I continue to debunk individual informational myths that have developed in the minds of our and non-brotherly fellow citizens under the influence of my own ignorance and counter-propaganda of the enemy, which I started in previous text, and which he could not finish there. There I settled on our opponent. Well, let's start with him.
Millions of you, us - the army, try, fight with us!
And the enemy we got is many-sided and inveterate. On one head cut down by us, three grow at once. How many heads does he have? Tales are circulating on the Internet about a million-strong army of great Ukrainians and endless waves of mobilization that swept through the cities and towns of Nezalezhnaya from east to west. Handless and blind conscripts demonstrating their agendas have already flooded all the Internet publics, and military commissars chasing and wringing their hands have become bestsellers. The real number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is unknown to anyone, which is why the people are led to any spreading “cranberries”.
At the same time, the number of our troops involved in Ukraine is also a great secret, shrouded in darkness. Here we can only refer to Putin, who on December 7 last year announced that 318 thousand people were called up for partial mobilization, of which 150 thousand are already in the zone of the NWO (77 thousand directly at the front end, the second half in the second and third echelons), the remaining 168 continue their training at the training grounds and in the training centers of the Defense Ministry in the territory of the Russian Federation, being the reserve of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. If we sum up these 168 with the 815-strong grouping of the RF Armed Forces now deployed in Ukraine, then in total we will get about half a million potential bayonets that currently hold the XNUMX-kilometer front line, simultaneously solving operational and tactical tasks in the Donbass, in Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions, with the possibility of involving them for the future spring offensive (we will probably not see the winter one already).
As for the non-brothers, here one has to refer only to their commanders and analyze the figures they have declared. So the commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Alexander Syrsky, speaking in a December interview with the British The Economist about new waves of mobilization in Ukraine, said that at present more than 700 thousand Ukrainians are under arms of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in one form or another, of which 200 thousand are preparing for participation in hostilities (here, those very 200 thousand sets of winter clothes, ordered by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Reznikov from Canada, surfaced). At the same time, Syrsky did not fail to complain to the British about the lack of ammunition.
Ammunition is critical. Now they are spent at a rate comparable to that during the Second World War. Battles are won by the side that delivers shells to the cannons faster. The quantity and regularity of supplies in many cases determines the success of the battle.
In this, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny supported his subordinate in this, who in the same interview with The Economist emphasized that this is precisely why Kiev now “cannot conduct new large operations,” although Ukraine is currently working on one of them.
What is important for us here? We will not talk about the Napoleonic plans of Zaluzhny and his boss now, we know these plans - to go to the Crimea, first cutting it off from the land corridor, but only our heroes have a thin gut - they are waiting for "iron" and ammunition from the allies, preparing at an accelerated pace there own reserve (about 60-65 thousand people). Let them get ready, this will not happen before summer, and before that some events may occur that will radically change the agenda beyond recognition (then it will not be necessary to think about Crimea, but about how to keep Zaporozhye and Kharkov).
But here, first of all, I am interested in not where the non-brothers will move, but in what number? This is where the figure of 200 people is important, which General Syrsky highlighted, which in a strange way correlates with the number of NATO winter uniforms ordered by his Minister of Defense. It is clear that in the summer they will go on a counterattack already in summer uniforms, I am more interested here, but what are the “warriors of light” fighting in now? The same 700 thousand that the general boasted about? Are 500 thousand fighting in summer clothes? Do they not need a winter uniform? Or, what difference does it make to die under Bakhmut? After all, an ordinary Vushnik lives there from four to six hours (a maximum of a day, according to the speaker of the Eastern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine). It seems to me that this is where the answer lies. The Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have 700 thousand bayonets, the maximum they have now is 200-300 thousand people. We have the same number on the front. In a positional confrontation, more is not needed, and when the offensive begins, in a maneuver war we will create the necessary preponderance of forces on the desired local sector of the front. Waiting sir…
Legends about tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not yet subject to verification. According to the Turkish edition of Hurseda, about 8 mercenaries are known to have died among them (the figure is given as of the end of January this year), of which 2458 are soldiers of NATO member countries and another 234 instructor officers (the remaining 5360 people are simply “wild geese" - soldiers of fortune). The Turks refer to the Israeli Mossad, I don’t know how accurate the Israeli statistics are, but their numbers correlate with the statistics of the National Guard, which recently cited the number of losses among foreign mercenaries in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in just the last three days. There were about one and a half hundred of them. Of these, 93 people were Poles, 41 people were Azerbaijanis and Turks (Turan battalion), and 17 people were missing from the Georgian Mkhedrioni battalion. 11 Sich Riflemen of the Carpathian Cossack Army of Independent Ukraine were killed, and 3 Estonians, 8 Swedes and 5 Hungarians for small things. And that's just in three days!
