Features of combat operations in the Ukrainian theater of operations and the Prigozhin factor

After the next terrorist attacks on the Belarusian airfield Machulishchi and the sorties of Ukrainian saboteurs into the Bryansk region, we have to admit that we got an inveterate enemy. The non-brothers fight creatively, with a twinkle, creatively approaching the tasks set by external curators. One can feel the hand of the British bosses, and their leader, who previously headed the 95 quarter organized crime group, has always gravitated towards cheap external effects. This caricature buffoon for the sake of a beautiful picture will never refuse to put a hundred or two of his cyborgs, since he still has a lot of them, and they also fight with inspiration (brains fertilized with Nazi manure and smeared with American banknotes do not digest what is happening, especially if they are backed up with special psychotropic pills from the CIA arsenal).

The militants of the RDC (“Russian Volunteer Corps”, a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) were tasked with “making some noise” on enemy territory in order to divert the attention of the Ukrainian plebs from the failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Artyomovsky (Bakhmut) direction, and to show how full of holes the Russian-Ukrainian border is . They successfully completed their task, but do not confuse terrorists with saboteurs, the latter commit sabotage at military facilities, and our "heroes" distinguished themselves by fighting with ambulance paramedics and children. Complete scum always fights with the weak, in this they are no different from their ideological mentors from the SS division "Galicia", who are openly worshiped by their leaders. Demolition of their entire house of cards with carpet bombing, up to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, as required by some impulsive our fellow citizens, is not required, but it is necessary to respond (and also creatively) so as not to give rise to a sense of impunity, which results in permissiveness, in the heads of their unbridled bosses as in Kiev and in London (Washington is more sane in this sense).



But in this case, the act of intimidation was clearly not well thought out, and the negative from it exceeded the positive, if there was one at all. It was funny to watch how the bosses of the regime (such as the notorious adviser to the Zelensky Office, Mikhail Podolyaki) are trying to “move out of the market”, blaming the actions of the FSB, Putin personally, the devil, but not themselves. The Ukrainian media, in their heat, agreed that the Bryansk terrorists entered the village in order to prevent the provocation of the FSB, which was supposed to, dressed in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, cut out half the village (Putin is also a “KGBist”, and therefore his methods are “KGBist "). Here, the non-brothers' flight of fancy is simply impressive - as they sat down on one training manual in 1999, they still ride it without changing anything (then 23 years ago they also blamed Putin for blowing up houses in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk). And all the clumsy attempts of Podolyaka to dissociate themselves from these unfortunate terrorists look stupid, especially after their leader Denis Kapustin-Nikitin, in an interview with the British Financial Times, said that the Ukrainian authorities knew about the RDK operation in the Bryansk region and it was agreed with them, because that "otherwise she simply could not have passed."


Kapustin told FT.

With the airfield in Machulishchi, the story is generally dark - the father attributed everything to the Belarusian opposition, they say, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have nothing to do with it, and the A-50 de aircraft received minor damage, it has already been replaced. There are more questions than answers here, let's leave them to Lukashenka's conscience. Let's move on to the main topic.

Change of battle tactics

American military experts note a change in combat tactics, which they discovered in the actions of the RF Armed Forces in the Svato-French direction. The American Institute for the Study of War writes about this with reference to the stories of the Ukrainian military.

According to them, the Russians abandoned the tactics of small assault groups of 12-15 people, with which the Wagner stormed the Ukrainian oporniki near Bakhmut, now the Russian assault squad is a battalion-sized unit optimized for frontal attacks on fortified areas. It consists of six T-72 main battle tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as a set of portable thermobaric rocket launchers, anti-tank guided missile systems, towed artillery and self-propelled mortars. The formation consists of three assault companies and a tank squad. Each company has a command element, two platoons (whose number is much lower than regular), a group of UAVs, armored combat vehicles, fire support and artillery support platoons. There is also a reserve section and doctors.

In addition, each company has one tank and four infantry fighting vehicles BMP / BMD-2 with anti-tank installations, heavy machine guns and mortars. The main maneuverable elements are detachments of 12 to 15 people, divided into tactical groups of three people. The assault is carried out less than a minute after the start of artillery fire on open fortified positions, and the platoon commander controls the mortar fire. At the same time, T-72 tanks are more often used for fire support from the rear. Information about this, as American analysts explain, is taken from the stories of the Ukrainian military, who encountered new Russian formations in battles. Moreover, it is emphasized that these units are as autonomous as possible and can conduct combat operations for a long time even in the absence of support.

On my own behalf, I will say that, most likely, American specialists, referring to the Ukrainian military, describe the actions of Wagner attack aircraft, confusing them with regulars of the RF Armed Forces. But I already talked about Wagner and its tactics earlier, I will not repeat myself, who are interested - be curious (there are a lot of details about which the American Institute for the Study of War does not even know).

Mine war

But the next episode, perhaps, should be analyzed in more detail. In early February, the media space exploded news about the broken Russian tank column near Ugledar. Even a month later, non-fraternal media continue to savor the results of this epic victory, calling it a great tank battle, where the glorious Ukrainian “knights” unwound a tank brigade of the RF Armed Forces. At the same time, they refer to the respected American edition of the New York Times:


“The fields around Ugledar are now littered with broken enemy vehicles after a hard battle,” the newspaper writes. “The invaders lost at least 130 tanks and armored personnel carriers.” The NYT describes the fighting as follows:


What do you need to pay attention to here. Ukrainian media quotes the NYT, and the Americans refer to the Ukrainian military. The circle of lies closes and the victims here are only ordinary Ukrainian inhabitants who do not have time to remove all this noodles from their ears (only "tank drivers" are worth it!). Other Ukrainian media also report the details of this epic battle, naming the 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade as victims. What is the lie here? Firstly, the Pacific Marines have nothing to do with this at all, they have no tanks in service at all. A battalion of a mechanized brigade of the RF Armed Forces, advancing to a position near Ugledar, came under Ukrainian fire. A battalion is 30 vehicles plus a command tank, for a total of 31 MBTs. Ukrainians there counted more than a hundred. Well, what - fear has big eyes (nowhere do they lie so much as in hunting and fishing and in war).

