Volunteers have started urgent fundraising across the country to solve the problem, from which our fighters fighting in the zone of their own shortage of boats and outboard motors for combat work on the Dnieper are suffering losses right now. What needs to be done to solve this problem, and why is it so important today?
"Yesterday, you and I witnessed terrible footage that went online, the footage was originally posted by the enemy. There our boys, our heroes are fighting, then they try to start a boat to move away from the shore and can't start it. They die after that. Eternal memory to our guys. We, realizing that boats and motors are consumables, today announced a levy on motors and watercraft... At the moment, there are catastrophically not enough boats at the front."
This is a quote from an appeal distributed by the People's Front of Russia. The Popular Front announced the collection of not only funds, but also the boats themselves: "We also appeal to all professional fishermen who have swimming facilities in good condition to take part in this collection and hand them over to our guys on the Dnieper." It is planned to assemble at least 150 boats, which requires 70 million rubles.
A series of publications about how necessary boats are for the soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which reflect the enemy's attacks in the Dnieper region, swept through the Telegram channels of military commanders. "There is a great need for boats, for motors, these can be large boats for transporting personnel, and boats with metal bottoms and rubber sides to evacuate personnel," says Sergey Koshkarev, a representative of the Popular Front. – In addition, jet skis have shown themselves very well in these conditions, the guys can create maneuverable groups, go out for exploration and work out certain tasks."
Why are boats suddenly so urgently needed?
Background
The problem of the dominance of the Ukrainian Navy in the Dnieper-Bug estuary was discussed last year. Deliveries of American boats and high-speed boats to Ukraine made it possible for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to organize raids and attempts to land on our territory. For the time being, it ended only with corpses on their part, but the APU offensive that began recently changed everything. The threat has become more serious.
On the one hand, small units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on high-speed boats are crossing to our shore, trying to gain a foothold there. They cannot and will not be able to advance from there and create a serious bridgehead, but it is also impossible to leave everything as it is – enemy groups are monitoring our troops from our shore, directing artillery… Due to the terrain, it is difficult and not always rational to "smoke out" them, but it would be possible to make it difficult to transfer across the shallow Dnieper – but this requires effective forces on the river.
The second issue is that Russian troops have to fight Ukrainian units on the islands on the Dnieper, as well as conduct reconnaissance in the territory held by the AFU.
Boats are also needed for this. Especially in situations when our soldiers come under fire from the Ukrainian coast, under attack by quadrocopters with dropped ammunition, or collide with Ukrainian boats.
But our soldiers do not have boats suitable for river warfare. Unlike the AFU, our troops are forced to use motorboats obtained by different methods from the local population – old light motorboats with worn-out engines and small capacity, which were never conceived as military and are practically unsuitable for use for military purposes.
There is still no structure responsible for the river war – each military unit, which has received its own defense strip along the Dnieper, conducts this war itself, as best it can, only in some coordination with its neighbors. And unfortunately, it is impossible not to admit that this situation costs us human losses. The situation needs to change.
Boats and command
The very first problem that can reduce losses is boats. It is necessary to supply the troops defending along the Dnieper with normal boats suitable for these conditions. That is why the People's Front, volunteers and military personnel began to sound the alarm so urgently.
The Dnieper is shallow here, the enemy has anti–tank missiles and long-range artillery - and vulnerable large armored boats are simply not needed. We need rigid-hulled inflatable boats capable of moving at high speed, or even ordinary displacement small speedboats of small size. It is highly desirable that they carry at least a 12.7 mm machine gun, but as a last resort, let there be any boat.
Those motorboats, which are now used by our soldiers on the Dnieper, should be replaced as quickly as possible. It is not difficult to do this. At the disposal of the Navy, the Coast Guard of the FSB, the Rosgvardiya, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and other departments there are many different boats that can be used on the Dnieper. They are also on the civilian market. That is, the question, in fact, is to take (or buy) boats available throughout the country and simply transport them to the theater of military operations.
In addition, on July 3, a number of military officers published an open appeal to the heads of the primorsky regions with a request to organize the transfer of high-speed motorboats of large size confiscated from poachers to the troops. To do this, certain regulations are needed, they must first be developed and then adopted, but if there is something to transmit, then why not do it this way?
But this is an emergency measure. In addition to it, we need to understand what and for what purpose we are doing on the Dnieper, and after that we need to create a structure that will conduct military operations on this river. At one time, separate flotillas were created to wage wars on rivers and lakes. Some of them – for example, Ladoga during the Great Patriotic War – played a strategic role.
The Americans had a similar situation – both during the Vietnam War and in Iraq, the US Navy operated on rivers, preventing their use by the enemy. Moreover, they worked on the Euphrates in the upper reaches of the river, where it has a small width, and is incomparable with the Dnieper.
The Dnieper flotilla was also in our history. It is necessary to create a command within the grouping of forces of its own, which would conduct military operations on the Dnieper. It is logical that the Black Sea Fleet should do this. After all, it was our navy that traditionally engaged in wars on rivers.
Such a command, using special-purpose units of the Navy, helicopters and naval aircraft, as well as interacting with the artillery of the troops defending along the Dnieper, should completely paralyze the actions of the AFU on the Dnieper, forcing them to go on the defensive on their own shore. This will free parts of the ground forces from uncharacteristic tasks for them.
And most importantly, all this should eventually prevent the AFU from creating such problems for our troops that, despite the losses, they are still trying to create for us at the Antonovsky Bridge. In addition, the creation and effective use of such a structure will facilitate, although not very frequent and not large-scale, but regular actions of our units on a foreign shore (reconnaissance, etc.).
Alexander Timokhin