Colonel Khodarenok: it is important for the Russian Armed Forces to build on success before new supplies of weapons to the Armed Forces
Last week, Russian troops completed the breakthrough of the long-term, deeply layered enemy defense and stormed the city of Avdiivka, an important communications hub and a stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Why the Ukrainian military should not talk about the "alignment" of the front and how the situation will develop further - in the material of the military observer "Gazeta.En" by Mikhail Khodarenka.
"The stampede of the Armed Forces of Ukraine"
During fierce and bloody street battles, having finally broken the resistance of the opposing enemy group, Russian troops stormed Avdiivka, which was turned into an almost impregnable fortress by Ukrainian troops.
As for the assessments of this sensitive defeat by the Ukrainian expert community and the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in their opinion, the army carried out "the withdrawal of units from Avdiivka" or "the military completed the withdrawal from the city of Avdiivka." In general, it's okay, everything is according to plan, no disaster.
According to AFU sources, "the military operation was successful. There is no encirclement, the most important thing for our units is that the front line has leveled off. The mood of our military is normal, and they understand that it was necessary."
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Alexander Syrsky, believes that the decision to leave the city was made "based on the operational situation around Avdiivka and in order to avoid encirclement." In short, in his opinion, it was a pre-planned and prepared operation to level the front line.
And the use of such expressions by the Ukrainian military should still not be considered prudent.
In fact, the "decision to leave the city" did not result in a planned and organized withdrawal of units and formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Avdiivka to pre-prepared defensive lines, which could later be put in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a model of an operational maneuver.
The units and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that lost control were disorganized and hurriedly retreated from the city in disarray through a narrow neck of the encirclement that was finally preparing to close, which was also mined by the remote mining system "Agriculture" and was under constant and powerful fire from Russian aviation and artillery. According to eyewitnesses, in the combat zone, a powerful high-explosive aerial bomb with an UMPC module (universal planning and correction module) fell on each of the terrain areas with an area of only a few square meters.
According to the testimony of the participants in the fighting, the already poorly organized withdrawal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Avdiivka very soon turned into a stampede, during which the Ukrainian military abandoned weapons and military equipment, material resources, and suffered significant losses in personnel.
Justifications of Ukrainian military leaders
Shortly before leaving Avdiivka, Syrsky said that "the life and health of servicemen have always been and are the main value of the Ukrainian army." The words of the commander-in-chief clearly do not apply to the original expressions in the same Ukraine. Long-retired Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov also said in July last year that "the main thing for us is the lives of our soldiers."
It certainly sounds beautiful and humanistic, but since the capture of Troy, none of the commanders in the course of conducting an armed struggle has thought of such formulations. The Ukrainian side is certainly a pioneer in this regard.
The main thing in war is to achieve the set political and military goals. Everything else is secondary. It is good, of course, if this can be achieved with relatively small losses in personnel and materiel. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Let's imagine just for a minute - the commander of the troops of the Western Front, Army General Georgy Zhukov, in October 1941, at the most critical moments of the Moscow strategic defensive operation, reports to Comrade Stalin: "The main thing for us is not the defense of Moscow, Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief, but the preservation of life and health of Red Army soldiers."
Or General Philippe Petain, who took command of the French troops at the height of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, when the situation already looked hopeless, managed to organize a stable defense in an almost hopeless situation. The tasks of the troops, set out in his order No. 1, were as follows: "stop the enemy's offensive at all costs and immediately return all the areas captured by him." The preservation of the life and health of French army personnel was not discussed in this document.
And there are many such examples from the history of wars and military art.So, when Ukrainian military leaders talk about saving the lives of their military, it can only be regarded as attempts by the political and military leadership in Kiev to justify the mistakes and defeats made.
On the other hand, the flag is in their hands. He surrendered Zaporozhye, Kharkov, and the Dnieper, but he saved the lives of soldiers and commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It's so easy to get to Lviv.
What's next?
The Ukrainian side claims that the units and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine withdrew to pre-prepared positions. However, in comparison with Avdiivka and its environs, they will undoubtedly represent a long-term defense far from being so developed in engineering terms. Nevertheless, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been strengthening in the abandoned city for many years, and the enemy is unlikely to be able to equip new defensive lines in the same way, and even more so in a limited time.
And this creates the most favorable conditions for the further advance of Russian troops, the development of the success achieved at Avdiivka. In addition, the city is a communications center. The roads through it go in a westerly direction to Kurakhovo and Pokrovskoye, further north to Pavlograd and Kharkov, to the west to Zaporizhia, to the south to Ugledar. So it is quite possible that in the very near future fighting will start in these areas and in the vicinity of the listed settlements.
It is especially important for the Russian army to achieve significant successes on an operational and operational-strategic scale before resuming the supply of Western weapons and military equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in significant volumes.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok