By Oleksandr Kots
[KP] Winter in the LPR still resists with sudden snow bursts, but nature takes its toll. The earth gradually begins to limp, military engineers patch up blurry crossings near destroyed bridges, the service car suddenly begins to demonstrate a slight vibration.
At first, you attribute it to a damaged road, along which dozens of multi-ton caterpillar machines pass daily. But gradually, at speed, the vibration reaches such an amplitude that the closed doors begin to slam shut and the kidneys ache. Having stood in line for a tire fitting, you find a petrified mass on the disks that is not knocked off by a powerful jet of water at the sink. It can only be scraped off with an iron brush, and then re-balance the wheels.
Mulyaka, as they say here, is a mixture of clay and black soil, which plays the role of anti-tank barriers no worse than concrete cones from the lines of echeloned defense along the entire length of the front. Another couple of weeks and in the Western press it will again be possible to find forecasts about the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This time - as soon as the earth dries out. Russian troops are guided by the weather situation insofar as. They can, for example, come in under the cover of fog and beat off another enemy defensive midfielder, as happened this week. The paratroopers near Kremennaya occupied enemy positions, destroying the defenders. Here, out of nowhere, the branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - to see the rotation came. They put all but one. But unfortunately, he was just a signalman and began to screech on the air.
The Ukrainian command in this direction was upset and decided to go on the offensive with two company tactical groups along the flanks and two more along the front. Five hours of uninterrupted rollovers, which were beaten off by paratroopers and motorized riflemen.
As a result, all our artillery, which was "free", with all its proletarian fury, fell upon the offensive formations of the enemy. Everything that can be flown. The advance was thwarted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces left dozens of bodies in the fields.
Among those who inflicted a fire defeat that day was the “Grozny division”, which is legendary at the Svatovsky line. And it's not even that the gunners are extremely accurate and efficient. They are commanded by a real millionaire who changed his house on Rublyovka to a concrete basement near Kremennaya, in which he equipped a command post. He has in his command - guns 152mm "Hyacinth", 122mm howitzers D-30, 122mm MLRS "Grady" and mortars.
54-year-old Yuri Mikhailovich is a successful businessman. But behind him is the Suvorov School, then a military university, service in the Soviet, and later the Russian army in the dashing years, the disbandment of the unit, dismissal, business from scratch ...
- And when we didn’t succeed at the first stage of the SVO, I just thought that some of my knowledge and skills that were acquired for the service would be useful here. After all, this is my homeland and I took an oath. So it is obliged to protect her, no matter how pathetic it may sound. Besides, I, like Vladimir Semenovich, "we did not have time to look back, and the sons go into battle." The son graduated from the school, he is already here somewhere, almost at the forefront.
Was it hard to pull yourself out of your comfort zone?
- No. Because he was forced to become a businessman. All my life I wanted to be an officer. Therefore, when he changed his civilian uniform to a military uniform, he found himself in his midst. I like military service.
- Many people here like your service. The division here is praised by many. Why such an image?
- At the expense of people and discipline, which, unfortunately, was sometimes lacking. I'm sure everything else, including technology, is secondary. And, of course, constant training, training, even if there is no hostilities. But there is also its own specifics. My division is hitting targets because we have a little more, for example, our own unmanned aerial vehicle.
We immediately become three heads taller than everyone else. Only because we have a crew that can lift, observe targets and hit them day and night without throwing ammunition into an open field. That's a huge savings. Plus, we have precision-guided munitions. Here, under it, there is not enough unmanned equipment that can illuminate the target with a laser.
In today's conflict, technology decides the outcome of the battle. If we had enough unmanned aerial vehicles, of these precision-guided munitions, which would hit one target with one shot, we would already be standing on the border with Poland. And so while we stand at some distance from this. Well, it's definitely a matter of time.
Yuri Mikhailovich is modestly silent, but I know that he spent millions from his own funds to equip the division with everything necessary. From an expensive drone that can hover over the enemy, not paying attention to electronic warfare, to all-wheel drive vehicles and communications equipment. Actually, thanks to these purchases, the unit has the opportunity to work on the enemy around the clock.
Together we leave for artillery positions. A person who can afford an SUV in any price range travels in a modest UAZ. Yuri Mikhailovich checks the crew of the Hyacinth, which is firing at the enemy. He speaks out for the garbage that is scattered near the dugout
- this is an unmasking factor.
- And how did your business colleagues react to your departure to NVO? I ask the officer.
- Yes, in different ways. But I know for sure that no one is judging. Someone may not fully understand, but everyone respects my choice. Many help financially. I write, for example, to one: "Let's halve the costs." And he takes and pays for everything. Although, of course, my business sags a little without me. But Potemkin Grigory Alekseevich once said: “Money is nonsense, people are everything.”
- Are there people on the other side with whom you studied and served?
- Of course have. Moreover, until February 24, 2022, we even occasionally talked. Someone was at my house, someone knows my mother, wife. I ask them: “Well, how is it, we once played war games together, we knew that the Nazis were the enemy. And now you are in the same ranks with them. We, they say, will sort it out ourselves, you just don’t meddle with us, we have no complaints against you, this is all politics. It can be seen that they have changed a lot in these 9 years. Now, of course, all ties have already been cut off.
- Have our people changed over the past year?
- When I came, the fighters came here for a short period of time. They do not have time to understand what the meaning of military affairs is, and they already have to quit. And now the mobilized have come, and they understand that they are here before some kind of Rubicon. And the main change is precisely that they learn, improve and understand that victory in general depends on their work. These are no longer temporary workers, but those with whom we will go to the bitter end.