the territory of the luhansk-donetsk region, it was obvious, because we also analyzed the actions of the enemy, his corresponding preventive measures, his intelligence functions, which they performed in the territory along the entire line of contact along the border, well, all the signs were that we would meet the enemy and not only the national people's republic of china, the dpr, and from the territory of russia, so it has already started, as it were. in autumn, we began to take certain actions in order to successfully meet and make the maximum impression on him, realizing that the ratio of forces and means was and will be not in our favor, but in our anyway, there were no options, we had to persevere, because the whole of ukraine was behind us, so for five months, we were preparing for the worst. before repelling a full-scale

aggression, already in january and february we received relevant telegrams from the main intelligence, which predicted that such an option was possible, and for the month of february we did, i think , as much as possible to meet the enemy, in principle, all positions were strengthened as much as possible, all possible options have been calculated and lost, all have been moved. reserves , we trained at least twice full -scale, already the day before, despite the fact that a lot of such local training was carried out, and this in principle played its possible decisive role, that on the first day, when the attack was made on all the command centers, on all the control points, on all the places , where there was supposed to be a concentration of our troops and warehouses, they passed into an empty place. in the first days, the general staff informed

that 90 combat-tactical groups had entered the territory of ukraine, if you remember, how many of these forces were involved in your area of ​​responsibility? well, i definitely won't say there were, in addition to the first and second army corps, lpr, dpr, there were units of the first tank army, the 20th tank army and the eighth combined army of the enemy. that is, the advantage was huge, there is information in open sources that the grouping of the first or second army corps was about 35 00, and according to your estimates, in fact, how many tens of thousands of personnel of the units that were engaged against you at that time, how many were there? if we take only the grouping of the first and second corps, it is 35 thousand was before the start of mobilization, they called for at least as many. which went to

what i already told you, to strengthen the front line in order to constrain our actions, everything that was combat-capable in them, which for eight years conducted combat operations, and was capable of active will, it was a horseman of those strike groups that struck in the luhansk region and in the direction between volnovakha and mariupol, we actually talked about... the capabilities of these corps with you when we spoke two years ago in an interview, and then you said that these corps by themselves they are not capable of carrying a significant threat, and i would like to ask already after two years, what has turned out in practice, how have they performed, perhaps in comparison with the russian troops, what can you say about them? i will say this, they did not justify the trust placed in them by the russian occupation forces, even... and

they were reinforced directly by russian regular units, they could not fulfill all the tasks assigned to them, but they fought quite powerfully and i will tell us it was not easy considering the huge superiority and complete control of the air, you yourself understand that it is not easy to hold the line of defense when you are surrounded by... from all sides and expect a 360° attack. well, i will say, our people did a miracle, they really did a feat, because no one expected that in such a state, with such an advantage, we would be able to resist and we still hold many things, what was at the beginning of the war.

the luhansk part of our defense itself... was dangerous, because the enemy was advancing from the south, and from the north, and the east, and those brigades... were encircled, because in reality there was no means to stop the onslaught from three sides, but those reserves that were, we put forward along the border, along the border of happiness starobsky bilovodsk, and they played their role, they stopped the pace, which gave us to regroup the whole means and occupy the border, which we continued to receive and stopped. onslaught , for three days, i would say so, the group that was the first to go, we were so beaten by us that they were actually already mobilized, there were a lot of mobilized people, on february 16

it was already clearly visible that there would be a war, because measures were taken to mobilize the occupied territories, all the brigades that stood along the line of contact. people who had experience were withdrawn, strike groups were formed, and mobilized to the front line in order to restrain and restrain our actions, but we managed to stop them, because the main blows to the luhansk direction and the mariupol direction in the first days were repelled. i understand that the military always plans for actions in case something goes wrong, but this is a collision of plans with ... reality, this is how you perceived it as a commanding military officer, that is, you obviously understood on paper what could happen, but what did you think when it actually happened? you know, on paper we played out a lot of situations, the most dangerous for us was that we could get surrounded, so we

did everything to prevent us from having a corridor through which ammunition, resources, evacuation wounded, and we succeeded, we could not suddenly allow the enemy to enter the line, which would not have given us maneuver, i will say, the enemy did not expect such an encounter, so the russian units that were going through the luhansk region, faced with our reserves, which were standing, they were standing only focally with us? directions , but it gave them time, they were stopped, they got busy replanning their actions, bypassed our units, asked to be surrounded, one bilood battalion was surrounded, but thanks to kind actions, they managed to destroy

