Original text: http://kenigtiger.livejournal.com/1555422.html



“How Debaltsevo was taken. View of the participant of the process.



I apologize before my regular readers for the delay about this text. LiveJournaling isn’t my job that provides me my daily bread, even more, even in my free time after arrival to Moscow I had been impossibly busy.. I hope, somewhat higher objectivity, comparing to professional bloggers and publicists, will compensate the fact that you’re not reading this text on the next day after the “liquidation of the cauldron”.



One more time I apologize that in the very first lines of this work I’ll have to write with bold letters for those, who’re used to “leaf through”



“ I was there, in Sanzharovka and in Debaltsevo, I fought on the LPR side in “August” battalion. This text — isn’t a compilation of texts from entornets or stories of witnesses. I’ve seen everything that I’m writing about with my very own eyes”.



One more moment. Citizens, willing to explain me how much harm I’m causing the common cause with my story, what an Ukropian spy I am and such — may not bother themselves. I’m not revealing any military secrets and not telling anything that enemy doesn’t know yet. I invite those who will be telling me that I’m a scaremonger and “All-Is-Lost!”-er to join me in my next journey to Novorossia. We’ll see who’s who on the ground.



On the pretensions like “With your scribble you’’ scare the volunteers from RF off and they won’t to fight” I answer — if this truth scares them, it’s better not to go there, better work here and help the fighters on the frontline financially. Because for example a person comes, he’s taught, trained and then, when that, what’s described it this “scribble” starts he’ll desert. What would be the result? Long hours and days of time spent on commander to train the soldier would be wasted.



I write this text because I want us to win this war, and with minimal losses possible. I realized that such text is necessary when, upon arrival from Novorossia, witnessed a wave of victorious communiques from the combat zone on the internet, followed by completely inappropriate boasting moods. An apogee was the writer Martianov’s contest of artistic boasting, that, in the end, gave birth to such “wonderful collection of sophisticated mockery over Ukrops”[ed. I don’t have time, nor I want to, to translate that stuff — stupid humor written by guys who most likely even hadn’t been on war]



Also, two articles by Vlad Shurigin played their role - “Battle crisis” and“Victory”, where degree of boasting had been increasing vividly and graphically. From “command was forced to make nonstandard decisions of replenishment of the group that had been fighting around Debaltsevo with the reserves. So, additional companies were formed from the servicemen of the staffs and logistical structures in order to enforce the attacking group” in the first text, and to “NAF command hasn’t even used its reserves”, in the second one. (Yes, dear military historians, it’s not a typo. This, turns out, is a NONstandard decision. After such “discovery of America” we can await for “invention of the bicycle”! ). You’d better finally decide what is your official version, dear “comrades politruks” [ed. political officers in Red/Soviet army]. What happened there? Either it was a victorious march, that didn’t require any reserves, or a convulsing of sending everything possible from the rears to fill the holes in the frontlines. I was especially mad and persuaded in necessity of this text by the desire of author to show systematic mistakes in developement of NAF military as “single flaws” and blame privates and junior commanders for them. Classics of the genre, generations of soldiers pay with their lives for.



Epigraphs.



“Every lieutenant is a Napoleon, every corporal - Prince of Savoy, only there’s no one to fight. Baron! Connect me to Litovsky. Litovsky? Who’s that? Gubarevich? It’s me, Vasilchikov. Are your projectors on? Listen.. light the Sivash up, just in case. What? As I’ve told — just in case © “Two comrades served” [”Служили два товарища”] movie.





Inspection of the trophy objects of the invincible Ukrainian army has caused perplexity… Truth to speak, I sincerely used to think that there can’t be worse mess and irresponsibility [ed. it’s a different, swear word in original here, but it’s impossible to translate it to English], than the ones in our Armed forces. With all responsibility, I state: it can! If the state of all units is the same as in the inspected ones, then I don’t get it — why the heck stop at the Crimean Isthmuses. In automobile battalion, only 9 of 130 wheeled vehicles turned out to be operational ( and after the 50-km march, we had to tow 3 of them ).