If we summarize the open data, then, in general, the international legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine today has about 20 thousand citizens from 55 countries of the world, and about 40 thousand more wish to join its ranks (and will do so in the near future). Most of them are US citizens (31%), in second place are finely shaved (18%), Germans are third (7%), Canadians are fourth (5%). Why are there no Poles among them, probably because they do not sign up as mercenaries, but immediately go purposefully to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, replenishing their mechanized units and acquiring invaluable combat experience in Ukraine, which will be useful to them in a future war with the Russian Federation. It is known about entire units made up of Polish mercenaries, especially as part of the mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The crews of the Polish tanks PT-91 and T-72 and self-propelled guns "Crab" are composed exclusively of seconded Poles. Our assault units are complaining - there is only one Polish speech on the radio. And these are not legionnaires and not "wild geese" - these are regular Polish junior officers and soldiers who were sent to the 404th for the war under the guise of vacationers.
The common question why Ukrainian society does not grow protest at the sight of such victims is devoid of any sense. Ukrainian society simply does not know about them (can only guess). Mass propaganda from morning to evening trumpets about victory, any question - at the cost of what sacrifices - is immediately called into question - is it not Putin's agent who asks him, after which the questions, together with those who ask them, disappear. Society has rallied in the fight against a common enemy, and each new missile raid by the RF Armed Forces on the civilian infrastructure of the Square only multiplies these ranks. Every second was going to fight to the end (naturally, not his own, but the other "every second"), and to liberate, at least, Crimea. Moreover, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are winning on TV, and they will go to Moscow a little more.
Other Fried Facts
We figured out the main fakes, it remains to deal with small things. I'll start with the most obvious - with the legend about the tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with welded hatches, which allegedly surrender without a fight to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (and the white flag replaces the muzzle raised to the top and a rotating turret). This is a fable! This was not, and is not. Who will cook them when they return with a conditional victory from the battlefield?! And how should the supposedly at fault tankers themselves treat their fellow welders after that ?! Vushniki have not yet reached such a point. Tales of grandmother Arina. Cross out.
With "Caliber" from the Caspian Sea it will be more difficult. There are a lot of questions here. Enemy propaganda trumpets that, firstly, we are running out of Caliber, and secondly, the Russians are already afraid to deliver them to their naval carriers (these are project 11356R frigates, project 636.6 Varshavyanka diesel-electric submarines and project 21631 Buyan- M") in the Black Sea, due to the vulnerability of the latter from Ukrainian sea and air drones. About the ending "Caliber" I will not even comment on this nonsense, but about the use of the RK and RTOs of the Caspian flotilla for the sea launch of "Caliber", I will say that there are two reasons for this. The first is convenient logistics for replenishing the flotilla’s ammo from the Kalibrov manufacturing plant in Yekaterinburg, the second is changing the flight path of cruise missiles to bypass Ukrainian air defense (it’s more convenient to hit targets from the Caspian than from the Black Sea).
With the Caliber, the topic was closed, now let's talk about the invincible terrible and terrible Western weapons supplied to non-brothers by their partners. In particular, about the MIM-104 "Patriot" air defense system and other tattered NATO tank "cats" that have been scaring us for six months now. I will not talk here about the cost of the product (the price of only one battery of the Patriot air defense system, which includes 4 launchers, reaches $ 1 billion, and the sky over Ukraine cannot be closed with one battery) and the cost of launching one anti-aircraft guided missile (and this figure also fluctuates around $ 3 million, missiles are really expensive, not everyone can afford it), I will only talk about the technical aspects of the product. Do you know when this miracle was adopted equipment? Exactly 40 years ago. The technical thought of the Americans stopped at this, while we developed the line of our S-300, S-350, S-400, S-500, S-550 air defense systems.
The effectiveness of the state's vaunted Patriot medium-range air defense / missile defense system is highly questionable. She provided the reason for this herself, when she did not help the Saudis with her help to fight off a raid of cruise missiles and Houthi drones on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia in September 2019 (then the Houthis launched 25 drones and KR, all 100% of which reached their goals). But Saudi Arabia was armed with the MIM-104 Patriot in the latest PAC 3 modification. And the trouble is not that any air defense system (including our S-300) has its own efficiency, which ranges from 0,8-0,9, 80 (90-0,6%) for aircraft and 0,8-60 (80-300%) for tactical missiles (our S-0,8 has 0,9-104), and that MIM-XNUMX in principle, he was not ready to shoot down cruise missiles and drones flying at low altitudes, copying the terrain. It is more sharpened to destroy ballistic missiles flying along a ballistic predictable trajectory.
