching ourselves there and waiting for the enemy to approach and systematically destroy them. Instead, we have a continuous encounter battle. Our infantry is being sent to meet the Russians, and we are actually fighting encounter battles in unequipped plantations, without any strongholds. It's a straightforward situation right now. And Selydove. This is all a lie from the civil-military administration about strongholds. Let's look at the enemy's video of their assault operations. Every day the Russians post how they storm our positions. There are no capital structures anywhere. Trenches and a dugout were dug by the soldiers themselves with shovels on the spot. Shallow, without overhead protection. This is what the enemy is storming. So, this lie actually kills. And this lie comes from the top. And now this lie has brought the enemy to a distance, to the borders of Dnipropetrovsk region. And to the loss of several cities at the same time. And it's not some innumerable hordes that are breaking through, but the same newly mobilized soldiers of the year 2024 who are successfully destroying and beating them in other parts of the frontline. And, unfortunately, in some areas, due to inadequate managerial organizational decisions, they cannot do anything about it.
Next. Organization. Organization of the troops. The organization of troop management is deteriorating significantly. It is deteriorating, first of all, because of this endless personnel charade. Just endless. In the 23rd year, Syrskyi replaced 73 brigade commanders. We now have one ground forces brigade commander in the Armed Forces who has remained in office since 2022. One. Oleksandr Bakulin is the commander of the 57th Motorized Infantry Brigade. In all other brigades, brigade commanders have been changed many times. As far as I counted, there are brigades in which 6 brigade commanders have been dismissed, replaced. It's just a constant personnel charade. There is no team, no cohesion, nothing. They change the brigade commander, they change the headquarters, and everyone is studying everything. For what purpose? I understand that if the brigade headquarters is not working well, they need to be dismissed. But we are now removing quality brigade commanders. Those people who have independent thinking, responsibility, who honestly report the situation. They are being dismissed from brigade commanders and battalion commanders. And now, in the army, when a person is dismissed, he no longer perceives it as an insult, as a lack of trust. They know that this is a common practice. That this is just Syrskyi's style. Let's dismiss everyone. There is a report that the enemy has broken the defense. What does Syrskyi do? Let's dismiss all the commanders on the ground. Does this improve the defense at all? Have you ever thought about this, Oleksandr Stanislavovych? Have you ever commanded in battle? Could you imagine what it would be like to command a battalion in battle? You did not command it yourself. Maybe you could have figured it out once, not just commanded. You have never commanded a battalion or a brigade in combat. I want to tell you that it's strange how a person gets promoted to a position and forgets his own experience.
I met Oleksandr Syrskyi in 2014. It was a time of great chaos. Our troops were entering Donbas in a disorganized manner. There were a lot of organizational problems. At that time, we still understood that the army was a peacetime army, it did not know how to fight, and there was some logic. I remember when Oleksandr Syrskyi was appointed commander of the Bars tactical group to defend Debaltseve. So, on February 12, our troops tried to launch a counterattack near Debaltseve on the village of Lohvynove. The counterattack was simply disorganized. There was simply no adequate control center. There were chaotic orders, it was a complete mess. And we could not capture a small village of 400 square meters, 400 meters long, 300 meters wide. Despite the fact that we controlled the dominant heights, had artillery, tanks. It was just strange to look at. And all the soldiers asked me then: "Is this a surrender? Do they want to surrender Debaltseve like this?" I called Oleksandr Syrskyi once. I asked him: "Oleksandr Stanislavovych, why are these actions so mediocre? We're not going to recapture Logvinove now, why can't anyone plan a normal attack on this small section of the front? Why is there disorder and chaos?" Then Oleksandr Stanislavovych told me: "Well, you understand, I'm here myself, I'm being dismissed and appointed, I hadn't been in command for several weeks before, Muzhenko was in command there directly, I didn't know." I mean, from what he said, I understood very clearly that there is a complete mess in management at the top, and this mess in management is due to the fact that people are constantly shuffling around. He took over. There, Muzhenko, the Chief of the General Staff at the time, took over the manual control of the troops himself. He would promote Syrskyi and then dismiss him. In fact, Muzhenko himself called from Kyiv, called the commander of the battalion storming Lohvynove, gave him his instructions, gave orders over the phone. Syrskyi was being dismissed, complete chaos and irresponsibility. Let me remind you that it was February 2015. I hoped that Oleksandr Syrskyi had not forgotten this lesson. But, unfortunately, he did. Or perhaps it's after a person rises to the highest position that he or she simply has a complete memory wipe. And he simply forgets what grave consequences chaos leads to at the level of operational management, top management. In other words, he simply forgets what grave consequences chaos at the level of operational management and top management leads to. Unfortunately, as we can see, Syrskyi did not draw any conclusions from Debaltseve at all. And the mess he was in charge of in Debaltseve is now being created by him for his subordinates in all other parts of the frontline. Without even trying to learn anything. That's why this chaos, this constant dismissal, is just a terrible scourge. There is no logic to this personnel charade, no sense in it. These are just harmful things. And the disorganization of the troops begins because of this.
