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- Pridružio: 11 Sep 2011
- Poruke: 82
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16.6. Strelkov intervju:
Prevod sa reddita:
The noise you are now hearing is the sound of explosions from the heavy howitzer artillery, several batteries of which are firing at the suburbs of Slavyansk and the city of Kramatorsk. The fire is massed, almost exclusively at residential sectors and industrial sites. If Slavyansk has gotten used to constant shelling, every day, every night, Kramatorsk has not, and the city is currently in a grip of panic. For the first time, artillery is firing at city blocks, apartment buildings, private houses. There are widespread fires, many dead and wounded. Your colleagues from NTV are there now and I would expect a report to appear by tonight.
I would like to comment on how I see the current situation and the purposes for which all of this is being done. This is being done to show all the cities of Donbas what awaits them in the future. They have demolished Slavyansk. Over half of the population has already fled. Now they will demolish Kramatorsk. Kramatorsk is a bigger city than Slavyansk, and we will get another several tens of thousands of refugees, most of whom will attempt to flee to Russia. Russia, as far as I am aware, is completely unprepared for such an influx of refugees. Maybe somebody is reporting to Moscow that Russia is ready, but I have sources who tell me that Russia is absolutely not ready at the national level to accept tens of thousands, then hundreds, then a million, refugees. After Kramatorsk will be [destroyed] Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka, then Gorlovka, then Makeevka, then Donetsk, Lugansk, followed, finally, by what they call "everywhere". We see how the Ukrainian army is acting. They do not concentrate on armed resistance groups. They fire, first and foremost, at infrastructure. They make agreements with us to allow repair teams to fix civilian infrastructure then open fire at them, they declare that we are firing at our own schools, our own water treatment facilities, but we're the terrorists, they have nothing to do with it.
Now a short prognosis of what will happen in the future. The greatest concentrations of tanks and infantry have been moved to the north of Lugansk oblast and south of Donetsk oblast. These concentrations are daily advancing about 10-15km, methodically separating rebel, in their opinion "rebel", regions from the Russian border. So they're cutting off assistance to everyone. Beginning with ammunition and weapons, which may hypothetically some day be supplied, to food, medicines and everything else necessary. I assure you that if Russia does not take immediate, and I mean immediate, steps, they [the Ukrainian army] will succeed. The several thousand militiamen who are currently based in the regions abutting the border, even with the few tanks and a few guns they have, even a large amount of machine guns and grenade launchers, will not be able to long resist airstrikes, artillery, massed armor, basically everything in which the enemy has a complete superiority. The balance is something like 500:1 in tanks, 300:1 in IFVs, 800:1 in artillery, something like that. I'm not even mentioning aviation, they obviously have complete air superiority. That is why a week will pass, two, three, maybe a month. The most combat ready units of the militia will be bled white, and sooner or later defeated and destroyed. How the enemy operates we saw in Mariupol. They surrounded the city. Sealed it with roadblocks from all assistance using heavy equipment. After that units entered the city, special operations units, battalions of so-called volunteers, but in actuality mercenaries, "Azov", "Donetsk", etc., "Donbass". After that they clear the city from the few militiamen, and move on to the next population center. Garrison units then enter the newly-captured city, take complete possession of key points, apprehend anyone who doesn't seem happy, place them in these "filtration camps", and so on. This is what awaits us.
Now, I would like to comment on some of the discussions currently taking place in Russia. There seems to be a choice between full-scale war and non-intervention in the affairs of Novorossia. What does non-intervention actually mean? It is the introduction into Russian society the hope that local Russians will, by themselves, without serious assistance from Russia, be able to defend Novorossia, resist the enemy assault and successfully hold out for as long as it will take for Russia as a state to make up its mind. The second part of this is the convincing of the Russian people that a war to defend the locals, if it begins, is not in the Russian interests, that it will lead to difficult economic ramifications and has the possibility of ending unfavorably for Russia, at least in the economic sense. I can say this, that the war, which is already going on here, will result in severe economic ramifications for Russia is already a fact. Completely unavoidable. Russia will already suffer severely economically from this war which it chose not to enter, having not introduced peacekeeping forces at the correct time. When all of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which rose against the enemy, could have been pacified immediately after the referendum almost painlessly. From the moment Russian peacekeeping forces were not introduced, the countdown to our defeat began. Today, the introduction of peacekeepers is completely impossible without full-scale military operations, airstrikes, artillery support, armor support, and partial mobilization of the Russian army. We are basically just here delaying the inevitable. I'll tell you honestly, we're fighting, no one is sitting back, we're conducting a mobilization, both of manpower and the relatively few resources we have. But despite everything we are doing, we cannot catch up to the enemy. Some people seem to think that the Ukrainian army will fall apart if you spit on it. It will, without a doubt, collapse, if it goes up against an opponent which is even remotely a match for it. But we are not that opponent. This isnt even a fight of David against Goliath. This is a scenario of an ant fighting an elephant. The ant can try very hard to bite the elephant but eventually the elephant will crush the ant. Even if you take the elephant's legs out, it will crush the ant by sheer mass. And we shouldn't forget that the enemy receives financial, economic and military aid from the EU and US. If you think that the Hrivna after two months of war and the secession of a goodly chunk of Ukrainian territory is maintaining a relative stability all by itself, because it's backed by gold or somesuch, its just comical. Without a doubt Ukraine is being supported and will continue to be supported. In fact, they are being supported to such an extent that we here, the local population and the volunteers who have joined them, couldn't imagine in our wildest dreams. And in the face of such support, does anyone really think that we can survive against all this. Yes, maybe we can hold Slavyansk for a few weeks or a month, as I said yesterday in my interview. A month or a month and a half. But eventually we'll all die here. And we cannot keep shifting the Slavyansk garrison from one fire to another without exposing territory. Even if we put together another 5 Slavyansks', they will eventually be surrounded and destroyed, along with all the civilians. There is, in fact, only one alternative to war. Full-scale war, rather or the surrender of Novorissiya, has only one alternative. An immediate de facto recognition of Novorissiya, LNR, DNR, and the commencement of real, measurable, and immediate military assistance.
