How are the allied forces progressing and what captured equipment went to the military after the surrender of the AFU fighters — in an interview with TASS
A little more than a month ago, the LPR was completely liberated from the Ukrainian security forces. But the shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is still continuing, the republic's servicemen are participating in the liberation of the neighboring DPR, and on the territory of the LPR itself, global work is underway to clear civilian objects of mines left by the Ukrainian military who retreated chaotically. How are the allied forces advancing in Soledar, Artemovsk and other areas, how long will it take to clear mines, what captured equipment went to the military after the surrender of the AFU fighters, where Kiev tried to organize bio laboratories, a military expert, lieutenant colonel of the People's Militia of the LPR Andrei Marochko, told TASS in an interview.
— Andrey Vitalievich, after the liberation of the territory of the LPR, the republic's forces actively joined in helping their neighbors. Please tell us about the pace of advance of the allied forces in the DPR. When can full release be predicted?
— I want to argue our actions, why our servicemen are on the territory of the DPR. The fact is that, having completely liberated the territory of the LPR, we did not guarantee the safety of our citizens, since the means and types of weapons that the Ukrainian army currently has allow us to strike at cities and districts of the LPR, including rear ones. Therefore, at least we need to move the enemy to such a distance that he could not physically strike at the territory of our republic. This is one of the goals. Second. Since 2014, we have been fraternal with the DPR [regions], many do not even share, everyone considers themselves residents of Donbass, and we have already had a huge number of operations. The very first was in 2015, when Debaltseve was liberated. The People's Militia of the DPR and LPR participated in this operation, it was a positive experience that developed in the future. Now all this accumulated experience is being applied in practice, we have jointly liberated Mariupol and other settlements of the DPR.
The settlement of Soledar, let's say, the Svetlodarsk Arc, has been the area of responsibility of the People's Militia of the LPR since 2015, despite the fact that it is the territory of the DPR. Therefore, I think it is impractical to separate the troops that are currently liberating [territories]. Because we are a united people who are fighting for the same goals — denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine in order to protect their citizens.
Now the People's Militia of the LPR has many areas of responsibility, one of them is the settlements of Artemovsk, Soledar, Seversk. A special military operation is taking place in these areas. It goes according to the previously planned schedule, there is an advance in some sections, but the time frame here does not carry a priority task. The main goal is to save the lives of both civilians and our military personnel, to minimize the destruction of civilian infrastructure, so our tactics and strategy are developed in such a way that the enemy suffers much greater losses than the advancing troops. This is, in principle, an incident in military practice.
— What positions are occupied now, have the Allied forces managed to strengthen in this direction?
— With regard to Artemovsk, our servicemen, let's say, see it without special optical devices, some groups randomly identify enemy firing points, that is, assault reconnaissance groups are already working on the outskirts of the settlement. In Soledar, our servicemen are in the settlement itself, now the fight is going on in the industrial zone of the Knauf plant, and the first streets near the plant are already under our fire control. With regard to Seversk: the city is located strategically unprofitable, in the lowlands, so there are practically no Ukrainian and our servicemen there. We occupy strategically important heights in the area of this city and are conducting a positional struggle.
— How do you assess the pace of advance of the Allied forces?
— The pace of progress is now such that the enemy is forced to leave their positions, but, again, we are not talking about the time frame. We are advancing in different areas based on the operational situation. If we have completely suppressed the enemy's firepower and destroyed it in a certain area, then, of course, we occupy these positions. But with the expectation that no fire damage is inflicted on our servicemen, since all Ukrainian positions are marked on the map, it is much easier to inflict artillery strikes on them than on our hidden positions. Based on this, we do not take many Ukrainian positions. There are well-fortified positions that can protect our servicemen and are of great strategic importance, we occupy these positions. We are moving at exactly the pace that allows us to minimize losses among personnel and inflict as much damage to the enemy as possible.
— Recently, fewer attacks have been recorded in the republic, some days they do not happen at all. Did this make it possible to activate the process of demining territories? When, according to your assessment, will the lands of the LPR be completely cleared of mines?
— Now about 5-8 square kilometers are cleared daily by the forces of the engineering division of the People's Militia of the LPR and the troops of the Russian Federation. I want to note right away: this is a very big problem for us, for the residents of the republic, because in addition to active hostilities for eight years, the Ukrainian army has been randomly mining the area, there are no maps of minefields. That is, we can say that we have one solid minefield. This applies to those areas where active hostilities are currently taking place, and the former line of contact along the Seversky Donets River. There are a huge number of mines and unexploded ordnance that have been there since 2014.
