More Due Effort to Possibly Sum Up Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine
Now all the services from Kiev, across Brussels and the Pentagon seem to be thinking: What is Gerasimov up to now?
During March 2022, the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine began first in Belarus and then in Istanbul. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to the Russian delegation announced in public that they managed to align their viewpoints on a number of issues and then Kiev presented a document in writing, which for Russia contained sufficient number of acceptable views with the neutral status out of any political bloc of Ukraine without foreign military bases, units or weaponry, nuclear arms included.
It was recommended that as the guarantors for security these countries would be included as follows: Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Italy, Canada, China, Poland, the USA, Turkey and France.
However, the basic disagreement related to Crimea and Donbass remained unresolved.
As a sign of good will, Deputy to the Russian Ministry of Defence Aleksander Fomin, gave his pledge on drastic reduction of the military activities in Kiev and Chernigov regions. Russia duly withdrew its troops from there. Yet, after the first meeting of the two delegations, the member of the Ukraine delegation Dennis Kireyev was murdered in the centre of Kiev. Anatoly Shariy, an Ukrainian blogger published that during the attempt to arrest him, Kireyev was shot in the forehead.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence confirmed Kireyev’s death emphasising that he was an official for the chief intelligence service and died on a special mission. On the fourth day after the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine accused Russia of killing civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Kiev. Ministry of Defence of Russia denied these accusations by the Kiev regime, after having proven that the video shots and the photos from Bucha were yet another orchestrated false flag operation by the Kiev regime performed for the eyes of the Western media. The current Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation in the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, reminded everybody at the UN Security Council meeting that while the city was under the control of the Russian military, not one citizen was murdered and that people could move freely around the city. At the same time, Ukrainian armed forces used to shell daily the southern part of Bucha, including the residential boroughs, with high-calibre artillery, tanks and multi-barrel rocket launchers. The mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedoruk immediately after the withdrawal of Russian army in his video address on the 31st of March represented that as a heroic liberation of the city by the Ukrainian armed forces. He confirmed that on the 31st already there was not one Russian soldier in the city. There was no mention of any casualty of war back then. Social media users noticed that the cadavers, which were surely supposed to be dead, were seen moving their arms and hands or some of them would move away so as to avoid being run over by the military vehicles. Also one can see in one of the rear views of a military vehicles one of the allegedly dead bodies literally stood up the minute a car passes it by (i.e. we are assuming that the poor bloke just thought his walk – in role of an extra in a theatre finished hat minute so he was free to go). After that provocation, the peace negotiations became frozen in their tracks completely.
In the meantime, all the hostilities move away to the east and the south of Ukraine. The main battle was fought for Mariupol, where the headquarters of the extremist group Azov, which is legally banned in Russia, was located. Azov was formed in May 2014, as a battalion of a patrol service for special purposes with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Shortly afterwards, it got under control of the National Guard, with its neo-Nazi symbol of the black sun, ‘wolf’s angel’ and wolf’s hook remaining, which used to be the symbols of SS units. Ukrainian leaders extolled their support for Azov due to their merits in the battlefield in Donbass. However, civilians in the southeast Ukraine remember the members of that national guard for their acts of violence, harassment and abuse of the locals.
Earlier on, members of the U.S. Congress would prohibit the Pentagon from providing any support for Azov. Some delegates of the U.S. Congress would point out that the Azov battalion is an ultra-nationalist paramilitary structure, which openly admits neo-Nazis in its ranks. They also called for the government to proclaim Azov a terrorist organization but that official resolution was not made. Regardless of rather displeasing remarks by the Collective West about the Azov Battalion, they kept getting weaponry from the West, including the USA.
Russian Army was aware that Mariupol would put up a huge defensive fight because Azov members knew there would be no mercy for them once the special military operation is finished. That is why extensive forces were deployed to liberate the city. Battles were fought literally for each and every building there. A month later, Ukrainian forces, Azov regiment extremists included, got surrounded and blocked in the territory of the old metallurgy plant by the name Azovstal. That unique edifice with extraordinary heavy industry facilities taking up 11 square kilometres was built back in the day during the USSR just in case there was a war against NATO. It has eight underground floors with the infrastructure life sustaining systems, ventilation and air purification. It also has independent energy supply systems.
