Terrorist Igor Girkin gave commentary to a Russian publication on the timelines of Russian progress in the Donbas, saying they are nowhere near approaching Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and Ukraine is holding back its strongest reserves.
We bring a translation of his statement below. As the interviewer questions how quickly the Russians will reach Kramatorsk and Sloviansk line of defence, Girkin rejects an idea that it will happen any time soon given that Bakhmut is still standing.
According to him, Wagner will not be enough to occupy the rest of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. More on this below:
⚡️ SVPRESSA: Even in the summer, analysts voiced that "Russia will take several months to liberate the front lines of Seversk-Soledar-Bakhmut.”
And now these months have passed, and the enemy's line of defense is gradually shifting to the west. Sooner or later, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will roll back to the next line - Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka. How do we break it?
Do we continue going straight ahead, or around - maybe to the south, or maybe better to the north? What kind of scenarios can be there? The question of what will happen next is better to identify in advance, and it would be nice to find an answer to it in advance.
The space in front of the line of cities from Sloviansk in the north to Konstantinovka in the south can be occupied. All the way to Bakhmut, there are only fields and small villages. American military experts even say: "The left bank of the Dnieper is a desert."
That is, the Russians can get through this territory relatively easily. But how to take the one fortified area that is essentially elongated from north to south? Here, one city passes into another.
Apparently, we will again have to gnaw through step by step, freeing the west of Donbas. It would be necessary to act more cunningly, to maneuver, but is it possible?
To answer this question, we turned to the ex-Minister of Defense of the [so-called] DPR, the head of the social movement "Novorossiya" Igor Strelkov, who believes that it is premature to talk about reaching the line between Sloviansk and Kramatorsk:
⚡️ Girkin: So far, there is no discussion even about the capture of Bakhmut, because the battles for this city continue. And it has been under siege for a long time. Therefore, to say that "we will soon go to Sloviansk" can only be corrected: "relatively soon."
In general, my position on the operation, which is being carried out by the Russian military command in the Donbas, is quite well known and is defined by the words: "It is yet to be done.”
All over the world, it has long been customary to bypass defense nodes, to force the enemy to leave them without a fight. And we decided to act according to the patterns of the First World War, and in its worst versions.
It's hard for me to say when our troops will reach the line Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka. Maybe relatively soon, maybe not very soon.
Maybe in the coming months, they won't reach it at all, there is a fairly large foreground there and the “respectable Ukrainian partners” will not leave it without a fight.
But in any case, even if we reach this line, it will be a pity if these cities are also destroyed during offensive operations, as Bakhmut has now been destroyed.
And it will be even more difficult to take them because they are much larger, much more strongly fortified.
If in Soledar before the start of the special operation, the population was just over ten thousand people, then Kramotorsk until 2014 was a city of 150 thousand people. No Wagner is enough to take the agglomeration by storm. This will require way more forces.
Frankly, I do not share the victorious, and, as they say, hurray-patriotic moods of our media after the capture of Soledar. After all, this victory means practically nothing compared to, just for example, the surrender of Kherson.
And even the surrender of the much larger city of Izyum, which happened during the so-called regrouping, but in fact, it was a retreat of our troops from the Kharkiv region.
⚡️ SVPRESSA: But after all, the Armed Forces of Ukraine also suffer, in your words, "ultra-casualties." But the leadership in Kyiv planned this - they are preparing reserves in the rear, but do not bring them into battle.
This happened near Popasna (LPR), near Severodonetsk, near Lysychansk. And later they threw these forces into a counterattack on Kherson. Are we seeing the same picture now?
⚡️Girkin: The enemy still retain their reserves. Moreover, they create new ones. They do not bring them into battle, do not expose to our blows the most combat-ready units intended for offensive operations on their side.
Instead of them, the territorial defense is fighting, various reserve units formed from "mobiks". And they hold back the staff units, as they did last summer when our troops stormed positions in Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, and then in Pisky.
Where the enemy is going to strike, or whether he keeps these units in reserve to repel our offensive, I do not have this information, since the only source of information about the enemy’s forces for me is the Internet. And this source is very incomplete and unreliable.
But I look at which parts of them are involved in Soledar in Bakhmut and state the fact that there are no shock units and formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the forefront.
⚡️SVPRESSA: What would you advise our chief commanders to do? Or is it not worth doing this at all, keeping a military secret?
⚡️Girkin: Our command does not need advice. It does not listen to them, and often acts illogically and completely opposite to what is required.
They did not carry out an offensive operation on Dnipro to cut through the enemy's communications between the Dnieper and Donbas. They won't do it now. And in Mariupol, the enemy left the garrison just enough to order to divert our forces to it.
