““Mistakes can still be corrected.” What problems in the army are the military talking about, what are they criticizing Syrsky for and how the Russian Federation is “pushing” the front – interview November 16, 12:47 Share: Infantrymen of the 28th brigade in a firing position (Photo: 28th OMBr named after the Knights of Winter Pohodu/Facebook) Author: Yuliya Petrova Babel edition managed to communicate with the military and find out what are the biggest problems that concern them, what they think, in particular, about interaction with the General Staff, mobilization.”, — write on: ua.news
Infantrymen of the 28th Brigade at a firing position (Photo: 28th OMBr named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign/Facebook)
The Babel publication managed to communicate with the military and find out what are the biggest problems that concern them, what they think, in particular, about interaction with the General Staff, mobilization. The details were shared in an interview with Radio NV by Oksana Kovalenko, a journalist and Babel correspondent.
— You are one of those journalists who managed to talk to high-ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To begin with, please tell me who exactly you spoke with and what general mood prevails now among the military personnel you interviewed?
— For our text, precisely so that people can say what they think, we agreed that we would make an anonymous conversation. But our task was to talk to the military, starting, roughly speaking, from the trenches to strategic-level officers in order to have a broad picture of what was going on.
— So, the situation at the front remains very, very tense, in particular in Donetsk region, our views are fixed on it. And, probably, the most pressing question: why do the Russians manage to advance there? Have you asked such a question to the military with whom you spoke? If so, what did they answer?
— My key task in the text I wrote was that I wanted to understand: why exactly the Russians manage to advance now and what to do about it. And these are the questions I asked the officers with whom I communicated at all levels. And interestingly, many things are repeated from level to level. That is, it confirms that this is a systemic history and systemic problems that we currently have in the army.
One of the key problems is the change in tactics of the Russians, because they have now become more cunning. Although in reality what senior military officers tell me, let’s say that such tactics were used even during the Second World War. But what is happening now: the Russians are sending very small groups all over the front line, three to 10 people each. These are precisely those who go for “meat”, there is a high probability that they will all die. But when these groups, during these test assaults, can find a hole or a gap, some weak point of ours, then 30-50 people are already sent there. And even then they accumulate there and try to attack our other positions from there. And in this way they press the front.
The problem is that we already know about this strategy, about this tactic, but many of my interlocutors say that we do not draw any conclusions from our mistakes and we do not have any concrete countermeasures or strategies, how exactly to fight it, that to do exactly
— Do we lack people, or do we really lack understanding and strategic thinking about what to do in this situation? What’s going on?
– And there are not enough people. It is a separate story – the mobilization and how it goes and how it is presented publicly for people, how people perceive it. And yet there is another problem — that they do not develop a countermeasure, how to act in this particular situation.
That is, in an ideal picture, you need to analyze what is happening, think about how exactly to resist and then report to all the military what they should do in such cases. As far as I understand, from what my interlocutors told me, this is not the case.