the enemy, four strongholds they destroyed the east and went to their main forces, we withdrew the rest of the units and already occupied a continuous line of defense, so we basically guessed all options for the enemy's actions, we understood that there would be a direction, the first is from luhansk in the direction of happiness, the second is in the direction of mariupol in order to cut off and surround our group, and basically i concentrated all the reserves in these directions and they worked, so that if this had not been done, literally on the second or third day we would have already been in a deep environment, it was already difficult to make any decisions, and so we managed not only to disarm the group that went directly to our forces, but to force on yourself,

which were in the kharkiv region and in the south of ukraine. you can tell us which zone you were responsible for at the time of the invasion, what we see before us, what was the extent, the responsibility of the united group. forces, it was the luhansk, donetsk region, the length of the line of contact with the enemy was up to 400 km, but in addition to that there was a border in the luhansk region directly from the russian federation, so the threat was from here from the first or second army corps and in this direction as well worked in the units of the eighth army corps of the enemy, and from the kharkiv region, from the luhansk region, this is the first tank army that advanced in the direction of kupinsk and the 20th army that advanced in the direction of the 20th army that advanced in the direction of starabilsk, you talked about the directions

of the main strikes , if we were to visualize on the map where it was, the directions of the holo-strikes, these were the main direction of the luhansk region, this was the direction that came from. luhansk on the border of happiness and three children. this direction, in the direction to exit severo-donetsk, luhansk. and went to the rear of our troops and the second strike was along the line, volnovakha was passing through mariupol in order to cut it off so as to surround mariupol, and in addition to this , several additional strikes were carried out by our troops, the main strike was a surprise strike, the strike was also on starabelsk, the strike was in the direction. along the border of svatovo, starobilsk and

belovodsk , we created appropriate buffer zones, these are strongholds that prevented the sudden arrival of the enemy. he was stopped, began to regroup, evaluate tasks, ask questions, try to bypass ours troops, that he did not expect anyone. meet in this direction. the belovodsk tank battalion of this brigade, which was routed, because the enemy came out from the direction of millerov and from the north, and thanks to the heroism of the guys, they immediately broke through to their main forces, destroying four strongholds that had already been set up along the road. and these units are also under threat from the environment, and since they have fulfilled their task. we went to the border, kremina, rubizhne, starabelsk, in order to close the line,

to make a continuous line of defense and already clearly get the enemy at this turn, given the availability of this means, this will be the only opportunity to hold the enemy, stabilize the situation, regroup and continue combat operations. people worked hard, considering that we had three battalions here. are advancing, well, you understand what russian groups there were, well , they listed them, and this group was stopped, because it was marching out and going to our rear in the direction of sloviansk, kramatorsk and completely closing the ring, and this is the collapse of everything group, and in principle it is the collapse of ukraine, because the main forces, this is half of the armed forces, which was controlled here. because at the beginning of the war we had 22 brigades, half of them performed tasks on

the front line, and half of them were restored to combat capability, but about the brigades, i understand that in principle everyone fought, and also newly mobilized people who were called up as part of op1, op2, operational in the first line, but are there units that could note and in which directions it was, i can say that all the brigades that fought, that the 79th... brigade showed itself, well, very much, yes, this is the district of happiness, that the 57th brigade, that the 30th brigade, that the 24th brigade, that the 95th brigade, that the 53rd brigade, that the 54th brigade, that the 36th brigade, well, all the brigades that were to, so to speak , distinguish the best from the worst, everyone fulfilled their task perfectly, yes, the fate of some was much more, yes... the 24th brigade, which was standing in this direction, well , it endured so much, it destroyed together with

the 36th th brigade to the enemy's division in the first days, well, these are huge numbers, these are huge numbers, these are these numbers, which are difficult to understand, until you have gone through it yourself, what these guys did, just to understand... the consequences, if our group was surrounded, as the enemy planned, and what was left in ukraine, well , it is difficult for me to predict the end of this war, it would probably really be two or three in a week. you started your story with the fact that on the first day there were strikes on the control points, and that's why i want to clarify, and what actually happened in the headquarters of the oos, but in the first days, how was the leadership, did you sleep or not sleep? there was a threat of loss of controllability, because in fact there was a lot of talk about it in ukraine, that the armed forces kept their control,

