Ukrainian Officer: Three Consequences Of Attack On Headquarters For Russia
- 9.11.2023, 19:38
The Russian army is losing control.
We saw just recently that Ukrainian forces destroyed the headquarters of the Russian invaders on the Arabat Spit, in Donetsk, and today in Skadovsk.
How did this become possible? The journalists of Charter97.org spoke about this with veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Oleksiy Hetman, the reserve major of the National Guard of Ukraine:
– As Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov said, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have achieved enormous success in Crimea. I am sure that they will do even more in the future.
First, this became possible because of the ATACMS missiles, which can fire at a distance of at least 165 km. Perhaps there are already longer-range missiles, but this must not be disclosed.
Second, we have French and British Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles with a range of up to 250 km, also Russian air defences (Triumphs, S-300, S-400) in Crimea now have “gaps” due to the good work of our artillery recently.
Enemy air defences do not fully cover all the approaches and can’t counter Ukrainian cruise missiles. We are well aware of this. We open fire for a reason purposefully destroying anti-missile systems according to a certain pattern to create those very gaps.
Our aircraft with Storm Shadow and SCALP, air-launched cruise missiles, penetrate through such gaps. Aviation can go 30-70 km towards the enemy so that this missile can fly even further.
After all, it will not reach, for example, Kerch if it is launched from the unoccupied territory of Ukraine. This means that we are entering the airspace of Crimea using the air defence “gaps”.
I’d like to repeat, there will be more and more such operations. What we see suggests that the Russians do not have air defence systems that can successfully counter this (Ukrainian cruise ballistic missiles). It's simple.
– How have the deaths of officers already affected the controllability of the Russian army?
– It always influences. The fact is that when senior officers are killed, this affects the leadership of the Armed Forces, in terms of organisation firstly. After all, a new commander, when he comes to a military unit, needs to take over the affairs and deal with the current ones. Even the most talented officers are not able (especially if this is a large unit, starting from a brigade) to figure out what is happening there in a day.
Second is the moral aspect. The rule in the army assumes that the higher commander, the more protected one should be. Therefore, when senior officers are eliminated, those lower in rank and position conclude that they are even less protected. Such developments seriously affect their morale. This certainly doesn’t motivate ordinary soldiers either.
Third, now the Russians need to look for new officers. I think that it is unlikely that any unprofessional people were put in charge of serious departments, and the professional ones were kept in reserve. Rather, on the contrary.
Now the professional level of those people who will be urgently found to replace previous will certainly not be higher, but, most likely, significantly lower than those whom we have already eliminated.