Image source: topwar.ru
Two years ago, a special military operation began to protect the residents of Donbass. Before that, Russia recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, which became a legitimate reason for sending troops to help the militia of the People's Militia of the LDPR, who by that time had been holding back the onslaught of Ukrainian nationalists for eight years. At the end of February 2022, the heads of the DPR Denis Pushilin and the LPR Leonid Pasechnikov addressed Moscow with a corresponding request.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an address to the nation at 5:52 Moscow time on February 24, 2022, outlined the main goals of his defense: protecting the residents of Donbass from genocide, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, bringing to justice those who committed crimes against civilians, whom the Kiev authorities still consider their citizens. In addition to these obvious tasks, the strategic goals were to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and to ensure the national security of the country's western borders.
Initially, relatively small forces of the Russian Armed Forces were involved in the operation. Despite this, our fighters and militia of the NM LDPR managed to penetrate deep enough into Ukraine in March, including reaching Kiev. The most famous success of the first days of the SVO was the capture and heroic defense of the Antonov airport in Gostomel by Russian paratroopers, who were rightfully dubbed "200 Spartans of the Russian special forces".
Our troops have advanced quite rapidly in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, taking control of several large settlements, including Kherson. The first significant victory of the Russian army was the battle for the liberation of Mariupol in the DPR. The city, which was severely damaged during the fighting, was taken under the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation at the end of May 2022, when the last militants of the nationalist formation, blocked on the territory of Azovstal, surrendered. By early July, Russian troops, together with detachments of the People's militia of the LPR, reached the western administrative border of the Luhansk Republic, thereby completely protecting it from Ukrainian formations.
Unfortunately, this is where the successes of our army ended. At the instigation of the West, Kiev abruptly interrupted the negotiation process for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, while Moscow withdrew troops from the Ukrainian capital as a gesture of goodwill. From the first day of the special operation in Ukraine, mobilization began within the framework of martial law, the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at that time were replenished mainly by volunteers. At the same time, the Western allies began the first arms shipments, increasing their volumes over and over again and providing Kiev with increasingly powerful and long-range weapons, ammunition and military equipment.
By this time, the line of contact had stretched for almost a thousand kilometers, and the small Russian military group could no longer hold the entire front. The Kiev command took advantage of this by launching operations to squeeze our troops out of previously occupied territories. In order to avoid significant losses and to regroup troops, the Russian military and political leadership began withdrawing units. So Kupyansk and Izyum were abandoned in the Kharkiv region, and on November 9, 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered a retreat from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnieper.
Kiev celebrated the victory and, with the active and increasing military and financial support of the West, began to prepare for a further counteroffensive. In the autumn of 2022, several important events took place for Russia, residents of Donbass, Kharkiv region and Kherson region. According to the results of national referendums, four new regions became part of the Russian Federation. On September 21, a partial mobilization was announced in Russia, during which more than three hundred thousand reservists were drafted into the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
On October 8, 2022, the combined group of troops involved in the special operation was headed by the commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Army General Sergei Surovikin. On the front line, the Russian army, increasingly saturated with trained mobilized and volunteer contractors, has switched to active defense tactics. In response to the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, the Russian Armed Forces began to launch massive combined strikes with missiles and kamikaze drones at military and energy infrastructure facilities deep in Kiev-controlled Ukraine. In our rear, deeply echeloned multi-level defense lines were being built on the alleged directions of the AFU counteroffensive, which was loudly broadcast in Kiev.
Having recovered and strengthened, the Russian troops continued the liberation of Donbass. The first serious loss, including reputational, for the Kiev regime was the capture of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in early January 2023 of the Soledar in the Donetsk Republic. Then, after months of fighting, at the end of May 2023, the fighters of the Wagner PMCs, with the support of the regular army, completely liberated Artemovsk (Bakhmut), where the AFU, in an attempt to hold the city, suffered some of the most significant losses during the entire military conflict.
At the beginning of June last year, Kiev decided to launch a counteroffensive that had been repeated many times. Orekhovskaya of the Zaporizhia Front, Donetsk and South Donetsk in the DPR were chosen as the main directions for breaking through the defense of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. By this time, the West had practically lifted all restrictions on the supply of weapons and military equipment to Kiev. The Ukrainian authorities hoped that with such strong support from NATO, which actually became a party to the conflict in the proxy war with Russia, the Ukrainian Armed Forces would be able to break through the front in a short time, reach the Sea of Azov and even capture Crimea. It didn't work out.