Next, the principle of organization of use. The training of people for such combat conditions and the organization of troops are completely inadequate. Why is the frontline in Hirnyk, Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad collapsing? Instead of reinforcing the combat brigades operating in time, the combat brigades in this area are not replenished in time. They fight to the last man who can be put in the trenches, and then these brigades are given attached units that are not their own, with which they are not familiar, which they do not influence, do not understand their combat capability. These dowry units are being grinded down even further. Instead of replenishing our fully-fledged combat-ready brigades, the High Command decided to use the newly created ones in this area. The newly created brigades 140, 150, they pinch off company tactical groups, battalion tactical groups. People who have no command staff have neither combat capability nor cohesion. These are structures that no one in the army understands how to create. Why create countless reserve brigades when the active army is understaffed? What is the point? There is no point, no practical sense. It only worsens the quality of the use of people. And these brigades, these companies, these battalions, these battalions, they certainly cannot provide a stable front. There is no order of organization there.
So the main thing I would like to say is about the equipment. You may think that the enemy has such an advantage in technology, in aviation, in shells, in drones. There is an advantage, but it is not of such a total, ultimatum nature. Wherever our troops can build a dense front, where there are commanders who are given the opportunity to build a front, who can take up positions, who can effectively use drones, the Russians are being eliminated without a chance. With a large, multiple advantage in losses. But our troops, our command, are not given this opportunity. We do not create defense lines. We have an encounter battle everywhere. Instead of a line of defense, we just have an encounter battle, sending people to points on the map, to an empty place in the plantation. This is called defensive actions. This is not defensive action at all. A line of strongholds that would be tied to the heights, that would provide radio horizons for drones, that would provide mini-fields and limit the enemy's maneuver, a defense line where plantings would be uprooted, cut, and burned to ensure high-quality observation for drones and to allow high-quality damage to the enemy. All this has never been built in Donbas, and is not being built now. This is not there. And no one is responsible for it. No one is interested in this. It is interesting to report on Kursk. Unfortunately, for some reason, neither Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, nor Oleksandr Syrskyi have any motivation to defend Ukrainian Donbas. And this shocks the army the most.
Zelenskyy stopped visiting Donbas altogether. So once a month he had a plan. He would come to some command and observation posts, sometimes, as a rule, brigades, and sometimes battalions, even several times. He would do a photo shoot with Yermak by his side, hand out a few orders, and quickly return to Kyiv. This was called the president's interest in the situation at the front. And now even that is not the case. He doesn't even do that. He is just completely indifferent. He sits there, produces evening videos, someone writes him texts, and he reads them with a sad face. He doesn't even try to realize what's going on. That is, there is no management, the army has been abandoned there, the brigades have been abandoned. And, unfortunately, the way the brigade is organized now, the way the brigade is organized, that's how the fronts are held there. And after the 58th Brigade was withdrawn from some areas, I was shocked. Why? Why did Oleksandr Syrskyi withdraw the 58th Brigade from one of the frontline areas? Why was this done? How to explain these actions? Is it to improve the situation at the front? Or was it to make the front collapse there? I just don't understand. Maybe someone knows.
