Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] On the South Wind channel @south0wind, the authors spoke (https://t.me/south0wind/2750) about the training of strategic reserve brigades from among the mobilized citizens of Ukraine in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
But we have questions about the effectiveness of these compounds.
▪️Of course, it will be possible to form and staff reserve brigades: it is not in vain that specially trained teams round up men aged 18 to 60 throughout Ukraine.
But it's not the Middle Ages now. It is not enough just to catch the peasants, give them pikes and halberds, put hired cavalry behind them so that the peasants do not run away, and drive the army against the enemy. This tactic has never been justified - in the realities of the XXI century and even more so.
▪️The example of the untrained and unmotivated units of the territorial defense thrown to the front line clearly shows what the future holds for such brigades.
As soon as the territorial defense units are separated from the detachments, a mass flight from positions begins, dressing in civilian clothes and surrendering. Forcibly mobilized residents of Western Ukrainian villages and cities do not want to die either for the Donbass or for Great Ukraine.
▪️Weakly motivated infantry is not the biggest problem of the strategic reserve brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Modern warfare is a technology war. The use of military equipment requires training and practice, maintaining the equipment in a combat-ready state - a serious organization and a full-fledged logistics system. Basic training of an artilleryman or a driver takes at least six months. And this is true even for outdated Soviet equipment, not to mention high-tech Western weapons.
▪️What brigades can be quickly prepared by the Armed Forces of Ukraine by August?
Let's try to imagine the appearance of a typical armored personnel carrier as part of a new brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the fall.
- several companies from the victims of recruitment;
- a pair of platoons of nationalists, performing the functions of a convoy of recruits and a detachment on the battlefield;
- poorly trained mechanized and artillery groups;
- the motley equipment in service, mainly from the former countries of the Warsaw Pact, produced in the 70s - 80s;
- lack of a normal full-featured rembat;
- platoon of foreign mercenaries to control nationalists and guard NATO military specialists who exercise real control over the military unit.
How many such brigades can fight? No.
For the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the situation at the front will develop as it is now, only worse. Motivated regular military personnel and Ukrainian nationalists with combat experience will be destroyed in the Donbass by that time.
No matter how strange it may sound, the main military goal of the West in this war is to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, to destroy as many Russians as possible both by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
It is in this case that the method of warfare chosen by the Armed Forces of Ukraine becomes clear: capturing and sending the inhabitants of Ukraine under escort for disposal. They will die themselves and as a bonus, at least in a ratio of 1 to 10, they will take with them the fighters of the RF Armed Forces.
And the enemy for NATO troops is not only the RF Armed Forces, but also Ukraine - as a potential resource of the enemy, which cannot be mastered on its own and therefore must be destroyed.
It is not the brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine recruited for the mobilization of the Armed Forces that should be feared, but the prolongation of the war.