defense, when you are beaten from all sides and you expect a 360° attack, it is very difficult, well, i will say, our people did a miracle, they did a real feat, because no one expected that in such a state with such an advantage, we would be able to withstand , and many things we still keep. what was at the beginning of the war was the most dangerous - it was the luhansk part of our defense, because the enemy was advancing from the south, from the north, and from the east, and those brigades were surrounded, because in reality the means to stop the onslaught there were none from three sides, but those we pushed the reserves that were there to the border, to the border of happiness. starobsk, bilovodsk, and

they played their role, they stopped the pace, which allowed us to regroup the entire means and occupy the line, which we continued to receive and stopped the onslaught, for three days, i would say so, the group that went first-order was so it was noticed 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the occupied territories, all the brigades that stood on the line clashes, people who had experience, they were withdrawn, strike groups were formed, and they were mobilized to the front edge in order to restrain and restrain our actions, but we managed to... stop them, because

the main blows in the direction of luhansk and the direction of mariupol, the first days were beaten. i understand that the military constantly plans some 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 , on paper, obviously, on maps, you understood that could happen, but uh, what did you think when it actually happened, you know, on paper, we played out a lot of situations, just... dangerous for us, it was something that we could get into, so we did everything, in order to prevent us from having a corridor through which ammunition, resources , and evacuating the wounded would be delivered, and we succeeded in this, we could not prevent the enemy from suddenly entering the er line, which would not have given us maneuver, i will say , the enemy did not expect such

a meeting, so the russian units that were going through the luhansk region, faced with our reserves, which were standing, they stood only focally on the main directions, but this gave time, they were stopped, they were busy replanning their actions, bypassing our units, asking to surround them, one battalion biloodsky was encircled, but due to the options of the enemy's actions, we understood that there would be a defense, so we basically guessed all the directions, the first is from luhansk in the direction of happiness, the second in the direction of mariupol. in

order to dissect and surround ours groups, and basically i concentrated all the reserves in these directions, and they worked, because if this had not been done, literally on the second or third day we would have already been in a deep environment, then it was already difficult to make any decisions, and so we managed not only to disarm the group that was going directly to our... our forces, but to attract the forces that were in the kharkiv region and in the south of ukraine. can you tell me which zone you were responsible for during the invasion, what we see in front of us, how long it was there. responsibility group of the united forces, it was luhansk, donetsk region. the length of the line of contact with the enemy was up to 400 km. but in addition to this, there was also a border in the luhansk region, directly. of the russian federation,

so the threat was from here both from the first and second army corps, and in this direction also worked fid divisions of the eighth army. of the enemy's corps, as well as from the kharkiv region and from the luhansk region, this is the 1st tank army, which advanced in the direction of kupinsk, and the 20th army, which advanced in the direction of the podroz army, which were moving in the direction of starabilsk. did you talk about the directions of the main blows, if you visualized on the map, where it was? the directions of the holoudars were the main direction in... luhansk region, it was the one that went from the direction of luhansk along the border of happiness and trehonka, this direction, in the direction to go to severdonetsk, luhansk and go to the rear of our troops, and the second strike was

along the border, passing volnovakha mariupol in order to cut off so that... surround mariupol and also came out to our cities, in addition to this additional several blows, the main the strike was imminent, the strike was also on starobsk, the strike was in the direction of horlovk, along the border of svatovo, starobilsk and belovodsk, we created the corresponding buffer zones, these are strong points that did not... allow the sudden arrival of the enemy, he was stopped, began to regroup, assess the tasks , asks, try to bypass our troops, so that he did not expect to meet someone in this direction, the belovodsk tank battalion

of the 7th brigade, which was routed, because the enemy came out from the direction of millerov and from midnight, and thanks to the heroism of the guys, they immediately broke through to... their main forces, destroying four strongholds that had already been posted along the way, and these units, i understand, also fall under the threat of the encirclement, and the way they performed their task, we went to the border, kremina, rubizhne, starabelsk, in order to close the line, make a continuous line of defense and already definitely get the enemy at this border. given the presence of this tool, it will be the only opportunity to hold the enemy, stabilize the situation, regroup and continue hostilities. the people worked to the full, considering that we had three battalions here, they are advancing, well, you understand