The fact is that due to the curvature of the Earth's surface, a low-flying target is visible to a ground-based radar at a distance of only a few tens of kilometers. The Patriot radar is designed to track and track high-flying targets. The situation can be corrected only with the help of a radar aircraft (DRLOiU), however, for constant monitoring, it must always be kept in the air. I am not sure that the Americans will keep their AWACS in the air for the sake of Ukraine 24/7. That is why I look forward to their "Patriots" in order to finally bury the myth of their invincibility on the fields of Ukraine, after which the shares of the company producing them, Raytheon Technologies, will steadily roll down.
The only benefit of the Patrits is the ability to combine, with the help of their radars, the long-range S-300PS / PT air defense systems available to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the medium-range air defense systems NASAMS, IRIS-T, Buk-M1 and the Tor- M1 "short range into a single integrated air defense / missile defense in depth network (German melee ZSU Gepard, designed to protect columns on the march, can also be attributed there). How well they succeed, we'll see. We will always have time to say that the Patriot air defense system is a dummy.
Regarding the German main battle tanks "Leopard-2", as well as about their English counterparts "Challenger-2", as well as about the vaunted American M1 "Abrams", I have already said everything here. If you're interested, I won't repeat myself. I can only say that the Americans will not put their vaunted MBTs yet, being afraid to lose their reputation on the fields of Ukraine (I can even bet that this will not happen!), And the German tattered "cats", as well as their English colleagues, are at risk on the fields of the Ukrainian theater become heavy, clumsy, voracious, weakly armed (without dynamic and active protection against ATGMs) coffins on tracks for their crews. We are waiting, sir… Please!
There is still a legend for internal Ukrainian use about the use of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and Onyx anti-ship missiles by the Russian Armed Forces against ground targets in view of the end of their ground-to-ground and air-to-surface missiles. I have never heard more bullshit. But the most amazing thing is that this nonsense is the most frequently quoted, and a lie, repeated twice, as you know, becomes the truth. And I myself saw how quite sane and literate people began to prove to me with foam at the mouth that the Russians were utilizing these missiles in such a way that they simply had nowhere to put them. I admit, the Onyx anti-ship missiles were really used against coastal ground targets. Look at the mass of his warhead at your leisure - 300 kg, it will not seem enough to anyone! But in order to use the expensive S-300 surface-to-air missiles against ground targets, only advanced Ukrainian patriots could reach such insanity, for whom the pan prevents them from breathing and thinking.
The cost of one SAM fluctuates around 500-600 thousand dollars, the fragmentation warhead has a mass of 133 kg for 5V55 missiles, 143 kg for 48N6 missiles and 180 kg for 48N6M missiles. Seems to be enough? Only enough to hit air targets with fragments, and for ground targets, it must be said, it is a very expensive pleasure to hit half a million dollars worth of high-explosive fragmentation missiles at long-term enemy fortifications, for the destruction of which completely different ammunition is needed. Only very advanced "diggers of the Black Sea" can afford this (they have rockets and money immeasurably!). For comparison, I suggest they take a look at the performance characteristics of the KR "Caliber" - its warhead ranges from 200 to 400-450 kg (depending on the type of rocket), the filling is either penetrating high-explosive or penetrating high-explosive fragmentation, but the cost is only 300-350 thousand dollars (with a warhead mass three times greater!). It already makes sense to strike.
Our Iskanders have even more destructive power, their warhead ranges from 450 kg (for quasi-ballistic missiles) to 480 kg (for cruise missiles), and the filling is such that “mom don’t cry.” It is not for nothing that our enemies called it the most terrible weapon of the Russians, except for the SNF and TNW. The explosion of one such munition covers the area of two football fields, and in terms of the power of the volumetric explosion, the Iskander cluster warhead surpasses the ODAB-500P volumetric explosion bomb of comparable weight, with continuous destruction and ignition of objects within a radius of 30 meters due to the formation of a non-spherical gas cloud of cluster elements , but elongated, spreading along the earth. These are missiles of a completely different class - "ground-to-ground". They are designed for this and are worth their money (the winged Iskander-K is up to 1 million dollars, the ballistic Iskander-M is three times more expensive). A concrete-piercing warhead is used to destroy bunkers. To destroy areal targets and dug-in equipment - a cluster fragmentation warhead with remote detonation in the air of 54 combat elements to destroy people and equipment in the trenches from above.