Only commander’s UAZ and field kitchen were completely intact. According to certain info, to the north of Perekop and Chongar [ed. isthmuses] everything is in the exactly same state… including tanks and other armored vehicles.

However, everything is carefully painted - even the hopelessly broken and unrepairable things. There are lots of rarities from 60s and 70s of USSR - especially about the means of communication Afghan period hand radio stations taken out from the depot caused a tears of tenderness to flow … © Kotych [ed. Igor Strelkov’s nick on the ‘secret forum’, post was written in March ‘14, when in Crimea he inspected the former Ukrianian military units that joined RF]





“A miracle has happened, Mother! Fleet that would be worse then ours has been found!!” © credited to Alexei Orlov reporting Yekaterina II about victory at Çeşme.



Instead of a prologue, just for your understanding.



When on the entornets I read phrases like “NAF haven’t even used their reserves yet” about Debaltsevo, that roam from the compositions of one “politruk” to another one’s, I remember the night, tree belt along the railroad near Debalstevo and two BMP, one — our own “dvushka” [ed. BMP-2] the last operational BMP of the battalion at the moment and “kopeika” [ed. BMP-1] attached to our battalion from the nearest brigade. We got unloaded from the “Ural” trucks, what kinda told us — enemy arty is still working ahead. There was less than a company of us. About 30 dismounted tankers of our battalion plus 3 more dozens of volunteers that had just arrive from Luhansk recruitment office, who had been handed over their rifles right in front of me, less than 24 hours before the combat. Shooting training? Drills? Exercises? People who had raised their hand on the question “Who have served in army?” got assigned as platoon and team leaders. That’s it.



Senior commander who saw us off had shown us the direction to go, told the callsign of the commander of combat group we were meant to shift on the frontline and added: “ ‘Friendlies’ signal — a green flare. But I don’t have no flares, nor I have flare-gun for you”.



There wasn’t a single PKM for an entire band. Not a single underslung GL. “Mukhas” [ed. “Flies”, RPG-18] — as old as I am, only one of 3 has worked and couple of RPG-7, people were somehow taught to use them right en route. When, on the next day, after passing the “Ghost” [ed. brigade] positions, we approached ukrops, there were “200th” [ed. KIAs] of the same “consolidated company” as ours lying beside the enemy positions. Only they were “dismounted” artillerists. And they weren’t killed by scary Polish mercenaries and not by hellish American marines.They were killed by the UAF soldiers lead by the mobilized agronomist.



Tell me about the unused reserves.





Main bad and it’s consequences.



The main systematic problem of the military development of the NAF was, first of all, the fact that everything was done according to the worst templates of the Soviet army at its worst period, and the second - everything was done so, as if army was going to fight in a year. Better in two.

The nightmare of the “scary lieutenant” hasn’t materialized, but was close to.



So, first things first, someone sent militias stuff lists for the motorized riflemen brigades, that are formed in corps, as well as for other units of corps subordination. Like “take your places now, quick! Quick, enlist all “makhnovsty” [ed. from anarchist Nestor Makhno troops — disorganized gangs, nowadays the term is used to call poorly organized or simply not strictly subordinated units who tend to act on their own] with their kingpins, and recruit people where you lack them! The ones who isn’t agree will be deprived of “voentorg” [ed. supplies]. Mozgovoi refused, and in the end, turned out to be right.



Then someone decided that lots of “iron” [ed. armored vehicles, artillery] is cool. Especially it’s cool where there’re lots of artillery and tanks. An voentorg has cast its mighty magic [ed. term author uses for the “cast” in Russian is transliteration of English one — RPG/MMORGP slang term] and NAF got lots artillery and tanks. Really lots of. But somehow no one thought about the fact that without adjusted infrastructure of the closest rear and fuel supplies, 100, even 200 tanks have a rather limited combat value in space and time. The fact that artillery without adjusted coordination and communication, without good professional artillery officers is simply dangerous for own units was somehow forgotten too.