Experts make disappointing forecasts, they say that it will take about 20 years to completely clear the entire territory of the LPR. Now the main emphasis is on residential areas where a large number of people live, on fields that are cultivated by farmers. It is also a civil infrastructure: water stations, bridges, power lines — all this is a priority. When this amount of work is completed, it will be possible to talk about relative safety, and restoration will begin. A secondary task is the gradual clearance of those areas that are not densely populated, but are also heavily mined by Ukrainian troops.
— Which settlements or areas are mined especially densely?
— It is not far from the border with the Russian Federation — the villages of Bolotennoye, Kolesnikovka in the Stanichno-Lugansk district of the LPR to Slavyanoserbsky district, the settlement of Krymskoye. This is the most densely mined area of the mouth of the Seversky Donets River. Further on, it is already moving towards Lisichansk, there is currently a large amount of unexploded ordnance and remote mining of the area is still going on there, since Ukrainian troops are still firing to these areas. Mines "Petal" are generally commonplace.
— What was the most difficult in the process of liberation of the republic, for which settlements were the most brutal battles?
— If we talk about the beginning of a special military operation, then, of course, the most difficult task was to liberate the settlement of Happiness, since a large number of Ukrainian troops were stationed there, there were well-fortified positions, there was very good logistics to the settlement. We had to try to free him, and when the first line of defense was broken, the Ukrainian troops fled. Stanichno-Lugansk was taken almost without a fight. Then the enemy moved deep into the republic, to the north — to the Novoaydarsky, Starobilsk districts, but there the allied forces from the territory of Russia began to push, liberated Markovsky, Melovsky districts. There were no special fights there either. Only two or three key heavy battles, but there were no active hostilities — as here, along the contact line. Well, in the future, the most densely populated points — Rubezhnoye, Lisichansk, Severodonetsk, Popasnaya — were very difficult here, in fact, they were outposts. All these cities were turned into one solid fortified area.
— How many prisoners of war surrendered voluntarily, are there any foreigners among them?
— Another law enforcement agency deals with prisoners, they have all the data. The only thing I can note is that we have repeatedly visited places of detention of Ukrainian prisoners of war, they are kept in normal, acceptable conditions, much better than even our servicemen on the contact line. They are provided with everything necessary in accordance with international humanitarian law. Since we are a State governed by the rule of law, despite the fact that we have not signed any conventions, all conventions concerning prisoners of war are fully respected. Moreover, on a regular basis, our Ombudsman Victoria Serdyukova visits prisoners of war and ensures that all their rights are respected.
— What captured equipment did the People's Militia get from the AFU?
— There is no exact amount of captured captured equipment, but I can say that this is a huge amount. These are the notorious Javelin, NLAW, that is, grenade launchers, automotive and tracked vehicles, armored vehicles, mortars, howitzers. There are rare copies: expensive sniper rifles, assault rifles, grenade launchers of almost all NATO countries — Germany, France, the Czech Republic. There are Polish mortars with reactive ammunition, which are very hard to distinguish by ear. Everything that was captured was accepted into the state and is in service with the People's Militia of the LPR. We have a large amount of ammunition for them, because the Ukrainian troops abandoned many positions, were unable to evacuate the warehouses of rocket and artillery weapons that were in the occupied territory, due to lack of fuel and other factors, they could not evacuate equipment.
The approximate volume and types of weapons were demonstrated at the exhibition in Lisichansk. Some of them may be transferred to the museum, but now the priority is to restore equipment and weapons for use against the enemy.
— Earlier you spoke about the biological laboratories left by the APU in Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, in which dangerous viruses and even drugs were found. What viruses were we talking about?
— Our competent authorities immediately began to deal with this, the tasks of the People's Militia included only the protection of these objects and mine clearance. Now specialists, as far as I know, are working on identifying virus strains, ways of their distribution, and studying the discovered documents. This was partially made public by the General Staff of the Russian Federation. As I know, biolabs were in Rubezhnoye, Severodonetsk and Lisichansk.
— What will happen next with the People's Militia of the LPR, in what time frame can it integrate into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation?
— This is not really my question, but I can say that the legislative field and office work in the People's Militia are as close as possible to the army of the Russian Federation. Now our servicemen are performing joint tasks with the Russian army, acting in full coupling and interaction.