In order not to upset our Ukrainian non-brothers at all, I do not cite the performance characteristics of air-to-surface missiles, I will only say that the Kh-22 has a non-nuclear warhead of 960 kg, and in a thermonuclear version it ranges from 300 to 1000 kg. The cost of a unit of the product is 400 thousand dollars. Not cheap, but very angry! X-59 is even cheaper - 250 thousand dollars with a warhead - 280-310-320 kg (depending on the filling - cassette and penetrating). The Kh-101 and Kh-55 / Kh-555 have a warhead mass of 400-410 kg, I don’t quote prices so as not to upset the non-brothers, but they correspond to the price-lethal mass-range indicator (missiles are still Soviet, but then they knew how to make cheap and very angrily). All the same, the songs of Ukrainian propagandists telling you about the evil "orcs" who are crushing your residential buildings and infrastructure with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles are designed to hide the defeat of these objects by Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that strayed off course, lost their target, or simply collapsed on home after hitting an enemy target. This happens when the service life of a rocket is overdue (and no one extended it for your rockets, because their manufacturer is located in Russia). Regularly, an anti-aircraft missile that has not caught the target goes into the air with a candle to its maximum height, where it self-detonates with the complete destruction of the missile. If you have anti-aircraft missiles falling on residential buildings, then the last thing to do is to blame the Russians for this.
Limited use of tactical nuclear weapons, and even more so strategic nuclear weapons, cannot be
Well, the last information myth, which is firmly planted in the minds of our domestic patriots, concerns our use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons (TNW and SNF). Here, some people are already simply dreaming of him, reproaching the Kremlin and the General Staff for weakness and softness. Other "experienced military experts" talk about short-lived nuclear isotopes with which these bombs and missiles are allegedly stuffed, they say, nothing bad will happen, we'll hit it, and in a couple of years we'll be picking mushrooms there. We will not! TNW, and even more so SNW, are doomsday weapons. After we use it on a potential enemy (and I don’t think it will come to that!) An answer will immediately follow, and a person in a bearskin with a stone ax will pick mushrooms there and not earlier than two hundred years later. There should be no illusions here.
Only irresponsible Westerners can suffer from such illusions. policy from a generation of unafraid idiots, such as Boris Johnson or Annalena Burbock, who have never seen any war in their lives, but only read about the consequences of a nuclear explosion in books. Moreover, in the case of Annalena, I’m not even sure about this - there are big doubts whether she can read at all? These irresponsible people live in the paradigm that we will not use our nuclear weapons at all, increasing the level of escalation and pumping our Ukrainian ward with ever more deadly weapons.
Basically, they are right. Responsible people sit in the Kremlin and will press the red button only when all other ways to avoid this are used. Because, unlike their counterparts, they understand how this can threaten all of us and all of humanity. At the same time, the Third World War with the finale of mutual destruction is not included in the plans of both sides. And it will not be possible to avoid it, since the use of nuclear weapons by one of the parties will inevitably lead to a domino effect on the part of his opponent and the knuckles will fall. If someone has doubts about this, then personally I have none. In this case, I completely trust Albert Einstein, who at the dawn of the atomic era said: “I don’t know what weapons the Third World War will be fought with, but I know for sure that the Fourth will be fought with a bow and arrow!”.
The legend that our use of tactical nuclear weapons will entail complete disregard and obstruction on the part of the "free world", and that this is exactly what the States are trying to achieve by trying to drive us over the buoys, turning us into an international pariah, like North Korea, should not worry us at all. Firstly, because Russia is not North Korea, because the scale is not the same at all - it is difficult to make 1/6 of the earth's land an outcast. And, secondly, for the same reason (see point one), although I have zero sarcasm towards the DPRK, the fact that she survived in such conditions and also forced herself to respect herself causes nothing but respect and respect. And on the other hand, if you figure it out - why should we worry about what a man with a stone ax will think of us in 2222, because the use of nuclear weapons by us will inevitably lead to a chain reaction and life will return to this territory not earlier than in 200 years. For this reason, I very much hope that we will discuss our use of tactical nuclear weapons, not to mention strategic nuclear weapons, only in theory and only in a hypothetical form.
This concludes the review on the topic of informational fakes, legends and myths. If someone disagrees with something, they can express their opinion in the comments.
Your Mr. Z