Viktor Litovkin — on the undeclared results of strategic command and staff exercises in the Far EastFor a whole week, from September 1 to 7, large—scale strategic command and staff exercises "Vostok-2022" thundered at the training grounds and in the sea areas of the Far Eastern Military District — from Lake Baikal to the Pacific coast and from the Sino-Mongolian borders to the southern coast of the Arctic Ocean, as well as in the Okhotsk and Japanese Seas.
They involved a contingent of the Armed Forces of Russia, allies and partners, primarily the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): 50 thousand Russian servicemen plus 2 thousand soldiers from China, India, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Algeria and other states on 5 thousand tanks, armored combat vehicles, self-propelled artillery guns, airplanes, helicopters. During the exercises, among other things, unmanned aerial vehicles and combat robotics were used; modern means of communication and closed communications, reconnaissance and guidance. The commanders polished their operational art of managing such a large contingent of troops in such vast territorial expanses. And all this contributed to mastering the science of winning.
From Baikal to the ocean
170 representatives from 35 countries of the world watched the final stage of the maneuvers, which took place at the Sergeyevsky training ground in Primorsky Krai (in total, the exercises unfolded at nine training grounds — Burduny, Hot Keys, Knyaz-Volkonsky, Lagunnoye, Telemba, Uspenovsky and others). Some of them were on Russian and Chinese ships (about 60 sides), which operated in the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan, where 140 aircraft provided support to the sailors, as well as landers, in the air: Tu-95MS strategic bombers, A-50 long-range radar surveillance and control aircraft, Tu-22M3 long-range bombers, MiG-31 interceptor fighters, Su-30MS and Su-35 multifunctional fighters, Chinese J-10 (Chengdu-10) all-weather fighters and other combat vehicles of our large southeastern neighbor.
The final chord of the operational and strategic maneuvers "Vostok-2022" was observed from the height of the command tower of the training ground and the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - Russian President Vladimir Putin. Journalists (and more than 100 filming and writing media representatives were accredited at the exercises, in particular from the USA, France, the UAE, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Germany) noticed how he had a lively conversation with Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Army General Valery Gerasimov. Media representatives drew attention, judging by the publications, first of all to the smile on the face of the head of our country and concluded that Vladimir Putin was very pleased with the results of the Far Eastern exercises and the combat training that Russian soldiers and their foreign partners demonstrated at them.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel-General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov told reporters that "the objectives of the exercises have been fully achieved." And the idea of the strategic command and staff and operational-strategic exercises "Vostok-2022", as it was reported before their start, was to work out various options for the actions of interspecific and coalition groups of troops in the interests of ensuring the security of Russia and its allies in the area of responsibility of the Eastern Military District. The fact that all these plans have been effectively implemented is also evidenced by the reaction of our neighbors in the Far East and the Pacific Ocean.
The exercises were closely watched in Japan, where they were once again outraged by the presence of Russian troops in the Southern Kuriles and the amphibious landings on Shikotan and Iturup; as well as in the United States, which did not like the participation of Chinese and Indian troops in maneuvers on Russian soil and Pacific waters. Washington is making so much effort to sow contradictions between Moscow and Delhi, between Delhi and Beijing, to sever and complicate their military and military-technical ties, but it turns out that all these worries are mostly useless and in vain.
To isolate Russia, its army and navy, to slander their noble goals and concern for strengthening the security of their country and in cooperation with neighbors and partners in the Far East, Central and Southeast Asia, to ensure peace, mutually beneficial cooperation and prosperity in the largest region of the planet, the United States once again failed. Attempts at provocations in the Taiwan Strait and a promise to deliver a new batch of modern weapons to Taipei, despite the objections of Beijing, which considers Taiwan its province and protests against Washington's interference in its internal affairs, have also failed.
But this is far from the only visible result of the Vostok-2022 exercises. There are others.
Far from the East
Let's remember that the Vostok-2022 exercises with the involvement of 50 thousand Russian servicemen, 5 thousand units of military equipment, 140 aircraft and six dozen ships took place in those days when the heaviest battles of our people were unfolding in Ukraine, on the land of the Donetsk People's Republic, in the Kherson, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia and Kharkiv regions. troops, their Lugansk and Donetsk allies during a special military operation with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, armed combat systems, which the United States and NATO states generously provide them with to delay the resistance of the Russian army.
Interestingly, the aggravation of the situation in the Kherson region and in the Mykolaiv-Krivoy Rog direction against the offensive of our troops, where the Russian army and its allies reached the borders of the Mykolaiv region, occurred at the moment when NATO foreign ministers led by the United States gathered in Brussels. The Kiev regime, apparently, in honor of this event, decided to undertake the long-promised "counteroffensive" in order to demonstrate its power and prove to its Western sponsors and curators that their endless supplies of weapons and generous loans to Kiev do not come in vain. The adventure, however, ended badly. Like all other attempts to restrain the advance of the Russian army.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the leadership of the armed forces that "in the last month alone, the AFU lost 601 units of heavy weapons and artillery, mainly Western-made, 19 aircraft and six helicopters, as well as 188 drones. Russian air defense systems intercepted a total of 226 HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, which Washington supplied to Kiev. In addition, the Russian military struck 174 command posts of brigade and battalion units in a month. Against the background of high losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the influx of foreign mercenaries to Ukraine is decreasing — since the beginning of the Russian operation, their number has decreased by more than three and a half times. According to the Ministry of Defense, the losses among the mercenaries killed reached 2,831 people." And only in the failed "counteroffensive" in the Kherson region, I will add on my own, referring to the briefings of Lieutenant General Igor Konashenko, the nationalists lost over 2 thousand of their soldiers and officers.