Everything could be done properly. To get the unity of command and acting pyramid of command was rather easy. First, tell “kingpins” that “you don’t follow orders — you don’t get ‘voentorg’ and ammo”. Assing the most adequate “kingpins” responsible for the frontline sections and send one or even two representatives to supervise the fulfillment of the orders and usage of the supplies delivered from the center. Deploy large repair bases (embryos of the repair battalions) combined with training centers. Give an opportunity the company and battalion commanders, those “kingpins” to enlist and train people on the frontline. “Kingpin” has a tank crew? Let him send it to the rears to train, pass the exam and get a tank. _Completely_combat-ready_tank, parts for which he would be able to get/order with one phonecall to such base. A tank, there’re all necessary specialists on the big repair base for to maintain and repair it.



People, whose duty is to foresee things on 5-10 steps ahead, haven’t foreseen them even on 2-3 steps ahead. No one thought that it’s impossible to form adequate brigade HQs and adjust brigade control as brigade control. No one thought that training of tankers and other armored vehicle crews, training the coordination with infantry would require lots of fuel, ammo and spare parts. When filling in the staff lists of the brigades and other units they simply wrote all those “makhnovtsky” who had positions on the forefronts, the rest was covered by those who came on their own. Recruits haven’t been trained for the combats in combat conditions. Results — heaviest losses in the first days and mass desertions/resignations. Some laid down reports with commentary “it’s not a way to fight a war!” and simply left.



Losses of the 3d brigade suffered under Uglegorsk are rather serious. Mostly —- inexperienced ones, who went to their first, and last, fight Can’t tell the exact number for now. Approximately, about up to 300 of ours for 1000 killed Ukrops. Fierce combats, airport is just a walk in a park comparing to this.



These aren’t my words, it’s what uncle Zhenya Kryzhin from DPR wrote. As they say, they have more order there than us. Hundreds of our fighters fell not just in fights for Uglegrosk, but also in fights for Redkodub and Tchernukhino. Enormous uncontrolled crowd recruited in peaceful period was quickly reduced to the units of sizes their HQs were able to lead for real. And it got clear pretty soon that brigade HQs and separate battalions HQs aren’t able to participate in work of combat groups on the frontline in a positive way. Joint combat group was formed on the base, moved out to the front where it was commanded directly from the corps HQ. Sending orders down via hierarchy had no sense, since it brought nothing but the delays. And in result, junior HQs were only attempting to provide fuel, ammo and at least some reinforcement for the frontline.



As I understand, no one of the command made it to foresee a simplest consequences of forming “an army with salary” on the background of the surrounding devastation. Naturally, masses of people who wanted to calmly wait the war over joined the units. “They feed, pay money. Why not to serve? Fight? We’re not going to fight. And if they give as an armored vehicle - we’re not riding it. It’s going to suddenly break in the crucial moment”. Result? No, not a slightest effect from the mass of vehicles given to people, who didn’t want to fight much. Shuring softens is as much as possible:



Part of the personnel recruited in September-October, in fact, had no other motivation to service but the material stimulation, in conditions of deficit of gainful employment in the oblast, and, with the beginning of the new phase of war, some of the newly recruited contract soldires deserted. It shows us that in conditions of deficit of time, a proper selection of the volunteers hasn’t been organized, that personnel hasn’t been worked with properly.



What can you say ? It was especially awesome in these conditions for the command to delay the salary payment for the alpachentsy [ed. joke, “opolchentsy” — “militia”, “alpachentsy” sounds a bit similar and apparently derive from Al Pacino] “until Debaltsevo is taken”. “You’re gonna get yourselves drunk once you get paid!”. Soldiers, unprecedentedly flattered by such faith in personnel from the high command, even those, to whom “financial stimulation” wasn’t the most important, have plucked yet another pack of resignation reports from themselves. The use of other, worried about their families left in their homes without any money and about borrowing cigarettes was dramatically reduced. It was extremely unpleasant or me to quote captain Bragado from the famous movie to my soldiers, because one of them had pregnant wife sitting at home without any money for yet another month (by the way, got ill with something in result of starvation and weakening of the immunity). It was way easier for me to live than for other — I don’t smoke.



