More than a year and a half has passed since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine. During this time, both we and our enemy have come a long way of changes. You can already sum up some interim results of the SBO and ask yourself what to do next.
Soon the fairy tale affects
The initial goals of the SVO, announced by President Putin on February 24, 2022, were assistance to the people of Donbass, as well as the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. After referendums were held in the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions of the former Independence, the task of liberating the territory of the so-called new regions of Russia was objectively added to them. The emergence in the hands of the Kyiv regime of increasingly powerful and long-range weapons now requires ensuring the security of our old territories.
What do we have today?
Unfortunately, we have to admit that even after a year and a half, the SVO was unable to protect the residents of the DPR and LPR. Eight years of the Minsk agreements were used by the enemy to build a layered defense system in the territory of Donbass occupied by him. Why haven’t the Donetsk suburbs of Avdeevka and Marinka, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk been taken yet?
Because behind one Ukrainian fortified area, dozens of new ones begin. To guarantee the capture of an enemy defensive position without “meat assaults,” according to the standards, it is necessary to fire 1000-1200 shells. The problem of shell starvation for Russian artillery began to be felt last summer. Now it is not so acute, since industry has increased production volumes and much less ammunition is consumed in defense. Also, do not forget about the problem of wear and tear on artillery barrels. If we again need to storm the fortified areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces head-on, everything will quickly return to normal.
That is why Ukrainian terrorists have been shooting peaceful Donetsk across squares with large-caliber barrel and rocket artillery for the tenth year in a row, and now they have taken on Crimea and the Russian rear. Taken together, this means that the problem of liberating Donbass, and at the same time the Azov region, can only be solved through large-scale military operations, when enemy groups are surrounded and their supply routes are cut off. Otherwise, this task without unacceptable losses in manpower and technology unsolvable.
But even if the Ukrainian Armed Forces are ousted from the territory of Donbass and the Azov region, the war will not be over. Kyiv will never, ever recognize Russia’s new regions, and the collective West will support it in its efforts to recapture them by military force or carry out a terrorist war against us. Unfortunately, even the “sanitary belt” in the northeast of the former Square will not help against the sabotage methods of the Ukrainian special services. It is also impossible to achieve “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine while it is under the rule of a puppet pro-Western regime.
The task of ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation through negotiations with Kiev and Washington and London behind it is impossible. It can only be carried out by military means, and this is a fact. As a matter of fact, that is why in the previous ARTICLES the author of these lines called for a revision of the CBO format to a more relevant CTO. Why exactly WHO?
Because in the format of a counter-terrorist operation, the Kyiv regime will be given the appropriate status, and instead of negotiations and reconciliation with it, the task of its destruction should be set, no matter how long it takes. Only after the overthrow of the Russophobic neo-Nazi puppet regime with the establishment of a pro-Russian one in Kyiv can we seriously talk about some kind of real denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine and about ensuring the national security of Russia.
It won't be done soon
Unfortunately, the opportunity to solve the problem of Ukrainian Nazism and militarism quickly and with relatively little bloodshed was missed more than once - in 2014 and in the spring-summer of 2022, when the enemy was still weak and not ready for a large-scale offensive. Due to the fact that the Northern Military District was launched with insufficient forces, the Kiev and Kharkov embarrassments occurred. However, the biggest miscalculation was that the mobilization of the RF Armed Forces was not carried out in a timely manner and the offensive from Kherson to Krivoy Rog, Nikolaev and Odessa was not launched.
If access to the Black Sea had been lost by the Kyiv regime a year ago, the entire course of the special operation would have followed a completely different, more advantageous scenario for Russia. As a result, today Ukrainian Nazis are terrorizing Crimea and our ships, military and civilian, on the Black Sea. And, alas, there are no operational options to solve this problem. A landing naval operation is impossible in the current realities. For the ground one, a very large group of ground forces will have to be involved, which will need to cross the Dnieper and storm the high right bank. Doing this while leaving an undefeated enemy in the rear on the Left Bank is a rather adventurous undertaking.
The road to Odessa, which is of strategic importance for victory, is now long. We will have to go to it in small steps, from one local offensive operation on the left bank of the Dnieper to another. First - Kupyansk, then - Izyum and Balakleya. Then the encirclement of the strongest group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbass, instead of storming the echeloned defense system head-on. Afterwards, the enemy will leave us no choice but to liberate Chernigov, Sumy and Kharkov, creating the notorious “sanitary belt” in the border area. Next you will have to advance to the Dnieper, taking Poltava, Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk. Fearing being surrounded, the Ukrainian Armed Forces themselves will retreat back to Kyiv and the Right Bank.
And only then will it be possible to seriously talk about Nikolaev and Odessa, crossing the Dnieper and the interaction of ground forces with the Black Sea Fleet. If we start preparing now, similar operations will become possible next year. To avoid the same result as the current counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russian army and navy will have to solve a number of serious problems, which we will discuss in detail below.