what russian groups there were, well , they counted, and this group was stopped, because it was marching out and leaving in our style in the direction of slov yanska kramatorsk and completely close the ring, and this is the collapse of the entire group, and in principle it is the collapse of ukraine, because the main forces, this is half of the armed forces that were constructed here, because we had somewhere at the beginning of the war 22 brigades, half performed tasks on the line clashes, and half of them regained their fighting capacity, but regarding the brigades, i understand that basically everyone fought, including newly mobilized ones. people who were drafted as part of or1, or2, operatives in the first place, but are there units that could be noted and in which directions it was, i can say that all the brigades that fought, that the 79th brigade showed itself, well very, yes, this is a 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 there, so to speak, should be singled out better and worse, they all performed their task perfectly, yes, the fate of some was much more, so the 54th brigade, which was standing in this direction, well, it endured so much, it destroyed, together with the 36th brigade, up to the enemy division in the first days, well these are huge numbers. huge numbers, these are the numbers that 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, no , it is difficult to predict the end of this war, it probably really would be in two or three weeks, you? began their story with the fact that on the first day there were strikes on control points, and immediately because of that i want to clarify what actually happened in the headquarters of the oos, so in the first days, how was the leadership? were asleep, awake, was there a threat of loss of controllability, because in fact a lot of people talked about it on the scale of ukraine, that the armed forces kept controllability and, accordingly, could retaliate against the russian troops, as was the case at your request? the first rockets just arrived at the command post, they did not exactly go in the goal of the assembled command post, but the soldiers could not stand it, the entire personnel was in the evening. placed specifically in underground shelters, which is why it saved everyone's lives

, the impact was very powerful, and we lost communication for a short time, well, it was no more than half an hour, we lost power, but the backup sources were turned on, the backup sources of communication were also worked, so there was no loss, also at all strongholds, at all command posts and... the rest of the groups and brigades also worked perfectly, we had constant communication, we managed the troops from the first day, the first three days were especially tense, it was 24/7 work, 24/7 such a tense situation, where we did not understand how much we had, what forces would go to support them, constant airstrikes, we... then were forced on the first day to inflict damage on the enemy on its territory

at the millerov airfield, because complete superiority in the air did not allow our troops to raise their heads, but the strikes on the airfields in the enemy's territory forced them to pause, move their planes to other aerodromes, and this gave us the opportunity to also sort out, focus and further already... work more efficiently on their means of air direction, i understand that it was a rather risky operation, still move the points, as far as i understand forward , when the line shifts, points, points were moved literally to the line of confrontation with the enemy, which was a very active and active struggle just between the defending and attacking units, and in that chaos it was difficult to understand. where, which unit, well done artillerymen, they are clear worked, the panic among the russians was

huge, no one expected that they would attack the territory of russia on the very first day of the war. how did you, as a military man, perhaps think about it, you have the opportunity to strike on the territory of russia, well, in one way or another, you waged a war with russia while in donbas, commanding the troops, and here there is an opportunity to strike, it was a private strike, we would have... to do it because there were no other options, but we clearly understood that there was no other option, on the first day we destroyed seven planes, and many planes were not as desired would, 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, and they would have a brutal time ahead... they mentioned several times that the critical

there were the first three days, but can you explain to the civilian people what this resulted in, that is, after three days the russian army stopped, why did it happen, why did it happen, after three days we stopped the main forces of the enemy, inflicted quite a powerful blow on them, we saw , which is already mobilized into battle. we drew a clear line defense, and most importantly, the first wave passed , how to say, maybe panic, because we did not have the use of such a powerful amount of firepower, aviation means, the war, starting from the 14th to the 22nd year, took place without the use of aviation, therefore i will get used to the fact that you... are constantly attacked by the air enemy, will be ready to repel these attacks, you also