In general “it shows us that” that everyone perfectly realized how the “recruitment through ads” was going to end up. It was impossible to organize any filtration and check of the volunteers on the level of large detachment in such terms. “Kinpins” each of whom has no more than a battalion in subordination, and who require this one or that one at the frontline all the time would sort everything out pretty quick. But work was done according to the template and no one cared. Necessary checks in the reports were checked. And the fact the most motivated recruits were lost and not motivated ones deserted, leaving army with substantial pieces of the frontline and spreading news about the “bloodbathes” and “treating people as cannon fodder” around, and about “They want to kill us all and leave the salaries of the killed ones to themselves!”… DON’T GIVE A F#CK! You can always form sh*tloads of consolidated companies of HQ staff and valuable specialists, who had been somehow trained by the cost of enormous efforts. “We had been sh*tting ourselves [ed. idiom in this case, means working really hard] to train people to fire cannons for 3 months. Let them send them as infantry to assault the town. Result is predictable a bit, yes. Well, no problem, we still have tankers without tanks. Let’s try sending them there too”.



Want harsh truth not from me - read the report of DPR medic. Minimal effect of the mass of the vehicles that don’t have spare parts for them. Constant tanks in state of “very formidably looking tractors”, even “Utyoses” [ed. NSV machinegun] don’t work on the turret. Technical supplies? Absent. Shurigin softens once again:



Similar problems were revealed in mechanized units. Tank crews, upon getting the first experience of driving and shooting, hadn’t completely mastered the vehicles they were given and practically hadn’t got any experience of its repairs, that, in combat situations, led to unjustified abandonment of the vehicles after minor damage or breakage. Aside of that, crews hadn’t got proper experience of work as parts of the units, it significantly decreased the effectiveness of the use of these units and led to high unnecessary losses in vehicles and personnel



Indeed, it’s easier to blame the crews who trained bad. The ones who would be glad to get necessary experience of the repairs, would they have at least some spare parts. I’m not saying the “scary words” of “properly checking vehicles before sending it to the troops”. Okay, had been given with what it was possible. Then give some spare parts to repair. People had been waiting for the necessary “iron” for weeks and even months. Had been hunting them, searched the burnt tanks hoping to get some deficit from them. Adventure thriller “Indiana Jones and fuel filters” could be filmed without expenses for the makeup and decorations.



Is it necessary to say that I saw the first book “Specifications and instruction manual” for certain armored vehicle only in the middle of the offensive somewhere in the HQ? Until then and until arrival of the volunteer instructors the only source of the sacred knowledge about the mechanism of the combat vehicles were pdf-files, printed in hundreds by the author of this text, while he still had toner and paper.



In result, after heavy losses the uncontrolled brigades and separate battalions that, according to the staff list, had dozens of tanks and BMPs, which in reality stood in the rears on the bases, often with minor breakage, have been dissolved on combat groups of 20-200 men, with several armored vehicles each, that had been commanded by the Commander in Chief directly. When, following us, all 4 intact tanks of our battalion entered Debaltsevo, LPR Commander in Chief personally assigned them to the assault groups.

Ask around on those entornets of yours, how many tanks should a tank battalion have. Right. By the end of the operation we had only 10% of completely combat-capable vehicles with crews willing to fight. After taking Debaltsevo part of these crews left with commentaries like “F#ck such circus!”



So, completely the same effect could be achieved under the reasonable approach I’ve described. And in this case way less men would be lost and there would be coordinated, combat experienced reserves, but…

Someone needed the staff lists, shoulder straps with stars, lineups thrice a day, checked reports and other bullsh*t that had no real effect in struggle against the “makhnovshina” [ed. lack of organization ]. Instead of not building Everest of papers, use the “ You don’t follow orders — you don’t get fuel and ammo” principle, they build army according to the template that implied several years long leeway. F#cking knowing that they don’t have this leeway.



