Eduard Basurin said that the supply of weapons to NATO will prolong the conflict in Ukraine
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that the Russian military, using precision air and sea-based weapons, destroyed six traction power substations on the railways through which foreign military equipment and ammunition were supplied to the AFU group in Donbass. "Newspaper.Ru" figured out how weapons from NATO countries get to Ukraine.
"With high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons, six traction power substations were destroyed in the areas of the Podobortsy, Lviv, Volovets, Timkovo and Pyatikhatka railway stations, through which the Ukrainian group of troops in the Donbas delivered weapons and ammunition manufactured by the United States and European countries," said the official representative of the military department, Major General Igor Konashenkov.
Earlier, the Ministry of Defense announced the destruction of a railway substation in Lviv, where there was an echelon with American 155-mm shells.
"The Lviv direction is one of the main ones in the transport logistics of Western weapons supplied to Ukraine. Previously, the Carpathian Military District of the USSR Armed Forces was located here with numerous landfills (the most famous is Yavorovsky), army depots and arsenals. Now the Lviv region is considered to be "rear" during the Russian special operation and seems to be an ideal place for receiving foreign weapons and then sending them to the combat zone," he told the newspaper.Ru" member of the Board of Military Experts Sergey Belousov.
The expert drew attention to the fact that although formally the sky of Ukraine remains open now, however, neither passenger nor transport planes appear in it after February 24. And if before that NATO delivered weapons by air directly to Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, then with the beginning of a special military operation, only ground transport, including rail, is used for these purposes.
In the Polish city of Rzeszow, the distance from which to Lviv is 146 km, a large logistics base for the storage of weapons was created. Weapons and ammunition are delivered there by air. Military transport planes of the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy are involved. Then the equipment is delivered via the Rzeszow - Lviv railway line.
Another transport corridor that leads to Lviv is from Slovakia, through the Transcarpathian region and the Uzhok Pass in the Carpathians. Bratislava has already supplied Kiev with a number of weapons, including the S-300 anti-aircraft missile division, and also signed a contract for the repair and modernization of damaged Ukrainian armored vehicles. The route runs from the Slovak city of Kosice to the Ukrainian Mukachevo and then to Lviv. "Its vulnerability is the Beskid railway tunnel in the mountains, in case of damage to which this route will be blocked," Belousov said.
"The accuracy of Russian missiles in disabling the military infrastructure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is due to the fact that all their coordinates are well known. The Ukrainian army places its incoming weapons and ammunition in former Soviet warehouses. All the coordinates of these objects have been preserved on the maps of the Russian General Staff, so it is enough to notice activity in the movement of goods or manpower to strike a targeted blow," he told the newspaper.Ru" military expert Vladislav Shurygin.
In Soviet times, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR worked out ways to move troops and bring ammunition in case of hostilities with NATO, including on the territory of countries bordering the Soviet Union, the expert noted.
"Those schemes were built in the western direction, but it is enough to turn over the map and see all possible channels for the supply of weapons. Accordingly, if earlier the military had to think about protecting transport communications, now the strategy is based on disabling them," Shurygin added.
Romania is also involved in the arms supply scheme to Ukraine. As reported by the Romanian newspaper National, it is transported by echelons from the warehouses of the military unit in Chorogyrle, where mostly old equipment is stored, which is not used in the Romanian army.
"The routes of arms supplies can be traced by the return routes that agricultural products are exported from Ukraine to Romania. For this purpose, rail and road transport is used through the Ivano-Frankivsk region, as well as barges that run along the Danube," Belousov said.
At the same time, it is quite difficult to estimate the real volume of Western military assistance to the Ukrainian army.
"It is known that only the United States has supplied Ukraine with a huge number of weapons since the beginning of the year, including 600 Stinger MANPADS, 2,600 Javelin ATGMS, 40 million rounds of ammunition, one million grenades, mines and shells, 70 Humvee armored vehicles. The new $800 million arms package is even more impressive. The only question is its delivery to the territory of the country where the special operation is taking place. It's one thing to announce deliveries, and another thing to implement them," he told the newspaper.Ru" political scientist Valery Volkov.
The official representative of the People's militia of the DPR, Eduard Basurin, told the newspaper.Ru", that some of these weapons have already been placed at the disposal of the army of the republic.
"The Ukrainian army has quite a lot of foreign weapons and ammunition. This can be judged by the amount that we capture as trophies. And if at the very beginning of the special operation these were single samples, then with the development of the offensive their account went to hundreds and more. We periodically demonstrate various foreign weapons and ammunition, but I will not name the exact number, so as not to upset the American Minister of War. NATO weapons are being destroyed in Ukraine. Or it goes to our army. Supplies will not help the Ukrainian army win, but they can delay the course of hostilities," Basurin said.
Victor Sokirko