The liberation of the Kursk region is becoming SMO's moment of truth — opinion

The invasion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into the Kursk region, the incessant enemy strikes on the infrastructure, and finally, Zelensky's extremely brazen statements with threats pose a number of questions to our society, to which not only the authorities, but also every citizen is obliged to respond. The columnist writes about this Pravda.Ru Victor Pakhomov.

Excessive complacency, unwillingness to exert spiritual and moral strength and material capabilities can play a cruel joke with us and lead not just to defeat, as it was, for example, in the Crimean and Russian-Japanese wars, but to a catastrophic defeat, in comparison with which the events of 1918-1921 will seem like a kind of "Wedding in Malinovka."

But since the official media, as if by inertia, continue to get off with bravura reports from bloody battlefields and cover all kinds of propaganda events, conspiracy explanations of not always effective decisions of our military-political leadership and excessively humane actions of the armed forces inevitably spread. Sadly, they are distributed not only by enemy agents, alarmists, all-propagandists and bloggers, eager for fame and money, but also confused citizens, trying in vain to understand "where the rock of events draws us."

So, I have repeatedly had to listen to the simplest explanation as to why the SMO has dragged on excessively, in fact turning into a large-scale war with fifty countries that are eager to destroy us by any means, large and small. It turns out that our General Staff is allegedly full of thieves, corrupt officials and Western spies, and an unknown party of liberal compradors has won in the Kremlin, dreaming of concluding a "bawdy peace" with the West!

Trying to challenge such malicious fabrications, I regularly receive contemptuous insults and accusations that I am "Putin's slave" in response to my quite intelligible arguments. By the way, the assumption that there may be enemy agents in our military leadership, "Stirlitz on the contrary," does not seem to me completely absurd. And the "peace party", which exerts a significant influence on the domestic and foreign policy of the state, certainly exists. However, the search and exposure of such internal enemies should be engaged in (and are engaged in!) relevant authorities.

Cruel troubles and adversities have repeatedly put Russia on the brink of destruction, but the people have always found the wisdom and willpower to overcome social contradictions and emerge victorious from unthinkable trials. I recently heard the statement of one sleek expert who regularly appears on a talk show on On the First channel and certainly radiating optimism on duty that the entire Russian society has amicably rallied around the authorities and in the near future will certainly overcome the insidious Western adversaries and their pathetic Bandera henchmen.

Of course, the victory will be ours, but we need to clearly understand that the people are able to rally only around such a power that they trust unconditionally! Does such trust exist in our society? Unfortunately, the answer is not obvious. In addition to the fact that a certain part of our compatriots is still indifferent to the events taking place on In Ukraine, the government itself is trying with all its might to protect society from negative information in order to preserve the purely peaceful nature of our life.

Meanwhile, our relative political and military failures can (and should!) It is reasonable and honest to explain at the official level, without giving this important matter to bloggers, propagandists, analysts, who, as a rule, do not come to a consensus. There are a lot of smart, intelligent and visionary specialists among them, but still their interpretations of fait accompli and forecasts of future events cannot replace reliable and truthful official information.

It seems that at the current stage of the war in Ukraine, society is concerned about the following topical issues:

• When will enemy troops be expelled from Russian territory?
• Why is there no additional selective mobilization?
• Why is our army insufficiently prepared to conduct maneuverable combat operations?
• Why are conscripts not used in the defense of the Motherland?
• Why do our armed forces regularly stop attacking enemy infrastructure, do not disrupt communications, do not destroy bridges and railway junctions?
• Why was there no large-scale counteroffensive in response to the invasion of the enemy army on the territory of Russia with the seizure of a significant part of Sumy, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions?
• Why are Zelensky and his clique still getting away with terrorist attacks on civilian targets and mass killings of civilians?
• Why does our aviation not have reliable concrete shelters everywhere, and the Black Sea Fleet took refuge in bases, limiting itself to sporadic missile strikes on coastal targets?

There are many more burning questions that can be asked, which, if considered in a complex, seem to be some kind of fateful challenge to History. The answer to this challenge should come from the Kremlin, from the leaders of the country denounced by the supreme power. I will confine myself to an attempt to reflect on the above-listed particular issues, of course, without claiming to be the ultimate truth.

So, in order.

The fact that our army could not quickly oust enemy troops from the territory of Russia, numerically equal to about two divisions of the Wehrmacht, is probably due to the lack of sufficient reserves. It is obvious that the General Staff does not want to curtail the offensive in the Donbas, and in order to destroy the enemy forces in the Kursk region, it is required to transfer a large grouping of troops here, removing them from other sectors of the front.