need to have a certain experience, a certain practice, and literally in three days, we managed to overcome it, figure out how to proceed , people began to confidently shoot down enemy aircraft, no longer there was such impudence that there was. in the first days, when the pilot performs the task without orders, he flies in front of the target, takes aim, drops the ammunition, harvests, without orders. leaves the task area after the third or fourth day, having lost a very large number of aircraft, of course the pilots were shot at a distance, mostly not impressive targets, and this gave us a certain opportunity to clearly perform the task, and how it was possible to motivate people, well, it’s not a secret, that there are

cases when people leave the position, this phenomenon has been avoided, you know, this... the phenomenon was avoided, there was not a single 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 had all been in the war for more than a year, they were all used to shots , to shelling, to deaths, to injuries, and they received quite good training. in addition, starting from february 16 to 24 , the number of shelling increased dozens of times, that is, our positions were ironed out very powerfully, provoking the fact that we inflicted damage on residential objects and

settlements on the line of contact for to have a pretext for the introduction of plenipotentiaries... professionally destroyed targets without shelling populated areas, not even taking into account the fact that sometimes the russians and our traitors set up cannons and fired at the offensive from there directly between residential buildings, we understood that if we let's give an excuse, it's for the world. notes will be an excuse to start a war against us. i have to ask about mariupol, the city where the breakthrough took place, can you tell us how it happened, what went wrong? we managed to get out, because we got a blow from the west, after passing peresheyk, a powerful

group went to the rear of our unit, we managed to regroup, but everything was fine... those forces were not able to stop such an armada that was coming at us, they cut off the main road, and the group remained in encirclement, we immediately began to carry out measures to create a group in order to break through this corridor, i brought out the 95th brigade, having regrouped and began to prepare it for a counterattack. but we could clearly see three oak trees in the immediate vicinity, and the troops were constantly marching from the west felling in order to create such a line that we could not do anything, and there really

was that group that was in mariupol, it was chained, for sure. everything that was able to fight, to go on. well, in essence , the mariupol group saved the south from completely cutting off ukraine from the black sea. we were not able to make the blow, because another group went to the sides of the kharkiv region, again the enemy,... grouped, concentrated and through the raisin struck a new blow in our back, and i was forced by this brigade to close this gap that they found in order to hit our back, i will say that the brigade did a great job, the kharkiv group

was swarming, it was stopped, it was inflicted, quite powerful damage, the enemy suffered... the losses stopped and the positional defense began, so somewhere in the middle of march, we already moved to the position, stabilized the line, moved to positional defense, and there were no such large breakthroughs, this made it possible to regroup, document our troops and continue to hold this line, most importantly, it gave the opportunity to bind... huge enemy forces around the group, the eastern group of troops. in your opinion, was it possible with the available forces and means that you had at your disposal to take the city, well, that is, in that situation, in a confrontation with those forces, it was impossible, because the advantage of the enemy was somewhere from seven to 10 multiple,

like that of the enemy in the opposite direction, so i needed three or four brigades to break through, at least to carry out a counterattack operation, i had one brigade and that incomplete, which i removed from the front edge. given the blow from the north, i needed to save because if they did their job, then again 10 brigades were killed, i understand that things are not comparable, but if you 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 evaluate everything. there was no understanding of what would happen, whether we would be able to resist, still there was a fear that a huge country, a huge

army, would we be able to withstand, the first three days showed that we could not only exhibit, we can beat them, the first divisions of the brigade that we can stand, the confidence that we can not only defend and attack appeared, was carried out. the counterattack of the 95th brigade, we entered horlovka in the very first days, but since there was no power and means to develop this offensive, i already gave the order to stop this work, because this brigade was needed as a reserve, one more clarification, you mentioned about horlivka, i remembered volnuvakha, there is very little information about her, but i remember that she was beaten once, then squeezed out again, she is still week passed what... well, from hand to hand, it was simply razed to the ground, because in alnov it was a key point from which we could conduct a counterattack in the direction of mariupol, and

the enemy did everything to level it and remove it our troops, somewhere in the course of a week or 10 days, there was a battle called zavalnavakh, crossing, from us to them and vice versa, but the advantage is still huge in their forces and means. was able to provide them with the opportunity to keep waves. and what battles, for what settlements, in those first days, which we often mention, they were decisive for holding the defense, let's say so. the first battle , it was a bridge of happiness, when they again replaced that bridge, the enemy managed to overcome it, the battalion entered there, and tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, considering that i predicted that the bridge could be... the enemy's drg. he did not break. two powerful khartilian divisions were deployed.

