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The former vice president of the Security Service of Ukraine, Major General Viktor Jahun, tells Apostrof that he should not relax.
“There is no way to relax.” Perhaps Russia will actually take the troops back to their permanent places of deployment, but I doubt that those places are much further from the current field camps where the soldiers were now, “said my general.
He noted that former Crimean soldiers are likely to remain there and those who were concentrated in the border areas will withdraw.
Who needed all this? Nobody prepared to attack, because to attack you have to have at least three times the advantage of the number of soldiers, that is, at least 300 thousand. troops for the first blow. Now Russia cannot muster enough troops to carry out a comprehensive aggression against Ukraine, especially in view of the three-way attack, “the expert noted.
According to him, these maneuvers by the Kremlin on the border with Ukraine were a Ukrainian blackmail.
“All this was done just to demonstrate their power and to blackmail both Ukraine and our foreign partners. Our reaction was correct: no one rushed to run and buy buckwheat as expected. The public was focused. This well-coordinated position – the army, the government, the volunteers – it has shown that we can unite in those moments, because we live in the suburbs, the enemy comes to our house first. We transmit this message to the West and we receive real help from our partners: political, military, intelligence , space images, military aid in the Black Sea and in the air. All this combination made it possible for the enemy to understand that nothing could be done so easily, “explained V. Jahun.
The Ukrainian authorities are considering various scenarios for the development of military action and believe that Russia is likely to invade Ukraine. The Russian military can approach the Ukrainian border from virtually anywhere. What are the chances of a direct Russian attack and where is the greatest concentration of Russian forces? And how, according to experts from Ukraine and other countries, can open conflict be avoided? He writes about it currenttime.tv.
Crimea
Representatives of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russia could attack Ukraine from annexed Crimea. According to intelligence, many Russian troops are stationed there. Their objective may be to attack the southern regions of Ukraine to resume the water supply to the peninsula.
The director of the Razumkov Center for Military Programs says that in the area of the Black Sea and the annexed peninsula of Russia a sufficiently large force is being mobilized: about 50 warships of various classes, 230 tanks, paratrooper assault brigades. Russia itself essentially confirmed the deployment in Crimea, advising the United States to “stay away” from the annexed peninsula.
“In a landing operation from the sea side, these forces can launch around ten battalion assault groups, which is a very strong group,” said Nikolai Singurovsky, director of Razumkov’s military program centers. “In addition, troops from the Caspian fleet are mobilized there and three large Baltic landing craft arrive.”
However, the return of water to Crimea is not Russia’s main goal, my expert. In his view, the demonstrative mobilization of troops on Ukraine’s borders is political pressure to force Kiev to abandon its aspirations to join the EU and NATO.
He also believes that if the Kremlin does not intimidate Ukraine with its military might, provocations should be expected in several regions of Ukraine at once.
“He cannot show his weakness, especially before the next elections. He needs a quick and winning war, Singurovsky said about the possible logic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. – The coup will be from several directions. They will try to extend our defenses to the south, north. , east and west, including Transnistria. “
Padniestrė
In Transnistria, Russian troops are constantly based as “peacekeepers”. Officially, there are about 2,000 of them there, but the exact number is unknown, former Moldovan Defense Minister Anatoly Shalaru said. According to his data, there is a large weapons depot in the town of Kovbasno, which is controlled by the Transnistrian authorities. There are more than 20 thousand. tons of weaponry.
“The people of Transnistria have modern weapons and ammunition. There is not only a Russian contingent there: today we have calculated with our specialists that they can arm between 25 and 30 thousand people, which is especially important for the situation that is developing in Ukraine. said A. Shalaru, Moldova’s acting Defense Minister in 2015-2016 – Russian forces perform the command function, general staff. The people of Transnistria don’t even have access to a weapons depot, they obey them. “
Moldovan politicians say the steps with military equipment came to Moldova from Russia ten years ago.
“Russia left a slow mine in Transnistria with the help of Ukraine,” Shalar said. – Since 2011, about five echelons with military equipment and weapons have passed through Ukraine. Basically, we don’t know who was there, but we do know it was military aid. The armaments also traveled through the port of Odessa. And as defense minister, I have been in Kiev more than once, asking what was on those steps. And nobody could tell me anything. “
Donbasas
Another flank from which, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russian provocations can be expected is eastern Ukraine, where the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” are located. There and on the northern border of Ukraine, Russia launched the First Tank Division and the 150 Motorized Rifle Division, a total of about 40 thousand. soldiers.