so they were able to fight back against the russian troops, how was it in your situation? the first rockets just arrived at the command post, they did not exactly hit the target through the buried command post, but the rockets could not withstand it, the entire personnel was placed specifically in the underground... lives from the evening, that is why everyone's lives were saved, it is said that the blow was very powerful , and we lost contact for a short time, well, it was no more than half an hour, light, but the backup sources were turned on, the backup sources of communication also worked, so there was no loss, also at all the strongholds, at all the command posts and groups of the rest and brigades also worked perfectly, we had constant communication, led the troops from

the first day , the first three days were especially tense, it is 24 hours a day. work around the clock , such a tense situation, where we did not understand how much was enough for us, what forces would go to replace them, constant air strikes, we were then forced to inflict damage on the first day the enemy on its territory at the millerov airfield, because the complete air superiority did not allow our troops to raise their heads, but air strikes ... on the enemy's territory, forced them to pause, move their planes to other airfields, and this gave us the opportunity to also sort out , focus, and further we have already worked more effectively on their means of air direction, i do, i understand that it was a rather risky

operation, still move the points, as far as i understand forward, when shifting line, points points were. moved literally to the line of contact with the enemy, which was a very active and active struggle precisely between the units that were defending and those that were advancing, and in that chaos it was difficult to understand where and which unit, well, well done artillerymen, they did their job clearly, there was panic among the russians huge, no one expected that russia would be attacked on the very first day of the war. as a military man, maybe... you thought that, you are able to strike on the territory of russia, well, you were at war with russia one way or another being in donbas, leading the troops, and there is an opportunity to strike, it was a preemptive strike, we were forced to do it because there were no other options, but we clearly understood that there

was no other option, on the very first day we destroyed seven planes and many planes. not as we would like, but many summers were destroyed at the airfields, and i think russia understood then on the first day that everything would not be so simple, it would not be two or three days, but they had a fierce struggle ahead of them, so it was two years are already there, you mentioned several times that they are critical there were the first three days, but can you explain to the civilians what this resulted in, i.e. after three days the russian army stopped, why did it happen, why did it happen? after three days, we stopped the enemy's main forces , inflicted quite a powerful blow on them, we saw that the mobilized forces were already rushing into battle, we fired a clear line of defense, the main thing was that the first wave passed, how to say, maybe panic, because

the use of such a powerful number of firearms , aircraft... we didn't have it yet, the war, starting from the 14th to the 22nd a year passed without the use of aviation, so i will get used to this moment, that you are constantly attacked by an air enemy, will be ready to repel these attacks before that, you also need to have some experience, some practice, and literally in three days. we managed to overcome it, figure out how to proceed, people began to confidently shoot down the aerial enemy, there was no longer the impudence that was in the first days, when a pilot without orders performs a task, he flies in front of the target, drops

supplies at a target, harvests and leaves without orders task performance area. already after the third and fourth day, having lost a very large number of planes, of course the pilots were shot at from a distance, mostly not striking targets, and this gave us a certain opportunity to clearly accomplish the task, and how we managed to motivate people, well, it is not a secret that there are cases when people leave the position, this phenomenon was avoided, you know, this phenomenon was avoided, it did not happen. in more than one case, when people abandoned their positions, retreated, perhaps, first of all, it was the fact that the positions were occupied by people with combat experience, they all of them... had been in the war for more than a year, they were all accustomed to shots, to shelling, to deaths, to injuries, and they had received quite

good training. in addition, starting from february 16 to 24, the number of shelling increased tenfold, that is, our positions were ironed out very powerfully. provoking the fact that we inflicted damage on residential objects and settlements behind the contact line in order to have an excuse for the introduction of a full-scale war, but our artillerymen quite professionally destroyed the targets without shelling settlements, even though to the fact that sometimes directly from there... russians and our traitors placed cannons and fired at us