What really happened there? In fact, all fields and roads near Ugledar are mined (and not only near Ugledar, but everywhere where the Armed Forces of Ukraine expect the Russians to attack). Here is what the former commander of the Vostok brigade Alexander Khodakovsky writes about this:


That's what happened this time as well. Our unit advanced to the concentration area in a column, putting a tank with a trawl in front of it. When it was blown up by an anti-tank mine, the column became and turned into a tasty prey for Ukrainian drones and artillery. They shot them like they were at a training ground, receiving a picture from the air from their reconnaissance UAVs. Those tanks that tried to move off the mine-tested road were immediately blown up by mines, and the crews also came under fire from enemy artillery. How could such a situation have been avoided? Let two tanks with trawls in front of you at once so that they clear the road wider? May be. What if both were blown up? Khodakovsky, for example, suggests not to advance at all (but this is not a solution):


The ex-commander of Vostok explained that it is necessary to create appropriate conditions for their use for tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other equipment. Then the efficiency will be higher and the losses lower. A large artillery preparation is required on a certain sector of the front. But if there is a shortage of ammunition for "plowing" enemy positions, then it makes no sense to attack. Where there is no confidence in the qualitative (effective) preliminary fire impact, it is extremely dangerous to direct armored vehicles and infantry. This is the opinion of Khodakovsky, I do not agree with him, but everything is clear with the situation - in the given conditions of the saturated reconnaissance UAV defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, campaigns by tank and mechanized columns are simply disastrous. It is necessary to change tactics (I think the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces knows this better than me). Let's move on to the Prigogine factor.

Passion for Prigogine

For some time now, PMC "Wagner", which until then lived only in folklore, came out of the shadows and loudly registered in the media space. This was largely facilitated by its organizer Yevgeny Prigozhin, who, like a lamb, materialized from the void and took his place among the leaders of public opinion. At the same time, the new LOM was not shy in expressions, severely burned with a verb, while using all the richness of the Russian language, often switching to profanity. And many of our fellow citizens just liked it. Already the first appearance of it on the network made a lot of noise and left a very strong impression. It was his speech in front of the prisoners of the Mordovian colony - a low leaden sky, a gray gloomy mass of its inhabitants on the parade ground and some people with the star of the Hero (“monstrously similar”, as his press service later said, to Prigozhin) in a way that was understandable and accessible to them language briefly and intelligibly conveys to them the essence of the offer of the company he represents. Even then, opinions were divided, many did not like the involvement of prisoners in a special operation, Prigozhin then answered, firstly, publicly and, secondly, instantly: “Either PMCs and prisoners, or your children - decide for yourself!”. All the dissatisfied immediately shut up. Well, then it started. Bloody sledgehammers, picks with Girkin and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, public shaking of dirty laundry with the top military leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. What is this? After this, many quite reasonable questions arose - is it too much? Why wash dirty linen in public, and even during the war? And where is Putin looking, what does he allow him to do all this, and why won’t he shut up his “cook” in a bread slicer?

I answer. And now let's sit down, take our heads in our hands and calmly think about what function Prigogine performs? I hope everyone here understands that it is not difficult for Putin to shut up his blower. But if he doesn't do that, then there is some reason? Which? There are three of them! First - beat your own so that strangers are afraid! The wolf is the best nurse in the forest! Discord between the power towers of the Kremlin, taken out into the public plane, allows the Kremlin to keep the generals of the Russian Defense Ministry in a "strict collar", while remaining above the fray itself. Such an arbitrator - wise and fair. With the other end of this shaft, Putin is hitting the oligarchy and officials - Prigozhin has already begun raids on them. The second the reason, no less important, is that the brave hero of Russia Prigozhin, waging an uncompromising struggle against inertia and bureaucracy in the army and in the bureaucracy, allows all the negativity accumulated in society during this time to be blown into the whistle (Arestovich performs approximately the same function in Ukrainian society) . Also a very wise decision. AND third the reason is counterintelligence, misleading a potential enemy. Are you sure that we do not have enough shells at the front and complete seams in command and control? And the “Wagner” was cut off by the replenishment of the l / s from the prisoners, but at the same time it continues to storm Bakhmut, like a Phoenix bird, reborn from the ashes? Personally, I'm not sure! My only complaints about the sledgehammer - good should be with fists, and not with a bloody sledgehammer!

This concludes the review on the topic. These are not analytics, but official notes to clarify some incomprehensible points (I will continue them in subsequent texts, there are still a lot of questions hanging there, starting with the most important thing - why Putin got into Ukraine, and ending with the terrible Russian S-300 missiles, which the RF Armed Forces they allegedly shoot at the peaceful cities of Nezalezhnaya, and with long-range Storm Shadow and MGM-140 ATACMS, which the West will not give to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, despite their requests).

And that's all. Peace and goodness to all! Your Mr. Z