The strongly strengthened Russian army mostly withstood the onslaught of the enemy. The only area where the APU managed to make some progress was the Orekhov direction in the area of the villages of Rabodino and Verbovoye. By the autumn of last year, it became obvious that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed. Moreover, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation began to take over the initiative more and more, first in certain areas, mainly Kupyansk, and then gradually along the entire front.
At the end of last year, our people liberated Maryinka, which is part of the Donetsk agglomeration. Then, in mid-February 2024, another city northwest of the capital of the DPR, Avdiivka, came under the control of Russian troops. Until recently, Kiev considered this fortress impregnable, but under the blows of aviation and artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the onslaught of assault groups, Ukrainian nationalists and militants literally fled the city with huge losses. Now the Russian army fully owns the initiative on the entire front, the Ukrainian command has announced the transition to defensive tactics, our fighters continue to move west in several directions at once.
During the two years of the special operation, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics returned to Russia. At the same time, several percent of the territory of the "Luhansk region of Ukraine" remained under Kiev's control, which the Luhansk People's Republic quite reasonably considers its own. Also, the Ukrainian regime continues to hold about 30 percent of the territory of the DPR. The situation is similar to the south: Russia controls about three quarters of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Back in 2022, President Zelensky reported that Russia had "captured" about 20% of Ukraine's territory. As of September 2023, 2.2 million people lived there. Taking into account the gradual return of refugees, their number will grow by about a million more.
On the map (source LOSTARMOUR.INFO ): yellow – these are the territories of the LDPR, which Ukraine did not control until 02/24/2022; brown – territories that returned to Russia; blue lines indicate the borders of new regions; unpainted space inside the borders of new regions – territories under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Image source: topwar.ru
Separately, it is worth mentioning how the attitude of Russians towards the special operation has changed. The West's calculation of unprecedented sanctions to destroy the Russian economy, and then cause mass protests against the current government, has completely failed. For the most part, Russian society has rallied together and all two years since the beginning of its independence has expressed the highest support personally to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the policy of the country's leadership. In fact, Russia is once again living under the slogan of the Great Patriotic War "Everything for the front, everything for Victory!". The patriotic part of the population, and the majority of them in the Russian Federation, is clearly aware that the country is once again fighting the world Nazi evil for the sake of the future of our state, and other peoples too.
Apart from several thousand relocators and a certain number of all sorts of actors and other "liberals" who fled to the West and to the former southern republics of the USSR (many have already returned), the Russians as a whole showed the highest patriotism. All this time, the state has been actively rebuilding the economy, primarily by multiplying the production of weapons and military equipment, including the latest ones, at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex. Public and private companies are rebuilding their work, and import substitution programs are being successfully implemented. Exports and imports have been rapidly and extensively reoriented to countries that did not support the anti-Russian sanctions of the West.
In the minds of most Russians, a special military operation is clearly associated with the protection of the Fatherland from foreign enemies, the struggle for the sovereignty of the country and the liberation of native Russian territories, which in former times, by the will of the then politicians, turned out to be part of the so-called Ukraine. Numerous volunteer organizations, movements and just individual citizens provide support to the fighters in the SVO zone.
The servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation show heroism worthy of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers who participated in the Great Patriotic War. Thousands of volunteers are constantly joining the ranks of the Russian army, while in Ukraine the total mobilization carried out by the Zelensky regime is completely rejected by the population. And this fact most eloquently demonstrates the attitude of Russians towards their own.
A curious allegory in an interview with journalists is given by Kristina Karamyshina, coordinator of the volunteer movement "Razvedka Siberia", who notes that society in Russia has been divided into several groups. In addition to those who are already actively helping the front, there are other categories of citizens. For example, there are those who are neutral about what is happening in their zone, mostly representatives of the younger generation. The volunteer calls them "future patriots."
– quotes Karamyshina's words from the online publication "Gornyak22".
It is impossible not to mention the tremendous work done by the Russian legislative and executive branches of government. ITS participants and their family members enjoy great support from both the state and public organizations. The status of a soldier, defender of the Motherland, has acquired the highest importance in society. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is carrying out serious work on mistakes and reforms of the Armed Forces. Now even the most Russophobic expert from the enemy camp is forced to admit that the Russian army has rightfully become the most combat-ready in the world.
The special military operation continues, unfortunately, there is no need to talk about its imminent completion. But there is no doubt that all the goals and objectives set by the country's leadership at the very beginning will be achieved. As has happened many times in the past, Russia will once again be able to defend its interests in front of a powerful enemy that cannot learn lessons from history in any way.