, we understood that if we gave an excuse, it would be an excuse for the world community to start a war against us. i have to ask about mariupol, the place where the breakthrough happened, can you tell me how it happened, what went wrong? managed to get out, because we received a blow from the west, after passing the isthmus, a powerful group, our unit came out, we managed to regroup, but all the same forces and means were not able to stop such an armada that came at us, they cut the main road and the group remained surrounded. we immediately began to carry out measures to create a group in order to break through this corridor, i took out the 95th brigade, having regrouped and began to prepare it

for a counterattack, but we clearly saw for three days directly, the troops were constantly marching from the west to the rear. in order to create such a line that we could not do anything, and there really was the group that was in mariupol, it bound, probably, everything that was, able to fight, to go on, well, in fact , the mariupol group saved the south from being completely cut off from ukraine from... the black sea, we were not able to strike, because another

group went, which was for the sides of the kharkiv region, the enemy regrouped again, concentrated and through the raisin, struck a new blow in our back, and i was forced by this brigade to close this gap, which was not found, as it was... to hit us in the back, i would say, the brigade did a great job, the kharkiv kishlo group was stopped, enough was inflicted powerful defeats, the enemy suffered losses, stopped and opposition defense began, but somewhere in the middle of march we moved, already to the position, stabilized the line, moved to positional defense and no more breakthroughs. there were no such large ones, it made it possible to regroup, document your troops and

continue to hold this line, most importantly, it made it possible to bind the enemy's huge forces around the grouping, the eastern grouping of troops. was it possible in your opinion with the available forces and means that you had in subordination, to save the city, well, that is, in that situation? in the confrontation with those forces , it was impossible, because the advantage of the enemy was somewhere from seven to ten times that of the enemy in the turned direction, so for a breakthrough i needed three or four brigades, at least to conduct a counterattack operation, i had there was one brigade and that was incomplete, which i removed from the front edge, taking into account the blow from... at night i had to save, because if they had fulfilled their task, then again 10 brigades would have been

slaughtered, i understand that.. .things don't compared, but if we compare when it was more difficult, then or now in your opinion, the first days, the first weeks were very difficult, because for the first time it was impossible to assess everything that would happen, there was no understanding whether we would be able to endure, still there was fear that a huge country, a huge army, will we be able to stand. the first three days showed that we can not only expose, we can also beat them, the first grinding of the divisions of the brigade showed us that we can stand, there was confidence that we can not only defend and attack, there was a counter attack of the 95th brigade was carried out, we entered horlovka in the very first days, but since there was no power to develop this offensive, i already gave the order to stop this work, because this

brigade should... was not in reserve, one more clarification, you mentioned horlivka, i mentioned volnuvakha, there is very little information about her, but i remember that she was beaten once, then squeezed out again, she changed hands every day during the week , her simply razed to the ground, because valavah it was the key point from which we could conduct a counterattack in the direction of mariupol , and the enemy did everything in order to... equalize and withdraw our troops somewhere in the course of a week, then for 10 days he marched bimenno for volnovakha, moving from us to them and vice versa, but the advantage is still the huge in their strength means was able to give them the opportunity to hold the waves, and what battles, for what settlements in those early days, which we often mention, they were decisive for

maintaining the defense, let's say so. the first fight, it was a bridge of happiness, when they were replaced again he bridge, the enemy managed to overcome it, the battalion went there and tanks, bmp, given that i predicted that the bridge could be made by the enemy's drg, so that it would not break, two powerful artillery divisions, of a large, large caliber, were deployed, and these divisions simply grinded these two battalions that crossed over, after that they were knocked out and the bridge was already blown up, they then changed direction to trehonka, here for two days, a very fierce battle was fought, during the first day two battalions of the enemy were also destroyed here, but they went like locusts, so to speak, that's why they had

some success in this direction. but since the enemy left from here, from here, and this brigade 97 was completely encircled, a decision was made and it was withdrawn, although the brigade commander was very reluctant, well, we left literally before the corridor was closed, literally an hour or two remained there, when the enemy from the north, he was already closing the last road, going in the direction of the frontier. starabyl kamrich immediately organized a counterattack and went to the novidar frontier again, here within a week we had such dynamic actions, when we were both advancing and retreating, the enemy was in shock , probably because you were lying down, you were lying down in packs of them, so i will say that we worked very actively here, the 15th

battalion also worked actively, which became the direction. svatov and not only knocked out the opponents, attacked, but also carried out corresponding active actions, up to the point of a storm, well, i say once again that the huge, huge advantage in people, the number of forces and means gave us, gave us one chance, to take such a solid position of positional defense and keep her, we did it, and about movement... i understand that from the side of svatovo to kharkiv oblast, or is it svatovo, they went on a flint road, and that group that was in the kharkov region, it went through the raisin, we blew up all the bridges, did not give them the opportunity to cross, leave immediately to liman, and the only one, they made a crossing in the forest through...