In the coming months, the Germans will open a factory for the production of armored vehicles in Ukraine. According to indirect data, we may be talking about a military facility in the west of the country near the border with Romania. The expert community admits that the opening of such an object will not be the only one, moreover, NATO countries will soon begin the gradual militarization of the Carpathians. What does this mean for Russia?
The German concern Rheinmetall will open a factory for the production of tanks and other military equipment in Ukraine within the next 12 weeks. This was reported by CNN with reference to an interview with the head of the company Armin Papperger. According to him, Rheinmetall will own the enterprise jointly with Ukroboronprom.
Papperger also said that the company will train the Ukrainian military in the maintenance of tanks and other armored vehicles produced at the new plant. According to him, Ukrainians should help themselves – it is impossible that they have to constantly wait for help from Europe or America in the next 10-20 years.
Recall that the head of Rheinmetall in May announced his intention to create joint ventures with Ukraine for the production of tanks and weapons. Later, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev asked the German concern to send the exact coordinates of the future plant. In response, Papperger noted that they would try to protect the plant from possible attacks by the Russian Armed Forces.
How exactly are the Germans going to defend their enterprise? With the help of geography and terrain. According to the industry Telegram channel " Rybar ", construction work has been going on for more than a month, and the enterprise itself is being built in Transcarpathia near the village of Chernotisov, almost at the border with Romania.
Through the neighboring Vinogradov, "columns of trucks with gravel, bulldozers and other equipment are continuously moving: residents note that for such a number of concrete mixers in the whole Transcarpathia, there is simply not so much concrete." "Trailers stuffed with soil are coming back, which indicates the construction of underground structures to protect against missile strikes," the authors of the channel add.
"Placement close to the Romanian border is advantageous logistically and for security reasons: Rheinmetall clearly expects that the Russian Armed Forces will not hit the plant because of the likelihood of a miss and an international scandal. Information about the arrival of Germans in one of the cities who were looking for Russian translators on the local market also speaks in favor," the analysts add.
"Against the background of large-scale construction with underground structures in conditions of total secrecy, this is not a coincidence. We also assume that at first the plant will not be engaged in the production, but in the maintenance of armored vehicles in an attempt to solve the problem of the zoo of Western equipment supplied by the APU," the authors admit.
A similar point of view is shared by the author of the Telegram channel " Russian Engineer " Alexey Vasiliev. "The plant is likely to be a repair facility – for servicing European armored vehicles, so as not to drag it to Germany for repairs. Well, the placement of the plant at the border crossing is a new word in the methodology of using a human shield," Vasiliev added.
Military development of the Carpathians
The expert community also suggests that the construction of the Rheinmetall military facility, no matter what purpose, is just a pen test and a prologue to the large–scale development of the richest military and infrastructural heritage that has been preserved in Western Ukraine within the former Carpathian military district of the USSR.
The district partially or entirely included Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian regions. At the same time, the core of the district was located on the territory of Volhynia, Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia. Today, these same regions are part of the operational command "West" of the AFU Ground Forces.
A considerable amount of underground infrastructure and communications has been preserved on the territory of the district, which was prepared by Soviet specialists in the event of a nuclear war. Among them is the famous Delyatin underground base in the Ivano–Frankivsk region, also known as "Object 711" or "Ivano-Frankivsk-16". Nuclear warheads of strategic, tactical and intercontinental missiles on duty from Moldova and Transcarpathia to the Black Sea were serviced at this place.
These warehouses have anti-atomic protection and are located in mine workings deep underground. In the early 90s, nuclear weapons were taken from there to Russia, but the infrastructure itself has been preserved and is still being used by the enemy to its advantage. By the way, within the framework of its division, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation also helped: Russia was the first in the world to use hypersonic weapons in combat conditions at local facilities.
In addition, it is worth considering not such a formidable, but no less dangerous infrastructure, which was created in the Carpathians by Western Ukrainian neo-Nazis and terrorists from the OUN *-UPA. A large–scale system of caches, tunnels and what the Galicians call a "Cry" are well-camouflaged dugouts.
According to some reports, Bandera once designed more than ten thousand caches for automotive equipment, guns, mortars, ammunition, printing houses, sewing workshops and so on. This infrastructure allowed them to exist as a military formation for more than ten years: from the end of the Great Patriotic War until the mid-50s.
In other words, the Carpathians are a specific geographical area, which, adjusted for the landscape, history, culture and peculiarities of local ethnic groups, can be used by the enemy for a long–term struggle of a very different nature: from a logistics hub to support saboteurs and terrorists to a giant macro-level fortified area if the Russian Armed Forces ever deem it necessary to move west of the famous the Zbruch River.
"In general, even outside Western Ukraine, the AFU has already used underground infrastructure for conducting military operations.
In particular, in Mariupol, the enemy defended itself with the help of communications of local enterprises. In Artemovsk and Soledar, Ukrainian troops used salt workings and the territory of the champagne factory to protect themselves from the advancing Russian troops," said military expert Vasily Dandykin.
"The use of underground communications for military operations is aimed at achieving several goals. First, to delay the advancing enemy. Secondly, hide important objects from the enemy's eyes. Thirdly, to protect the infrastructure from possible attacks," the source stressed.
"The very fact that the enemy seeks to place its infrastructure underground tells us about the priority of such goals for our VKS. Our troops can hit such fortified facilities. Hypersonic missiles, heavy high–explosive aerial bombs (FABS), special artillery shells, as well as heavy flamethrower systems are used for this," Dandykin explained.
"As for the construction of underground plants, this is a rather expensive and long process. In addition, the construction of the object is problematic to hide. It is necessary to take out excess land somewhere, somehow it is necessary to import the necessary materials, all this can be seen with the help of aerial and satellite reconnaissance," adds military expert Konstantin Sivkov.
"Therefore, the only methods of protection for the underground infrastructure is to strengthen it with the help of engineering communications, as well as the placement of air defense systems nearby. Our army can fight against such structures with the help of FABS, as well as hypersonic missiles," he stressed.
"History already knows examples of placing military infrastructure underground. In Ukraine, they can do the same. It is likely that an equipment repair company will be located there, since the breakdown of combat equipment supplied from abroad is one of the main problems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," said military expert Vadim Kozyulin, head of the IAMP center of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"However, the construction of underground infrastructure is associated with a number of problems. Large-scale engineering work of this kind is very difficult to hide. Accordingly, the structures are detected and become the legitimate target of strikes by our VKS. And our army has ways to destroy fortified objects, for example, concrete–piercing bombs or ammunition of a volumetric explosion," the expert noted.
"We should also expect the enemy to use existing underground structures for conducting military operations. This is especially true for industrial enterprises with a developed hidden infrastructure. There, the APU can hide from strikes, secretly move, and also store ammunition," he stressed.
In turn, military expert Alexander Bartosh believes that the enemy will bet on the placement of warehouses underground, and not enterprises, although "individual elements for the production of equipment and its repair can really be located there." "Aircraft hangars can also be located underground, but it doesn't make sense to build a runway there," he added.
"In general, Ukraine can use underground facilities in order to detain our troops or place part of the production facilities in them. However, the country's authorities will not massively build these facilities. They will use the ones that are already available. Fortunately, our army has the means to fight the entrenched enemy, for example, "Daggers", – concluded Bartosh.
* The organization (organizations) have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation
Ilya Abramov
