Invasion From Belarus: Serious ‘Wake-Up Call’ Sounded

• 16.12.2022, 15:26

The military expert called the terms of preparation of a 200-thousand group for the attack on Kyiv.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, in an interview with The Economist, said that the Russians were training about 200 thousand new soldiers, and the head of the Ukrainian army has no doubt that they will try to advance on Kyiv again. According to him, the Russian army can resume the offensive as early as January 2023, but, most likely, in the spring. Zaluzhny stressed that Russia would launch a major offensive from the Donbas in the East, from the South, or even from Belarus.

In an interview with Glavred, serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, blogger Yuri Kasyanov told how much time it may take Russia to prepare for the second assault on Kyiv, why the capture of the Ukrainian capital may not be the main goal of the Kremlin, whether the Russians will involve the Belarusian army in the offensive, and how quickly Ukraine will be able to repel a new attack by the Russian Federation.

— How do you estimate the probability of Russia’s new offensive against Kyiv — are the Russian troops ready for it?

— If we are speaking of today — no, they are not ready. Even if they had prepared these 200-300 thousand soldiers and all the equipment, they would still have to conduct a logistic operation in order to move the entire necessary property, people to the northern direction in the territory of Belarus, and already then to plan a new offensive. That is, they still need to drive a bunch of ammunition to the offensive planning point, deploy field hospitals, and so on. When can they do this? The nearest deadline is within three weeks (and this is still a very optimistic forecast for them). We know that this never happens fast, because both the human factor and the weather and the confusion surrounding displacement have an impact. We see that Russia's rusty, gnarly war machine has begun to move. Movements towards our border under the guise of yet another exercises — transfers of tanks and people, arrivals of planes have already started.

— Speaking about three weeks, do you mean the period of preparation, or is it possible for them to do this during that period? Please explain what you are talking about.

— I don't think that they [Russians] will manage to do all this in three weeks either, but I always try not to fall into a trap of false fantasies and soberly estimate the opponent. At least don't underestimate them, because that's the most dangerous thing. For obvious reasons, we have limited information, because the enemy tries not to tell about his plans, carries out the troop movements covertly. Therefore it is better to prepare in advance for any serious offensive actions from the opponent, than not to prepare at all.

— When can it happen, assuming that the troops of the Russian Federation are intensively preparing now?

— If they now made this decision, and the military machine would work properly, they would begin loading and moving the military echelons with the ammunition, the people, then this in any event would occur already after New Year’s. I don't think that will happen on the New Year’s, especially as the Russian Federation already has a negative experience of Grozny's assault on the New Year’s eve, and the Russian army remembers perfectly well, than it may face in this case.

— Can the return of the A-50 reconnaissance aircraft to Belarus be connected with the transfer of Russian troops and the preparation of the offensive?

— Sure, all these are interconnected processes, because the aircraft A-50 with radar detection and control by the troops was found on the territory of Belarus on the eve of the offensive from the north of the Ukraine, when the Russian troops were in the environs of Kyiv, and also for a while after they left. This aircraft is necessary in order to detect long-range flights of the Ukrainian aviation, the movement of ground troops and to control own troops as an air command post. And it's a serious wake-up call.

On the other hand, we also understand that the enemy can mislead us by these preparations so that Ukraine would now move extra troops to the Belarusian border and would thus bare the front line in the Donbas. This would help the Russian troops to hack our defenses, to stick somewhere and to achieve some success, which they have long dreamed of, but could not do anything like that no matter how hard they tried. It’s the double-edged sword here — either the opponent prepares for an attack, or imitates this preparation. The war (and so it was at all times) is not only courage, bravery, self-sacrifice, but also cunning. That is, the skill to deceive the enemy, to force him to throw forces to a false direction of impact in order to reach victory.

— How ready are the Belarusian troops to get involved in the war after 9 months? Can those preparations, which are now taking place on their part, be somehow connected with a possible second attempt of Russia to go and assault Kyiv?