All the efforts on the part of the Ukrainian army to evacuate their units ended in a failure. Then the negotiations about the surrender began. Everything finished on the May 21. 2,439 extremists and Ukrainian soldiers surrendered. The city was utterly destroyed. After the liberation of Mariupol, the Russian army focused on the liberation of Lugansk People’s Republic. Fierce fights were fought for Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. They were liberated by the end of June, of which the President Vladimir Putin was informed by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, and in doing so the whole republic was liberated.
During that operation it was revealed that the Russian army carry out their operations in four groups: the east, the west, the centre and the south. The name of General Sergey Surovikin was then mentioned for the first time. He was the commander of the group for the South. At the beginning of September, Russian Ministry announced that with the purpose of achieving the goals of the special military operation, the decision was taken to regroup the military formations from the direction of Kharkov Region towards the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The Snake Island was taken over by the Russian troops even earlier on at the beginning of the Russian special military operation. Russian army assumed control over it and in so doing, Odessa was blocked from the side of the sea. Ukrainian forces tried for months on end to liberate that strategic point at the front part of the mouth of the Danube river. In said military maneuvers they lost a number of helicopters, airplanes, drones and dozens of soldiers. Kiev and the Collective West requested that the port be unblocked so as to export the Ukrainian grains (Grain from Ukraine) into the poorest countries.
At the beginning of July, Russian Ministry of Defence announced that the garrison from the Snake Island in the Black Sea was to be withdrawn as a sign of good will on their part. Although it suffered defeats in Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republic, Ukrainian army declared the Russian withdrawal from the Snake Island as their own victory. With the mediation on the part of the United Nations and supported by the arguments that the poorest African countries would suffer terribly and die en masse due to famine (if the grains were not delivered in good time), Russia accepted to unblock the ports for the export of the Ukrainian grains but for the Russian wheat and artificial fertilizers. The agreement was signed by Ukraine, Turkey and the UN on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey. At the beginning of September 2022, the government of Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republic the same as those of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions announced a referendum on their joining the Russian Federation. It was held on September 23-27, 2022. On these days the regions were particularly targeted by shelling by the Ukrainian troops. Russian Defence Minister stated that seven Ukrainian military planes were downed, 45 Ukrainian drones and 109 missiles which were shot from U.S. HIMARS systems among others. Yet, undaunted by the continual heavy shelling by the Ukrainian army, the local Russian population voted at the referendum in huge proportion. 99, 23 % of the people voted in the Donetsk People’s Republic. In Lugansk People’s Republic, 98, 42 % voted, in Kherson region 87, 05 %, in Zaporozhye Region 93, 11 %. At the formal ceremony in Kremlin the document was signed about the reunification of these four regions with the Russian Federation. That milestone event can be regarded as the historic achievement because due to that the Azov Sea became the internal sea of the Russian Federation. The Zaporozhye nuclear plant, the biggest one in Europe, was put under Russian control as well.
Vladimir Putin at the beginning of October 2022, named General Sergey Surovikin as the commander of the joint forces in the zone of the special military operation for the first time officially. From the onset of the conflict in February 2022, he was at the forefront of the most dangerous part of the front: the south group. It was that group exactly to have liberated Mariupol. The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov named Sergey Surovikin a real general and a true soldier. Surovikin, who gained his glory in the battles against the notorious terrorists in Syria began resolving the greatest issue in the Russian army: the interaction between the different units, the army branches and the forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which became part of the Russian Army, and the Wagner Group.
Apart from that, General Sergey Surovikin had to make a difficult decision. He requested from Minister Sergey Shoigu for the Russian troops based in Kherson to withdraw to the left bank of the Dnieper River. Russian army successfully fended off the attacks on Kherson but the civilians were in continual danger. Given the circumstances, the difficult decision was made that the city population was to be evacuated and the Russian army to withdraw to the left bank.
In the meantime, the persecution and the purge of all sorts of ‘anything Russian’ relentlessly pushes on: ban of Russian books, Russian music, Russian films, to name but a few. The schools eliminated the Russian language and literature from their curricula and the books of the Soviet and Russian authors started being banished from libraries. Council of Experts of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine recommended that the toponyms related to Russia get to be renamed in the whole country. In Odessa the Monument dedicated to the Russian Empress Catherine the Great and to General Alexander Suvorov were demolished to the ground.