Yes. Just for those who’re not aware. Command planned to complete the encirclement of Debaltsevo in 2-3 days. And as much time was allocated to “sweep” the “cauldron”. The high command was so much detached from the reality, that they probably thought they had real full Russian Army corps of experienced contract soldiers under their command.



Okay, let’s mourn the particular branches.



Logistics.



DPR medic from the link above - is a smart man. He thought that it would be a good idea to put a “First-aid post” sign. But command wasn’t so smart about the signs. Command on all levels. I won’t even mention German and American experience, “they’re our enemies, we shouldn’t f#cking copy them”. But they could recall the experience of our ancestors, who used to put “Medical unit”, “Sidorov’s depot” and so on. Put poles with arrows with brigade emblems and numbers of companies/battalions on them to show the road? At least write commanders’ callsigns? Yuck, how unsportingly is that! Let the brigade ammo logistics serviceman, delivering the ammo for the tankers, scour along the broken frontline road in the night looking for his tanks. And let him be helped out by the chief signalman of the separate mechanized battalion in the middle of the similar search, only on foot, who had found those tanks instead on his own in the darkness. By sound, when they were heating their 5TDFs [ed. “5ТДФ” — tank engines]



In general, warriors of lieutenant rank and lower turned out to be way more unsporting competitors, than the command. The corresponding writings began appearing the fences of the abandoned houses of the cottage sector, where soldiers used to stay for 2-3 days: “Crab”, “August” and so on. And in the closest rears, drivers already could mock answering the order to deliver something to somebody “Wud u shou me tha road, yes?” [ed. in original it was written with mistakes to depict the Georgian accent, it’s a joke about migrant taxi drivers who don’t know the towns, in RF they’re most often from Caucasus]



By such simple thing as absence of training of spare crews for the light armored vehicles from the motorized infantrymen assigned to them it’s seen that no one had been preparing for the real war, didn’t think about how people would be acting in the real combat conditions. But many of the command have fought, they realize it that no one would send automobile convoys to the zone of the intense enemy artillery work, not even the separate trucks. Everything would be traditionally delivered to the forefronts on APCs and BMPs. In the night, because during the day this very armor would be working against the enemy, supporting the offensive. Machine can work 24/7 without breaks, but people require rest. I’m not talking about the shower and laundry, they’re bourgeois myths. But at least to eat normally, not while driving and to sleep not in the frozen APC which can’t be heated because there’s simply no fuel.



By the way, regarding the fuel. Have you ever seen a tank battalion being refueled with buckets before the march? No, not like that. Have you heard it in the all diverseness of the Russian language? Yesyesy, the first normal fuel truck, with intact pump and hose had caught our tanks only in Debaltsevo. However, it’s a technical support support issue.





Technical support.



People who wrote me, privately among the other ways, about the tangents [ed. here I just literally translate the term, basically it’s this stuff:https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0, like radio speaker and mic for vehicle radios ] for the TPUs [ed. tank internal communication device, but to keep it short I’ll keep it as “TPU”] phrases like “Why are you complaining about such technical trifle! Everything was fine in general! “Die erste kolonne marschiert”? Marschiert! “Die zweite kolonne marschiert” Marschiert.Problems? Don’t be a smartass, boy! Listen to “Valenki”!”… [ed. text in German about the columns is quote from “War and Peace”, used as irony to describe formal, abstract approach to something that’s detached from the reality, “Valenki” — old gypsy song, that’s considered to be Russian after soviet singer Ruslanova made it popular in 1940′s]



What is a better way to explain you something… You see… modern warfare is all about the small technical trifles. All about, without breaks for Kalashnikov rifle, because even Kalashnikov rifle received from the freshly unpacked crate, has to be cleaned with something from the conservation grease and be oiled with something before shooting. Want to be calmed by “but kolonne marschiert in general” - try another century, not even the 20th.