— I don’t know how to put this… The Belarusian troops have certain restrictions that they cannot overcome. First, they are small in numbers and poorly trained because of their lack of combat experience. Secondly, they lack the contemporary means of communication. This is a miniature Soviet Army, stuck somewhere in the late 90s. Yes, they now have new uniforms, some new modifications of military equipment in small quantities, but in other respects everything is very old. All of this prevents them from carrying out serious military operations. In fact, we can ignore this army, because we know perfectly well that Belarusians for the most part do not want to fight with us. Polls were repeatedly conducted, and intelligence data indicate that 8 or 9 out of 10 servicemen of the Belarusian army absolutely do not accept the idea of a war with Ukraine. Yes, they can be sent to war, they can be ordered, but what happens next will depend, including on their people. That is, from how they themselves act — either they will throw away weapons and scatter, or they will go over to our side with their weapons and turn them against the enemy, or they will surrender to the captivity. Belarus, although it is an authoritarian country under the leadership of a dictator who has gone crazy, but unlike Russia, they do not have “great power chauvinism”. Belarusians are well aware that they are a small nation located in the center of Europe, they themselves reach out to the West: they have a lot of connections (including family ties) with Poland, Lithuania, and even Ukraine. These connections are very strong, and when people do not feel part of a large empire and do not want to be absorbed by such an empire, they have no motivation to fight.

— We started our conversation with 200 thousand Russians about whom Zaluzhny spoke. I would like to clarify their composition — are there mostly the freshly mobilized guys there, or has Russia managed to train some combat-effective troops during this period of time?

— The mobilized and combat-effective troops do not contradict each other. The Ukrainian army had 200-250 thousand career military. Now it is deployed in much bigger sizes, and the mobilized soldiers are now part of it, and they are fighting perfectly well. The point, however, is motivation. Training is certainly very important, but even more important is the motivation of the soldiers. After all when the soldier is motivated, that is, when an adult person, a man or a woman, go to protect their home, family and children, they are practically invincible. But when they have imperial motivation — like, let us reach the Black sea, Odesa, let us save the monument to Ekaterina, then this is quite a different story. What I'm saying is that these 200,000 may consist entirely of mobilized people who have already been or are still being trained in Russia. There can be significant preparation in 2-3 months — it can be sufficient in order to fight in the special units, to drive IFVs, tanks or anything. This period of time is quite sufficient for such preparation, but the question of their motivation remains open.

Therefore I would not divide the regular army and the mobilized — if the Russian troops start advancing from the north, then they will partially consist both of the regular army, the contract soldiers who went to serve in the army a year ago or so, and of the newly mobilized soldiers. Where else would they get the people they need?

— You told that Russians need three weeks (or even more) to collect such number of people for an offensive. And how much do we need to repel a Russian attack, if it does happen?

— We'll need one hour to the same three weeks, depending on what we're talking about. It is clear that our forces, which are already on the northern border, and the fortifications that have been built (because we are no longer children and know what can happen — February 24 has taught us some lessons) are enough for the enemy not to pass as they passed into the Chernobyl zone on the first day of the full-scale invasion. This would be enough also to stop them, delay, make them stuck in the fights. As for reinforcements, I do not think they will be removed from the front and protect the northern border. This would be incorrect, given that this is what the enemy is expecting from us. I, of course, am not a General Staff officer, but I would use for this purpose the forces which we have in the points of permanent deployment, all kinds of national militia, starting from voluntary formations of territorial communities, territorial defense of all sorts which we have a lot, and also would carry out accelerated mobilization. Without mobilization we won't manage, after all if the opponent attracts 200 thousand more people, they will have a superiority in human power, and there will be ten conditional Russian soldiers shooting at one our soldier. Therefore it should be carried out, but as many of our people are already trained, prepared and know what war is, this preparation will take less time.

— If we assume that Russians will go to assault Kyiv for the second time, how effective can such step of the Russian Federation be?

— Naturally, they will take into account the past mistakes and can act differently. Therefore, they, in the first place, may be interested not even in Kyiv itself, but in cutting off the supply routes of both Ukrainian troops and also the city of Kyiv. I mean cutting off the main roads that go to Kyiv and further to Dnipro, Kharkiv, the area of Rivne, and also cutting off railway tracks. This will be their main goal, to break the supply lines and thereby bring Kyiv to its knees, and leave the troops without fuel, ammunition, and any support. Can they achieve this? On maps, with miniature flags and at the meetings of the Russian General Staff — yes. But whether it is possible to achieve victory over the nation which has a motto “victory or death”, and which has no place to retreat — no, it is not possible. It doesn’t matter whether we will defeat them on the New Year’s Eve, Christmas or February 23 — they will not achieve victory anyway. Because we have everything at stake, and we have nowhere to go.