In December the situation reached its breaking point when Volodymyr Zelensky approved of the decision by the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine, which ordered the government to submit a proposal to the Ukrainian government as per the new law to prohibit the activities of Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The national citizenships for the 13 priests were revoked whereas the sanctions were introduced against 22 representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. The main Orthodox holy temple Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was brutally snatched away from the canonical Church and the first schism liturgy for Orthodox Christmas Epiphany was served there for the first time.
In the conflict lasting for a year already, the tragic human losses of the Ukrainian army reach staggering proportions: hundreds of thousands of dead people. In order to fill up their troops, the constant mobilization is ongoing. In some regions such as Odessa the mobilization is carried out by resorting to violence and duress. People are literally snatched off the streets and taken away to the front. There is a chronic shortage of manpower and weaponry in the Ukrainian army. Since the beginning of the special military operation Russian forces destroyed more than 380 enemy airplanes, 200 helicopters, 3,000 drones and about 7,500 tanks and other armoured weaponry. There was a dire need for these huge losses to be compensated for.
The Collective West officials kept reiterating that they cannot allow Russia to win. Moreover, some voices within the NATO say that they are ready for the direct conflict with Russia, if Russia attacks one of the NATO member states. Air defence systems PATRIOT and NASAMS 2 were approved instantly and then came the tanks. Berlin seems to have managed to avoid delivering the Leopard tanks for a long while but eventually, after being pressured by the Washington DC officials, Olaf Scholz, the now German Chancellor, had to yield to pressure. Truth be told, they sent only a handful of tanks: several dozen in total. That was surely a mere symbolic gesture on the part of Germany.
Kiev requested fighter planes as well because they had lost their fighter aviation almost completely. Although the Collective West appear to be in two minds about this, they are bound to OK it as well most certainly because the U.S. military industry is to cash in exorbitant sums of money from the whole business venture of war. As for the training of the Ukrainian pilots to be able to fly the new fighter jets, this does not come across as an issue for the Collective West whatsoever because they expect this conflict to last for years and bearing that in mind, they will have enough time to switch to the management of the NATO military equipment. Zelensky is already desperately asking for the missiles with the 150 to 300 km range. Arguably, he did not give a firm pledge set in stone that these would not be used to attack the targets on the Russian territory. However, nobody believes a word he is saying. Regarding this, Russian officials announced that the moving of the front to the West would depend on the missiles range. If these 300 km range missiles were to be delivered, the front can be furthered to the right bank of the Dnieper River.
Die Welt, a reputed German newspaper, believes that Kiev has missed its chance to win this war. The support from the U.S. and EU comes too late. Russian resources far exceed the Ukrainian ones. They literally excluded Ukraine from any chance of winning particularly if the Ukrainian President sees the victory as the genuine liberation of all the occupied territories, including Crimea, which is surely too far-fetched wishful thinking by Clown Prince Zelensky. But given the current situation in which one should first and foremost try and grasp the rationale behind the insufficient aid coming from the West it is undoable, says the author of the article in Die Welt.
Russia routinely carries out accurate missile attacks and drones against the strategic infrastructure objects in Ukraine. Energy structures and air defence systems get destroyed. Being only too well aware that the final reckoning is due, both sides in the conflict are closing ranks and grouping all the resources.
Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was recently appointed Commander of the Special Military Operation. He was the man to first define a hybrid war, which the USA already is waging against Russia. General Gerasimov is famous as one of the top notch Russian military commanders and a renowned military strategist. He has duly deserved utmost respect of the top commander of the Ukrainian army Valery Zaluzhny. In September 2022, Zaluzhny already stated for the Time that he had read everything what the Russian General Gerasimov had ever written. The Kiev regime offered an admission in December 2022 that they tried to assassinate Gerasimov during one of his unannounced visits in April 2022, though the USA wasagainst it. Now all the services from Kiev, across Brussels and the Pentagon seem to be thinking: What is Gerasimov up to now?
Note to the SCF readers:
this brief account of mine in two parts so far of the Russian Special Operation in Ukraine for the past year is surely lacking in the due homage to the assassination and tragic death of Darya Dugina, an assassination attempt of Dimitry Rogozin, the Crimean Bridge explosion, the Nord Stream blast, Bryansk bus terrorist attack within the territory of Russia, which I will be writing about in the third sequel to this one.
