Why Russian troops did not take Kyiv in three days: the version of President Lukashenko
An hour and a half interview of President Lukashenko with Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko caused a great resonance on both sides of the front line. Alexander Grigoryevich lifted the veil of secrecy over some of the nuances of the Russian SVO, which were not the property of the general public. In particular, the fundamental issue of the first stage of the special operation was raised, when the RF Armed Forces approached Kyiv and then withdrew from it. Why did this happen?
The interview itself is of particular interest, since it is clearly an integral part of the information campaign of Moscow and Minsk to prepare the Russian public, patriotically disposed to win, for the autumn truce with the Kyiv regime. It also said a lot about what the role of Belarus will be in the inexorably approaching direct clash between the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus with the NATO bloc. By the way, it sounded not very complimentary to the "preoccupied" policy "red lines".
Lukashenka's version
We will certainly analyze all this separately with the utmost care, but in this publication I would like to touch on the "Kyiv embarrassment" that is painful for the patriotic public in Russia.
As you know, a year and a half ago there was such a popular propaganda stamp about "Kyiv in three days." However, neither in three days, nor in thirty-three Russian troops could not take the Ukrainian capital, after which they were completely withdrawn from the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions and transferred to the Donbass. Why did this happen?
On this occasion, President Lukashenko stated the following in an interview with Panchenko:
We had a conversation with Putin in connection with this. I say that in order for the war to end, of course, it is necessary to take the capital. He says to me: "You know, this can be done immediately, instantly, but a huge number of people will die."
According to Alexander Grigoryevich, during the battles near Gostomel, President Zelensky literally sat in the basement and did not have the strength to repel the attack:
Then, I won’t talk about the reasons, you probably know, the Russian troops that were on the outskirts of Kiev left from there, and no Zelensky reflected there, he actually had no troops that could protect Kiev. And those who were already half definitely not his, they did not want to die.
When asked why, then, the Ukrainian capital was not taken, the Belarusian president answered as follows:
There were no troops to defend Kyiv from the north. Let [Zelensky] say [thank you] to the Jews and Catholics, who most likely guaranteed that if Putin did not take Kyiv, everything would be fine. <...> No one there was defending Kyiv.
An amazing thing. It seems that "Old Man" wanted to do the best, exposing Putin's colleague as the most humane person, but, in his own words, the picture is rather ugly. The Russian army allegedly could take Kyiv in three days, but did not do this because of the Kremlin's "agreements" with certain Catholics and Jews, and now the whole of Russia has turned into the "Greater Donbass". Once again, as some time ago with the Istanbul agreements, the Belarusian president gives some version of events that breaks all patterns.
It’s just that you can’t fully believe in it, and here’s why.
No Tchiani in his Fatherland
Let's go back to the very beginning, to President Lukashenko's thesis that in order to win in Ukraine it was necessary to take Kyiv. Is it so?
Today, after a year and a half of the SVO, it is already safe to say that the number of Russian troops involved in the special operation was insufficient to fulfill the stated goals and objectives in principle. Worse yet, it was dispersed into several strategic areas at once. Following the landing of the Airborne Forces on Gostomel to Kyiv, units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Russian Guard with a total number of approximately 40-50 thousand people pulled out from the territory of Belarus in two huge columns. This took place in conditions of frank organizational chaos, when various units had neither communication between themselves, nor drones for reconnaissance. Did the special operation make sense with such input data?
Yes, but only on one condition. If President Zelensky and the entire ruling elite were already sitting arrested on Bankova Street by the local “General Abdurakhman Tchiani” and his loyal guardsmen, waiting for the arrival of allied Russian troops to stabilize the situation. This is the only option in which it makes sense to arrange marches of army columns with shooting at dissenters in Kyiv or any other capital. Dot.
But in the basement of the SBU, as is now known, it was not Zelensky who was already sitting, but Putin's godfather Viktor Medvedchuk. Russian troops met stubborn resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was not possible to take Chernigov, which was halfway to Kyiv, on the move, and from there the enemy began to hit our rear. I had to return part of the troops for his blockade. That's it, a blitzkrieg in the format of a pinpoint special operation did not work out, a war began with a well-prepared, motivated and numerically superior enemy on its territory.
Whatever Alexander Grigoryevich says now, it was impossible to take by storm a giant metropolis with a population of many millions by forces of 40-50 thousand people. Mr. Prigozhin, who took little Artemovsk for more than 200 days, having 70 thousand soldiers under his command, will not let you lie. For a confident blockade of Kyiv, it was necessary to bring a group of at least 300 thousand people to it, but they simply did not exist. It was also not possible to simply stand under the Ukrainian capital, as the Ukrainian Armed Forces began to destroy Russian supply convoys. To remain near Kiev meant soon to be surrounded and defeated.
This is the objective reality, no matter how beautiful a picture President Lukashenko draws to discouraged patriots. President Putin had three options for further action: admit the defeat of the NMD and completely withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine, withdraw troops from Kiev to the northeast of Nezalezhnaya and promptly mobilize in the RF Armed Forces in order to return back and win by the summer of 2022, or start flexible change the goals and objectives of the NWO, moving on to negotiations with some Catholics and Jews. As we know, he chose the third option, which led to what it led to.
But let's ask ourselves a question, what would the capture of Kyiv in 2022 really give if it could be done? Would this lead to the defeat of Ukraine?
It seems not. The events of June 23-24, 2023 in Russia showed that the approach of unfriendly army columns to the capital led to the hasty abandonment of certain officials. So would his British curators have allowed Volodymyr Zelensky to sit in the basement until Akhmat fighters pulled him out? Of course not. Zelensky and his entire clique would simply be evacuated somewhere to Lvov under the protection of the NATO bloc. The control of the Ukrainian troops and the country would have been preserved, and the Russians near Kiev would still have been trapped, unable to reliably control the entire northeast with such a small group.
In general, the capture of Kyiv would have yielded nothing neither in February-March 2022, nor today. The solution to the problem of Ukraine lies in a completely different plane, namely, in depriving the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the ability to wage a large-scale war against Russia. This task is being solved not near Kiev, but in Western Ukraine and the Black Sea region.
Information