Syrskyi is not capable of organizing a drone war. This is absolutely true. And it doesn't exist. There are no conditions for the use of drones, no coordination between EW, between UAV forces, no tactics for the use of drones. All of this is missing. After several meetings with several commanders of drone units, several issues were indeed resolved by Syrskyi for these several units. Some were given people, some were given additional drones. And that's it. No systemic things are happening. Defense is not built on technical means. In many areas of the front, the main source of information, especially in these critical areas, the main source of information is the radio station and the report from the observation post, where the infantry is sitting. The enemy is approaching us. That is, the organization of a drone surveillance line, the systematic use of attack drones - the army does not organize this. Our only advantage is that we have a larger number of motivated people who are looking for these drones, using them and changing the situation at the front within their units. There is no systematic approach. Our EW has shot down a large number of our drones and continues to do so. There has been no systematic approach, and there is no systematic approach. No one pays attention to this. It is absolutely uninteresting. There have been no engineering defenses, no defense line. No one pays attention. The use of troops, the organization of troops - no conclusions are drawn at all.
So the main thing that I would like to say is that Syrskyi cannot do, not only this, what has been done here, that we are always behind in time, there is always chaos, at the level of the highest command. The catastrophe is not at the front. The catastrophe is in the minds in Kyiv. At the level of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Defense Forces Command. This is the main catastrophe. There is chaos, there is disorder. And these people do not want to do basic things. This just shocks me. There are formations, brigade commanders who have combat capability, who are performing tasks, who are holding the front, who are destroying the enemy in large numbers. In my opinion, such people should be given more powers, more troops, more subordination, more equipment, and a larger area of responsibility. And just as they did in their area, they will do in the neighboring areas. No. They are creating new and new brigades, new and new battalions. They are scattering more equipment here and there. You have to learn. But they don't give it to the cadre, they don't give it to the professional brigades. Those who have shown what they can do. This does not strengthen them. And then let's go learn from the war. That is, instead of scaling up successful models of troop management, Syrsky is scaling up disorder and chaos. He scales up absolute incoherence and inefficiency. This is his work at the front now, unfortunately.
Next. And these are the reasons for the loss of our cities in Donbas. And the fact that the enemy is now approaching the Dnipropetrovsk region. Of course, in fairness, I must say that yes, of course, Syrskyi is completely irresponsible only because who is demanding this of him? It is Zelenskyy himself who demands such false reports. It's not like Syrskyi himself is sitting there and making stuff up. No, he's constantly being pushed around. Defense Minister Umierov is a zero. This is a person who has no influence on the war at all. He is an administrator. An administrator who has to sign papers. He does not formulate any policy. He just enjoys talking to NATO defense ministers. Sometimes he goes there for summits. He has a lot of fun. He is in Kyiv. He is far away from the war. It doesn't affect him at all, what is happening at the front. The conditions are very comfortable. He is sitting in his office right now. Fame, recognition. Obviously, he doesn't need anything else in his life. And what is happening at the war is not his problem. It doesn't bother him.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, we know. He is all absorbed in acting, in the drama he writes for himself. His evening speech is important to him. And to give an interview to some foreign media. This really bothers him. That's why he is interested in talking about the Kursk region. About something completely unrelated to the realities of the war. He does not want to spend time on real changes. To ask why certain events are happening there during the war. To face the truth. Ask commanders. Zelenskyy can gather representatives of civil society. Ask them how to win the war. We understand that this is done for PR. But to gather the brigade commanders once and ask them how we can win the war, so that everyone can tell. No, Zelenskyy will never do this. It is convenient for him. There is one manager. He has 5-6 managers. One of these 5-6 is Syrskyi. He is comfortable. He said, "Let's go to Kursk, we're fighting in Kursk. What's going on in Donbas? It doesn't matter. And, of course, this lie comes from the top. But, in my opinion, a general who is responsible for the army, who has served in the army all his life, must have the courage, his own dignity, honesty, and be responsible, first of all, to his subordinates, to the soldiers he sends into battle. And so he has to be responsible for them. When Valerii Zaluzhnyi was replaced, I believe that this is the authority of the president, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, he has the right to do so, this is his vision. And there were also a lot of fair criticisms of Zaluzhnyi's activities. And there was a lot of chaos and irresponsibility in the army, and there were also big problems, unsuccessful operations, and defeats. But if we compare what was there under Zaluzhnyi and what has disappeared in the army under Syrskyi, I would say the main thing is trust. Now the army at all levels does not trust the High Command specifically. Because Oleksandr Syrskyi can dismiss anyone, absolutely without any logic, at any time, and he shuffles around constantly. And, of course, this continuous shuffling, this chaos, this demand for false reports, this simply shameful thing that has become the system now is the main thing that has destroyed trust.