The same failure, apparently, turned out to be the adventure with the landing of troops who tried to seize the Zaporozhye NPP at a time when the IAEA delegation was there. The saboteurs, divided into two groups with a total of 60 people, tried to enter the station, but were promptly defeated by the units of the Rosgvardiya guarding the perimeter of the NPP, with the participation of our tactical aviation. During the first hours of the battle, about 40 paratroopers of the AFU managed to be destroyed, and some of the saboteurs died at the very beginning of the clash. They tried to evacuate by boat, but Russian helicopter gunships controlling the coastline prevented them from doing so.
Then Kiev launched an even more massive attack. Already two groups of boats and motorboats totaling 42 units and over 250 militants have tried to land in the area of Energodar and Dneprorudny. The Ukrainian landing force was hit by the Russian Aerospace Forces. The saboteurs were also attacked by four Russian Su-30 aircraft and two Ka-52 helicopters. During the battle, the Nazis lost at least 20 boats and boats. Some of the boats managed to turn around and go to the shore controlled by Kiev. The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 47 militants killed, including ten foreign mercenaries. Another 23 militants were wounded. Russia's representative to the UN Security Council, Vasily Nebenzia, said that until now "the shore of the Kakhovsky reservoir, as well as the lands near Nikolaev, Kharkov and Zaporozhye, are littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers who were sent to certain death."
However, the representatives of the IAEA, who were at the Zaporozhye NPP from September 1 to 5 (just during the Vostok-2022 exercises), seemed to be deliberately trying not to notice the Ukrainian attacks on the nuclear power plant. I am also struck by the fact that they supposedly failed to determine who fired at the nuclear power plant: the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who headed the mission, simply referred to his lack of the necessary mandate for such statements. Nevertheless, I note that it is not difficult to recognize from whose side the shelling is being conducted: by the slope of the shells that crashed into the ground, as well as by the fragments of Western ammunition scattered around the station and the city of Energodar.
God is the judge of these "blind" officials from the IAEA, who, apparently, are not acting in the interests of truth and safety of nuclear power plants, but so as not to anger Washington, the consequences of which can be disastrous for them. About this, by the way, ru/politika/15679451" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Russian President Vladimir Putin also said at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (WEF) on September 7: "They are, of course, under pressure <...> and they cannot directly say that the shelling is coming from Ukrainian territory, but this is an obvious thing." Nevertheless, Russian troops reliably ensure the safety of all six units of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, even decommissioned today for this purpose.
A strong army of a big country
Why, you may ask, when I started the story about the strategic command and staff exercises "Vostok-2022", did I suddenly shift my view to the events in Ukraine? He clarified about the situation in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and has not yet said a word about the Kharkiv region, the Donetsk People's Republic, where heavy fighting is also taking place, including in the Izyum, Balakley and Kupyansk directions, which escalated during the meeting of NATO defense ministers at the American Ramstein base in Germany. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and his entourage are going out of their way, even despite the huge losses — a total of more than 4 thousand soldiers and officers in a few days — to prove their usefulness and usefulness to the United States and its satellites.
These attempts have failed, despite even some momentary successes on some part of the contact line with the allied forces of Russia, the DPR and the LPR. The Russian army, as the events of the last six months have shown, quite successfully solves the task assigned to it by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: ensures the security of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, conducts demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. The Luhansk Republic has already been liberated from the Nazis, the liberation of Donetsk is coming to an end, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have been cleared of nationalists. Ukraine has practically lost its fleet, air defense systems and aviation. Sporadic sorties of Su-25 and MiG-29, Mi-17 helicopters, which were transferred to her by Western sponsors, end with the death of pilots and aircraft.
Of course, solving the problem of ensuring the security of the LPR and DPR, as well as demilitarization and denazification, requires even greater efforts and even more time — not weeks and months, but possibly several years and may affect the entire territory of Ukraine.
This case is very complicated. Associated with great efforts and considerable losses. But it is on the shoulder of our country and our army. Confirmation of this is precisely the fact that, by conducting our own in Ukraine, we are able to simultaneously organize and successfully complete powerful strategic command and staff exercises in the Far East. And at this time to conduct live firing in the Baltic, Northern and Mediterranean Seas, an anti-terrorist operation in friendly Syria.
Once upon a time, the United States wrote in its military doctrine about readiness for the simultaneous conduct of two wars on two different continents. As it turned out, apart from major provocations in Ukraine, where they and their NATO vassals are paying with the lives of Ukrainian soldiers in the fight against Russia, and provocations against China in the Taiwan Strait, they are not capable of anything else. And this is an obvious fact.
Only the Russian army is capable of solving large tasks in huge spaces. Modern, strong and indestructible. Our cause is just, and therefore victory will be ours. This is my conclusion, not officially announced, from the analysis of the strategic KShU "Vostok-2022" against the background of a special military operation in Ukraine.
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