10.03.2022, Moscow.
Two weeks have passed since the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. The territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic is almost completely liberated, the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic is being liberated. Large formations of the Ukrainian army risk being encircled on Donbas territory, Sumy and Mariupol are surrounded.
The results of the second week of Russia’s special operation on the territory of Ukraine were summarized by the military expert, editor of the magazine Arsenal of the Fatherland Aleksey Leonkov in an interview with Rossa Primavera News Agency.
Rossa Primavera News Agency: Kiev called Russia’s offer of humanitarian corridors unacceptable and offered its own humanitarian corridors in the direction of Ukrainian cities. But it is not uncommon for civilians not to be let out of the cities.
Leonkov: Let’s talk about these corridors. In principle, until today, there have been two corridors: both Russian and Ukrainian. In many cities, the residents are released through the Ukrainian corridor, including Mariupol.
But, for example, foreign representatives of PMCs used these corridors to leave Mariupol. They left the city.
I know about the corridor that operates in Kharkov in the south-western direction, where they sent trains, but only women and children were sent. Men are left in the city and forced to sign documents that they are going to defend their homeland.
Now this corridor is closed. Railroads and automobiles used to leave through this corridor.
A similar corridor to the west existed in Kiev, and mostly those with money left through it. Whether the corridor is closed there, I don’t know, but most likely it is also closed. At least this was made clear by (Deputy) Prime Minister of Ukraine Vereshchuk.
The green corridors are practically not working now. And they are unlikely to be opened, even if the UN or someone else talks about it. Now all these corridors are controlled by nationalist battalions, and they are not even subject to control from Kiev.
As recent events show, they [the Ukrainian nationalists] are directly controlled by the US and British intelligence services. These formations are subject to their orders.
I’m talking about the laptop that was seized near Donetsk. On this laptop, the nationalists received orders and intelligence information directly from the British and US secret services.
That is, the National Security Forces are controlled from the outside. And the nationalist battalions now control all the crossings. They have set up roadblocks there, and there is video evidence in some towns. The heads of these towns and cities say that anyone who approaches these towns and cities and does not stop will be shot at.
Rossa Primavera News Agency: How do you think the operation is going now?
Leonkov: The leadership of the Ukrainian army, the nationalist battalions have switched to the tactics of focal defenses. This implies the occupation of the largest towns and cities, and at the same time they continue sabotage activities against our units and units that carry out the combat mission. At the same time, there is a large internal space that is used to move individual nationalist battalions that are moved to reinforce certain towns and cities or to conduct sabotage operations against advancing Russian troops and troops of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
This is a well-known tactic of network-centric wars, which was used in Syria.
That is, everything that is being done in Ukraine now is similar in principle to the Syrian operation – but there are peculiarities. This, first of all, has to do with the terrain – this is not a desert, there are parts covered with groves, forests, and so on. The second is that all the fighters and servicemen of the Ukrainian army are no different from us – we are the same people. In Syria we would meet any local with distrust, but here it’s like everyone is one of us. That is why they often use such tactics: they disguise themselves as locals and engage in artillery targeting convoys of our military equipment.
That is, they have chosen the tactic of network-centric warfare, just like the terrorists in Syria.
As far as I can tell, our leadership has now decided on this tactic and now our troops are using the tactic of moving through territory to localize these Ukrainian strongholds, followed by either blocking them and taking prisoners, or destroying the main forces and means, after which, of course, they will be asked to surrender their weapons and leave the stronghold or population center.
All of this work is complicated by the fact that in large population centers the nationalist battalions are taking the population hostages.
In fact, this is not only a special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. But it is also the largest anti-terrorist operation.
Rossa Primavera News Agency: The Kiev regime is arming people and forcing them to go to war with the regular Russian army. How do you comment on this?
Leonkov: The territorial defense battalions are formed in a voluntary and forced way. That is, men are not allowed out of the cities, they are forced under threat of being shot to sign documents agreeing to go to defend the Ukrainian motherland, to enlist in the detachments of the territorial defense battalions. They are then placed on the front line of defense. And if they suddenly run away, the Nazis stand behind them and shoot anyone who doesn’t want to shoot Russian soldiers. The Nazis play the role of barrier troops.
We, on the other hand, suppress anyone who has a machine gun and is aiming in our direction. The Nazis expect that they will show this tragedy in all its glory – a Russian killing a Russian.
By the way, much is being video recorded online and broadcasted via foreign communications. NATO uses space-based reconnaissance tools to give targeting instructions to Ukrainian fighters. Such tactics were used in the war against Nagorno-Karabakh and during the operation in Syria.
Rossa Primavera News Agency: It is known that an information army is working for the Kiev regime, which includes military specialists from various countries. In particular, there is an information and psychological operations center. How do you assess its work? How can we counter it?
Leonkov: Of course, information is distorted. That is, they are shelling a neighborhood, and many locals know about it, by the way. In Kharkov they showed how they hit a 24-storey building from MANPADS. Obviously, there were no Russian soldiers there at the time of the shot. Nevertheless, a Ukrainian missile hit a residential building. There are many such evidences. However, the Ukrainian propaganda is passing this off as shelling from the Russian side.
In general, the information campaign in Ukraine is built quite competently. It was built by competent specialists who know their job. Therefore, civilians are often encountered on the path of the advance of our troops, who, subjected to patriotic propaganda, are ready to throw themselves under the wheels of a tank.
To stop this fascist propaganda, missile strikes were carried out on relay nodes in early March. However, turning off the TV and turning off the Internet will not solve the problem of 30 years of brainwashing, which has been particularly severe for the past 8 years.
We need to do our own counter-propaganda. It is not enough to just hand out humanitarian aid and connect liberated territories to Russian TV channels. We need a new cultural policy. We need to remind our Ukrainian brothers of their shared history. In addition, we need to talk about the crimes of the Banderites against Ukrainians after the Great Patriotic War and their current followers who purposefully destroyed the people of Donbass.
In addition, we need to rely on the local population. They must form new local authorities and self-defense units to protect their families from pro-Banderite fighters. They must cooperate with the military police to keep order in the liberated cities.
Rossa Primavera News Agency: How do you assess further developments?
Leonkov: Not all towns and cities meet us with hostility. We should not overestimate the information influence of Ukrainian propaganda. But we should not underestimate it either.
I should say a few more words about the nationalist battalions. They have a much higher level of training than the army battalions of the Ukrainian army – this is one thing. And second, you have to understand that, of course, they hold certain key population centers there, but that does not mean that they hold the entire territory of Ukraine.
Right now, the main events are taking place in the east. We are dealing with the group that wanted to eliminate Donbass. While we are dealing with them there, another group is forming in the west from the Ukrainian army reserve and the nationalist battalions. And all the people who tried to leave the territory of Ukraine face the same thing – men are not allowed out, men are forced to fight. They form a Western grouping of troops to be sent to the slaughter.
No blitzkrieg was planned. The operation will be long. This is connected, among other things, with our desire to save as many civilians as possible, civilians in the first place.
Our command is doing everything consistently. We are moving forward. The north, the south are connecting, forming a single front towards the west. This front is also moving.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