Now it has become more difficult for us. Everywhere, from the Kinburn Spit in the south, between the Dnieper and the Black Sea, to the border with Belarus in the north, the enemy has formed a continuous line of defense.
I don’t know what our military leaders will do, and it’s useless to advise them anything...
According to the ex-Minister of Defense of the [so-called] DPR, now one can see a kind of repetition of the same picture that emerged in the spring and summer, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbas deliberately fought to deplete the potential of Russian troops in their…
…fortified positions.
Yes, the Armed Forces of Ukraine fail, retreat, lose ground after fierce heavy fighting, but their failures are tactical. But they do not touch their strategic reserves.
Perhaps they are preparing to repel our future offensive in other more promising areas. Or maybe they are planning a victory somewhere?
They are surrendering their positions on the fortified Soledar-Bakhmut line, not trying to make serious breakthroughs.
They do not send their main forces there, if, of course, the Bandera regime still has them. But, according to Strelkov, the management of the battle by our Western opponents "remains clear and thoughtful." Although very bloody.
End of translation.
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Summary of the semi-daily livestream with Oleksiy Arestovych, former Ukraine’s Presidential Head of Office advisor, Day 328, January 17th. Kindly brought to you by Volodymyr: twitter.com/VolodyaTretyak
Arestovych was fired one year ago on the same day, the 18th. Now he is a free man. According to Oleksiy, this was a fundamental mistake that must be accepted. There is no conflict, and there will be no conflict in the presidential office.
So while the war is going on, the President and his office are fully supported. After the war, Ukraine will figure out who did what wrong.
Summary of the semi-daily livestream with Oleksiy Arestovych, Ukraine’s Presidential Head of Office advisor, Day 327, January 16th. Kindly brought to you by Atis: @savaadaak
⚡️ Reactions to Saturday's broadcast (Dnipro missile strike):
There have been attacks on this live stream since the first day, now a different narrative became somewhat successful - that Arestovych is a Russian agent.
[translator's comment - On Saturday's stream Arestovych mentioned that Kh-22 missile was or could have been hit by air defense before it hit an apartment building]
Today, nobody believes that the Kh-22 missile was hit by air-defense.
Summary of the semi-daily livestream with Oleksiy Arestovych, Ukraine’s Presidential Head of Office advisor, Day 325, January 14th (yesterday). Kindly brought to you by Atis: @savaadaak
Total 33 missiles launched, 21 intercepted. In the morning Kyiv and Kharkiv were shelled by modified S-400, total 4 explosions. Then 10 Kalibr missiles and 21 winged missiles, from which 5 Kh-59 (tactical level, 200-300km) and 5 Kh-22 (600km).
One of those Kh-22 then hit an apartment building in Dnipro. 72 apartments in that section.
This shows, 🇷🇺 russia is having shortage of accurate missiles, yet missile attacks won't stop - they will be smaller. This is a significant decrease from 100/70/50 previously.
Summary of the daily livestream with Aleksey Arestovych, Ukraine’s Presidential Head of Office advisor, Day 323, January 12, 2023. Kindly brought to you by Stepan: twitter.com/childsacrifice1
⚡️ RU command change and internal strife: Gerasimov was appointed the supreme commander of the "special military operation" in Ukraine. This is a sign of political infighting in Russia.
There are 3 internal political factions around Putin: the oligarchs with "liberal" tendencies, the classic Siloviki, and the "crazy" far right: Kadyrov, Prygozhyn, etc. The appointment of Gerasimov is a snub to the far right.
I teamed up with the 69th Sniffing Brigade to raise funds for the purchase of 1) two off-roaders and 2) equipment for units of two Ukrainian brigades currently repelling the orc invader aggression in Bakhmut and Mar’inka.
The total amount we are looking to raise is EUR 32,370. These two vehicles and equipment will form part of a larger convoy of 10-15 cars that will depart from Estonia to Kyiv in early February 2023.
Summary of the daily livestream with Aleksey Arestovych, Ukraine’s Presidential Head of Office advisor for Day 321, January 10th 2023, kindly brought to you by Anastasiya: @Anastasiya1451A
🔥Battlefield overview
Russia is concentrating efforts in the towns of Bahmut & Soledar, Donetsk region. Ukraine is defending its current positions, exhausting Russian forces and accumulating resources for the next counteroffensive.
🔥Soledar
Russia has put Soledar in semi-encirclement, trying to take the town. The Russian command has refocused its efforts on Soledar from the previous direct attacks on Bahmut as the defences of Soledar aren’t as strong as in Bahmut.