Strict logistics and proper technical support — that’s what they had to start building army from the “makhnovshina” with. Naturally it wasn’t started with that. Instead of checking the vehicles before sending them to the units, they simply sent everything, from radio accumulators to tanks “as is”. In result, I wasn’t surprised a tiny bit when after numerous towing of the received tanks, at least to the base, by the beginning of the combats we had only one tow rope that hadn’t been torn. ONE. In the tank battalion. BY THE BEGINNING of the combats. And they don’t give the replacement. Because they haven’t got it.



Tank ZIPs [ed. kits with spare parts] ? You know, I had an idea of a harsh mock. To come out to the lined up tankers and say “Comrades! Please, check the presence of the 3 meters long wire antenna wire in your ZIPs”. And have a look, how many of such wires were they going to bring me. And artillery fire is indeed so dense that antennas get cut off by the shell fragments. I saw one cut in the middle in Sanzharovka, took it, but it wasn’t from our vehicles.



Common tank ZIPs? Oh, we’ve been promised to be supplied with them. Together with tank headgear, and most importantly, tangents. Commander in chief himself promised it, in front of line of our tankers, many of whom are already gone. He promised it in early January. I left in late February, after the fights for Debaltsevo were over. There are no common tank ZIPs, no tangents. And there ISN’T A SINGLE TPU SPECIALIST in the entire LPR army. I’d understand it if we had new tanks. But most of them are as old as me. In modern combat a tank without a TPU, without a radio, is just a trap for the crew. The very first attack has shown it, when our tank, unexpectedly for itself, broke to the Ukropian positions and got hit. Infantry that 159th radio [ed. R-159] saw everything, but couldn’t warn them — tank radio was in repairs.



Basically, couch warrior citizens, when you start discoursing about who has more tanks — UAF or NAF, counting dozens and hundreds of vehicles, you should realize, that presence of tank itself standing in the parking, doesn’t make it a combat unit at all. It’s made a combat unit by first — complete serviceability of all main “goods” - cannon, MGs, aiming devices, chassis, TPU, radio. Second - by the trained and motivated crew. And regardless of how strongly is the crew motivated, if driver can’t hear the commander on the TPU and can’t tell him anything himself either, it’s dangerous to send this tank on march on highway, not to speak of sending it to fight. Such vehicle is only combat capable as stationary turret. And everything is about ti~i~i~iny peg, or wire… Or here’s a wonderful attraction for you — how to lose several drivers in winter without a fight in the middle of winter? Just send them on the training march when it’s -15 °C and snowstorm. Pneumonia is guaranteed for the drivers. As well as abstract discourse of the command on topic of “Ah, yes! There are such things — protective covers for the tank drivers…” And where are they? There are none. And tanks don’t go into the fight, because drivers are hospitalized with pneumonia.



So all that “We have 200 tanks and they have 150…” — it has nothing to do about the reality. One has to know the degree of combat capability and availability of the repair capacities. Read the same report of the DPR combat medic I wrote about earlier:





Necessary forms of provision of the material needs of the combat medicine are extremely insufficient, or more correctly, are absent: operational transport and communication means are absent (in staff brigades, from the 15 MTLBs required by the staff list, they only made it to put 4-5 into service and only thanks to their heroic efforts. But in result of the fights almost all of them were either damaged or broken in result of complete absence of the spare parts. The situation is similar about the wheeled transport), there are no spare parts nor there are means of acquiring them.



4-5 from the required 15 by the beginning of the operation and 0 by the end of the operation. Ain’t it wonderful? We’re great with our 4 tanks. Or, more correctly, we were just lucky.



I’ll mourn the radio communication separately.



As I write this I recall DPR serviceman A, volunteer from St. Petersburg, who, in the late September, when the trophy vehicles were collected, was running around shouting to the soldiers looting yet another destroyed Ukrainian convoy — “Take the headgear with wires from all vehicles!”

He knew something…



Infantry.



As I said, “brigading” in most of the cases had a form of writing the soldiers of already existing squads that stood on the frontlines to the staff lists sent from above. Additional recruitment was to cover the staff lists was done on brigade level and, in the end, I guess they failed to hold even a single training of at least a battalion level. For some battalion filled completely according to the staff list to line up near the vehicles at the ground, receive its task and, upon mounting its APCs and BMPs, to ride to fulfill it. Brigades, corps… For the ones interested in how did it look like IRL, check Goodwin’s notes of that period.