large, large-caliber, and these divisions simply painted these two battalions, which are peppery. after that, they were knocked out and the bridge was already blown up. they then changed the direction on a three-way street. here for two days. very fierce battles were going on, two battalions of the enemy were also destroyed here on the first day, but they moved like locusts, so to speak, that's why they had some success in this direction, but since the enemy went from here, from here, and this brigade 97 was completely surrounded , a decision was made and it was withdrawn, although the brigade commander was very reluctant, but... we left literally before the corridor was closed, literally an hour or two remained there, when the enemy from the north was already closing the last road, going in the direction of the

starabilsk border, kamrich immediately organized counter-attack and went to the line of novidar again, here during the week we had such dynamic actions, when we both advanced and retreated. they had shocks, probably because you laid down, laid down packs of them, so i will say that we worked very actively here, the 15th battalion also worked actively, which stood in the direction of kryminaya svatov and not only knocked out the enemy, but also also carried out corresponding active actions up to svatov, well , i say once again that there is a huge, huge advantage in people, the number of forces and means. gave us, gave us one chance, to occupy such a one solid positional defense and hold it, that's what

we did. and regarding the movement, as i understand it, from the side of svatovo to the kharkiv region, or is it svatovo, they went to the flint, and the 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, immediately go to liman, and the only thing is, they made a crossing in the forest over... the askul river and tried to cross it, and there were the main battles for this crossing, at first we were, although it was not the area of ​​responsibility of the os, well, i was forced to finish off the reserve, but the enemy bypassed the forces that were stationed on the northern outskirts of izyum and went through the forests, they were led by

local foresters, and they went to the rear... we managed to react and get to the border of the askol river, and the northern part of the city was held for about a week , until planes, it was not completely leveled with the ground. over the course of a week , the enemy simply methodically leveled all our positions, and here the majority of the people who defended themselves were mobilized, who came from the east and took their place in the formation. they mentioned a missile attack on russian airfield, do you remember the area from... where it was launched from, the strike is being launched somewhere from this area, and it is even close to the old demarcation line, yes, i take into account that the enemy was already here, we came as close as possible, as much as possible, and inflicted damage on the airfield and the means of air attack that were there, it was more psychological, because it was impossible to inflict damage in large numbers with the ones it is, but it gave its effect that

the panic was insane. we saw from the means of intelligence that the planes took off in a panic and scattered all over russia. you said that by the middle of march , the line had stabilized, and you had already, as it should be said, transferred to kyiv, i was in kyiv as planned, but at that moment, at the moment of your transfer, was there an understanding that the russian troops could leave kyiv region, not only kyiv region, but the north of ukraine in general? just when i arrived... there was a very dangerous situation, the enemy had captured a bridgehead in the maschun area, and there was a very great danger of going to the outskirts and breaking through them into the city. thanks to the powerful defense and stability of our troops, the fact that we managed to blow up the dam and wash away all the crossings that they had set up to

move the main forces across. to destroy it and further exhaust the forces and resources they had on the other side, which were like a crutch for advancing on kyiv, it was difficult to understand what they had, that they would continue to act, somewhere closer to the end of march . when we realized that no fresh reinforcements were coming to them, and a number of measures were taken to cut off the lines of supply, they tried to hone in on the logistical routes of the supply of reserves, and with the beginning of this operation, which is being conducted by general syrskyi, the enemy vanichno began to flee, because most of the units were

not so much us during this month of fighting... that 30-40% remained. was it a surprise to you that they left? well, it was a surprise for us in the first place, because we thought that they would still go to the end. there was no step, as they tell you, from their side. there was a panic flight from our territory. in my opinion, simply by analyzing the forces and means, which they have at that moment, they had to choose what to do. whether to finish the operation in the east or to organize everything in kyiv , but since they could not finish it from where, because this was the main goal that was declared, this liberation, as they call the luhansk donetsk region, that is why all resources were thrown there, and those subdivisions that appeared in the kyiv region after regrouping before staffing as well.