And some people think that Russia has a total advantage on the frontline, that nothing can be changed there. I want to tell you, I talk to many commanders of many brigades and battalions every day. I do not hear doom in any of them. They all believe that the enemy can be stopped and defeated. But he can be stopped and defeated if the enemy's organization planning is countered by our high-quality organization planning. And now this is not the case at all. Now the enemy has an advantage at the level of the highest command. As an organizational advantage, because the enemy is fighting in brigades, divisions, armies, and corps. In other words, the enemy is fighting with a stable composition of forces in certain areas. We don't have anything like that around here. The enemy is fighting purposefully. Stupidly, but purposefully. And we cannot use this stupidity, because our organization, unfortunately, is at an even lower level, at a higher level. Our soldiers have an advantage in combat, our commanders have an advantage in combat at the tactical level due to improvisation, rapid adaptation, new tactics, and equipment. But the enemy is defeated at the tactical level once, twice, three times, five times, and then rebuilds. And then we can no longer use these advantages. Then the enemy starts using them. And we have no response to this. Because, apart from this tactical level, apart from the initiative of fighters, commanders from below, there is no planning organization from above. It is chaos. Dots on the map, lines and shouting into the phone, why they didn't enter, why they didn't enter, why they didn't occupy. That's where the function of these OTGs and OSGTs ends.
So, can we win the war? Knowing our commanders, I have no doubt about it. I see a significant number of high-quality combat formations at the front. I see that we have a sufficient number of people, if they are used adequately, if they are used after training, with the right tactics, in equipped positions. If we command along the entire front line, there will be commanders who have experience, who hold their own, commanders of successful combat-ready brigades and battalions, we have enough of them for the entire front. The enemy will be stopped and defeated. There will be no miracle, we will not have to hope, we will not have to think about what is next. There will be people responsible for each area. Now there is no such responsibility, because there is no such responsibility in Kyiv. And, unfortunately, now Oleksandr Syrskyi, who was seen as a person who could draw conclusions from what happened under Zaluzhnyi, make changes, has lost the trust of the army. Syrskyi has lost the trust of the army. And if he doesn't change, if he wants to become just one of the five or six sycophants in the President's Office in Ukrainian history, then all the good things that he did, and Syrskyi made the Kharkiv offensive successful in May 2022, then the Balakliia offensive successful in September 2022, then the successful operation in the Kursk region in 2024. So all this will be forgotten. But he will be remembered for his unsuccessful operations, and they will be raised then. His unsuccessful offensive operation in Bakhmut in 2023. And they will especially remember this mess, chaos, and irresponsibility in 2024. I could not even imagine such a pace of destruction of the frontline due to unsuccessful incompetent management decisions from above. Having such command personnel, having personnel that are absolutely not worse than the enemy's, and in my opinion, more motivated even now, in the year 2024, more motivated, more combat-ready. Nevertheless, we continue to withdraw. And these defeats at Hirnyk- Selydove are, unfortunately, not the last defeats of this year. And all these defeats are due to irresponsibility from above, due to lies. Because of lies from above. And one will have to answer for this someday. But it will not be forgotten and it will not be silenced. And trying to sit there somewhere in the headquarters, report, shine on Facebook and be clean, pretend that some soldiers from some battalions are losing cities - this will not happen. Because war requires organization.
So, I thank you for being on the air. It's a difficult, difficult broadcast. And it is very unpleasant to talk about our defeats. It is very difficult. But now the situation at the front is critical precisely because there are much more lies than desire to understand, than objective information. And the attempts to cover up real organizational failures with just general talk about some enemy hordes advancing - there is no such enemy advantage, and I emphasize once again, it is not total. It can be stopped, and many Ukrainian commanders are stopping the enemy. So, if we stop lying, then instead of this war in the reports that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is conducting, we will finally start a real war, a war to destroy the Russians. If we fight in every section of the frontline the way our successful combat formations, brigades and battalions fight, it is absolutely possible to stop the enemy, and it is absolutely possible to defeat the enemy, and it is absolutely possible to protect Ukraine, and it is absolutely possible to win the war. That is why the first part of the Ukrainian "Victory Plan" should start with the first point: stop the lies. And first and foremost, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Oleksandr Syrskyi must stop the lies. I hope that if they hear a harsher tone of criticism, it will encourage them to think about something, at least about their place in history and their responsibility to future generations of people.
Thank you for the broadcast. Glory to Ukraine!