In result, as I’ve already said, after the heavy losses of recruits in the beginning of the operation, all the main job both in defense and offensive was done by the recon troopers and assault groups with experience of summer and autumn fights, groups formed before the “brigading”. All paper husk fell off, and in the end, there was only LPR chief in command with his HQ left in one side of the scene and those assault groups on the other. While them, receiving the allocated combat-capable tanks and BMPs one by one, were biting enemy’s fortified areas, the conveyor of urgent forming the “consolidated companies” from everyone available was working in the rear. Exhausted Commander in Chief used to come to unevenly lined up soldiers dressed in “flora”, gave them a not too eloquent speech telling that there’s no war without losses and soldiers, who often hadn’t even had the simplest shooting training, were sent to the frontlines.



In this situation almost the only unit that successfully acted as a single unit was Mozgovoi’s “Ghost” brigade, because Mozgovoi refused to “brigade” himself into the LPR People’s Militia, believing that it was going to decrease the combat capability of his unit. He was right.



For this, Mozgovoi was deprived of the ‘voentorg’, of the vehilce, artillery, ammo, fuel supplies, but, on the other hand, he could tell the staff strategists who got an idea of sending people with rifles only, without armored and adequate artillery support, to storm the Ukrainian fortified areas to f#ck themselves. Mozgovoi’s men had their own normal communication means bought for their own money, had adjusted cooperation, they were lead by people with real modern warfare combat experience. “Ghost” was the only place where I saw actual up-to-date detailed map of Debaltsevo at that level, where it was required the most — company commanders had them on the ground, “in field”. In fact, by the moment of our arrival to the “8th March” district, everything there was coordinated by Arkadyich from the “Ghost”.



And there were things to coordinate there. I was rushing between our positions in Debaltesvo several times a day, and passed the same spot near our HQ. And every time someone’s column would stop there, people would dismount the vehicles and with the appearance of mad specops take warlike poses and “carefully walk”, aiming somewhere in front of themselves with their rifles. I felt really awkward to interrupt people from this really important job, but still, every time I would approach and ask what were they doing. And every time these wonderful people told me that they’re sweeping Debaltsevo. It was kinda even awkward to reveal them, such cool looking guys, that they’re in the district that has been already swept long ago and they are even able to have some tea with the command that’s residing in the nearest building.



Now, naturally , Mozgovoi, as well as Dryomov, will be declared, or more correctly, have already been declared guilty of all losses. Because they had minor losses. As Shurigin writes:



Despite the efforts, certain part of the armed squads of LPR (Cossacks, “Mozgovoi’s brigade” and others) have partially or completely saved their volunteer status, what had the most negative effect on the hostilities. Tasks set before these formations during the active phase weren’t fulfilled or were fulfilled only partially. There were cases of direct desertion, as, for example during the fights for Logvinovo, where the Cossack squad fled after the beginning of UAF attack, leaving the NAF brigade detachment alone, it led to heavy losses of the squad — 2 KIA and 20 inured



So when LPR People’s Militia recruits, who got into the slaughter by the genius plan of the command, flee in panic — it’s okay, no one’s guilty. It was meant to be like that.



By the way, sadinlee they won’t be able to disarm Mozgovoi just like that now. They’ll have to negotiate with him, because on the background of heavy NAF losses he has rather big and combat-capable unit. The assassination attempt, as I see it, was a gesture of despair in this issue. Or we’re that inadequate to disarm one of the most combat-capable units?



Almost forgot the cherry for the cake, personnel training. Company commanders made it to attend the “week-long courses” in Luhansk, but they were called back from the last couple of days. Platoon commanders didn’t make it — true war had already started. Somehow, somebody forgot to think that losses inevitably were going to be high without adequate platoon commanders.”



END OF PART 1



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