Reporter: Can we view this as an official statement to the Russian Federation?
I cannot address myself from an official position of the DNR on that. I may be styled as something of a Minister of Defence, my actual position doesnt warrant such a title. So I can only make this statement as the commander of the militia of the DNR and as a patriot of Russia and the Russian people. Yes, you can view that as a statement from the DNR people's militia.
Reporter: Our crew spent 3 or 4 days in Semenovka, in the trenches, on the front lines. We've spoken to a lot of people. Many of them want to attack, to take the enemy head-on. But the commanders explain to them that it is impossible. Can you say what resources are lacking...
All resources. Right now, in the immediate area of Slavyansk we have 5 batteries of enemy artillery. These are 20 heavy barrels from 122mm and up. In addition, hard to say exactly but at least 3-4 batteries of mortars of 120mm and 82mm caliber. The enemy is well dug in. His infantry numerically surpasses ours. Also, every enemy roadblock is supported by tanks and other armor. Every enemy roadblock, in terms of armor, has more units than everything we have in the Slavyansk and Kramatorsk area. All our forces. And in terms of maintenance, I dont even want to talk about that. We do not have a single tank. The enemy has them at every roadblock. Opposite Semyonovka the enemy has roadblock in the bend towards Krasniy Liman. Very recently that was supported by 6 tanks. They're still there, just moved back to reserve areas. If I order the militiamen to attack, they will first get hit by mortars, in open fields, then they'll get pounded by aircraft, then artillery, then they'll get crushed by tanks. And then we'll get Donetsk Airport #2 but with even more losses. And when whatever is left returns to their original positions, they will no longer have the strength not just to attack, but even to defend. And this is basically the situation on all areas of the front. We can nip at the enemy, we can strike from the flanks, we can hit him with our sabotage/reconnaissance groups, we can knock out 1-2 units of armor a day, sheerly by the heroism of our fighters, who can get into the enemy rear and strike at him point-blank. But we cannot change the situation with heroism and light weapons alone, against a superbly supplied army.
We can only defend. Defend, defend, defend. But unfortunately, the enemy surpases us everywhere, every area of the front, in terms of both equipment, which doesn't even bear comparison, and manpower.
Reporter: Can you comment on the information which has come out online of the militia, not Slavyansk, but Donetsk, Gorlovka units, of heavy equipment such as tanks, Grad and the report today that Alexei Mozgovoy's (sp?) unit captured 15 BTRs. How acurate is this?
First of all, as the old saying goes, "nowhere else do you get the same level of bullshit as war and fishing". I know how Alexei 's operation went, what he captured, some things he destroyed in place. It was certainly, for a unit of the size of his, which is significantly smaller than the Slavyansk garrison, [a good strike?]. Weapons were captured, yes, but it's not enough. The enemy can make up those losses from the virtually inexhaustible stocks left over from the USSR, any amount of equipment we capture or destroy. We, meanwhile, do not even have a rear area. When this captured equipment breaks down, we dont even have the means of fixing it for a complete lack of spare parts, which no one, obviously, is delivering to us. Please understand. One BMP will never be able to resist 20-30. And even the 3 tanks which have been restored in Gorlovka, old tanks, even those cannot fight against 30, 60, 90. And the Ukrainian army has hundreds of tanks here. Thats not even taking into account the Su-25s that are flying around. Even if we shoot them down once in a while, they still hold complete air superiority.
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