Ukraine’s defense minister said there were fears of mobilizing Russian troops in Belarus. However, the latter’s military expert Alexander Alesin, although he does not deny that more joint military exercises are being carried out in Belarus with Russia, still believes that the Ukraine attack by the country is not worth waiting for.
“I would say that the mobilization of troops in Belarus is essentially a demonstration for Poland, given the sharp deterioration of relations between Belarus and Poland, and Aliaksandr Lukashenko has promised to demonstrate military exercises every month,” Alesin said. Russia is now waging a psychological information war. Even if they are preparing for some kind of military action, it is definitely not what the experts in Ukraine seem to say, that there are three armies concentrated on the border. “
According to the Belarusian expert, Russia may decide to open a military conflict if a citizen with a Russian passport is killed with a Ukrainian weapon. In this way, she seems to defend him. And the most likely, says Alesin, could happen in Donbass, because many of the inhabitants of these territories and armed separatists already have Russian passports ”.
However, in his opinion, the main blow, if any, will not come from here: “It is possible to hit with missiles. After all, they launched small rockets based in the Caspian Sea into the Black Sea. They have ships with four to six missiles capable of flying up to 1,600 km. Also, since they have ships in the Baltic Sea, they can fire through the territory of Poland, which is hostile to them. “
Alesin also says that aviation or submarines can launch missiles in the Black Sea: “This is, of course, confidential data, but it has reached Syria from the Caspian Sea.”
Opinions of Russian military experts on the future actions of Putin’s army towards Ukraine differ. They believe that Russia will attack immediately in various places and that the world will be on the threshold of the Third World War. Others believe that Russia is completely unprepared for war financially, and Putin’s rating is unlikely to change as a result.
“The crucial question is, will there be any military conflict, is it a public relations campaign or a preparation for war? – says Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert at the Carnegie Center in Moscow. – In my opinion, the current concentration of troops is public relations. A message for the West and for the internal audience: let’s mobilize. And the audience does not want to mobilize. Be that as it may, a military-technical error can turn into a hot phase of the war, and then it’s very scary. “
According to various figures, in April, Russia had planned more than 4 thousand. military exercises involving up to half a million soldiers.
Announces withdrawal of soldiers
Russia will begin withdrawing troops from military exercises near Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, which have increased tensions with the West, Defense Minister Shawig said on Thursday.
“I believe the objectives of the emergency inspections have been achieved,” Shawig said during an exercise in Russia’s annexed Crimea on Thursday, adding that he had ordered the soldiers to return to “permanent bases” the following day.
According to the minister, the soldiers must return to the bases before May 1.
Early Thursday, Shoigu arrived in Crimea, which was annexed to Moscow in 2014, to observe military exercises there.
“The Shiga helicopter flew over areas where troops and military equipment are deployed and verified the readiness of the naval and land forces participating in the exercise,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The exercises were held in the wake of mounting tensions between Moscow and the West over the mobilization of Russian forces on Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders, as well as in Russia’s annexed Crimea.
As reported by the Defense Ministry to the Interfax news agency, some 10,000 people participated in the exercise in Crimea. ground troops and more than 40 warships.
The United States said on Thursday that it awaited Russia’s follow-up to Moscow’s statement that the country was ending tensions that had dramatically increased tensions on Ukraine’s borders and in Crimea.
“We hear the words.” I think we will wait for action to be taken, “State Department spokesman Ned State Price told reporters.
“Speaking with the Russian government, we have made it clear that it needs to refrain from escalation and immediately put an end to all its aggressive activities in and around Ukraine,” he said.
Price declined to say whether Russia had previously informed the United States of the withdrawal of its forces from Ukraine’s borders.
Last week, Russian news agencies quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that Moscow plans to close some parts of the Black Sea to foreign warships and state ships for half a year starting Saturday.
Such a move could affect connections with Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea by the Kerch Strait along the eastern tip of Crimea.
The European Union called the move “a matter of great concern”, and NATO also expressed concern and called on Russia to guarantee “free access” to Ukrainian ports.
Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops to its border with Ukraine and Crimea in recent weeks. Defense Minister Shawig called the mobilization “training” in response to NATO’s “threatening” actions.
Kiev has been fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since 2014. This conflict erupted after Moscow annexed Crimea.
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