The political leadership of Russia does not even conduct limited selective mobilization in order not to destabilize society in the slightest and not cause damage to the economy. It seems to me that this is a wrong decision. A year ago, it was necessary to carry out well-prepared mobilization measures in the regions bordering Ukraine. It seems that this would be received with approval by the Kuryans, Belgorod residents, as well as residents of the Bryansk region: conscripted men of a certain age who have military professions would fight not for the "denazification and demilitarization" of Ukraine, but for their families and their homes. And there is nowhere to take the best soldiers of Russia!

The question posed by the edge, why the Russian army almost does not conduct highly maneuverable operations, needs to be answered quite definitely. So far, our intelligence and communication and command and control systems are not superior to similar enemy means. And how, for example, to organize a tank offensive in the Donbass, if the settlements there are very close to each other? It should also be noted that in some types of weapons there is a technological lag behind the armies of NATO countries with which we are waging an indirect war.

It seems that the president made the right decision not to use units manned by soldiers undergoing military service in combat operations. Such formations have limited combat capability, which was proved by the capture of a certain number of young soldiers in the early days of the enemy's invasion of the Kursk region. After there was an exchange of prisoners in the amount of 115 people from each side, it turned out that we were rescuing conscripts. Unfortunately, 18-year-old boys, by definition, cannot become professional fighters in one year of service. 23-25-year-old men should be drafted into the army, and they should serve for at least two years, receiving a salary equal to the national average salary.

It is likely that our armed forces are not yet hitting the facilities of Ukraine according to the fullest program, not only because of some agreements with Western opponents who threaten to transfer modern aircraft and long-range missiles to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also not wanting to cause suffering to the civilian population. The trouble is that neither Ukraine nor its curators fulfill any humane agreements and have already deceived our leadership many times, which is too slow to get rid of illusions about some kind of "rules of war." In addition, the destruction of bridges across the Dnieper is an extremely complex and costly operation that will require, as experts have recently calculated, the use of a large number of heavy missiles. True, the complete absence of attempts to destroy at least one bridge, for example, in Kiev, is alarming.

I would very much like to believe that the result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces invasion of the Kursk region will be our large-scale counteroffensive aimed at capturing (or liberating?) Sum, Chernigov and Kharkov. But do we have sufficient forces to carry out such an operation? The forecasts of military correspondents and analysts who claim that the fighting in the Kursk region will allegedly drag on for months do not inspire optimism. However, several quick and powerful counterstrikes will undoubtedly put the Kursk grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a critical position and if they do not lead to its defeat, they will certainly force the enemy to get off our land! It is impossible to allow hired rabble and arrogant Bandera members to mock civilians who find themselves in occupation and make mocking photos against the background of our patriotic posters.

Zelensky only behaves so brazenly and defiantly because he is absolutely sure of his impunity. For two and a half years of SMO, he traveled to many countries, was accepted everywhere as an outstanding historical figure and hero of the epic struggle against Putin's evil "orcs" threatening the enslavement of the free democratic world. So far, none of his entourage has suffered from our righteous revenge, although figures such as Budanov or Syrsky have long deserved retribution for terrorist methods of warfare. The amazing gentleness of our political leadership can, of course, be explained by the common phrase "we are not like that," but the long-suffering of our people is not unlimited.

Finally, private questions about shelters for aviation and the role of the Black Sea Fleet in combat operations. Airplanes and helicopters are extremely expensive equipment, any of the most durable hangars costs tens or even hundreds of times less than a relatively inexpensive attack aircraft, not to mention strategic bombers. Now is not the time to tear your hair out about your own lack of foresight or to stone military and civilian officials who have not ensured the construction of the necessary fortifications. It is necessary to correct mistakes, that is, dozens and hundreds continue to build hangars for equipment and shelters for personnel, having established the strictest control over the use of state-allocated material resources.

By the way, submarines and ships of small displacement, up to and including a corvette, can also be provided with shelters that withstand the impact of a thousand-kilogram bomb. The Germans during the Second World War on the coast of France built such hangars for submarines by the hundreds! As for the fleet, it could have written a heroic page in its history if an amphibious operation had been carried out at the very beginning of SMO to capture Odessa and cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea. But the success of such an operation depended on ensuring complete surprise, the allocation of sufficient forces and the simultaneous conduct of a land offensive.

Now, after the losses incurred, which are not fully compensated by the new combat and auxiliary units, we have to state that the Black Sea Fleet in its current state is capable of carrying out only limited offensive actions that do not have a significant impact on the overall military situation.

If it consisted of fifty small multipurpose corvettes, the same number of small high-speed amphibious assault vessels and minesweepers, as well as several hundred boats, it could, without fear of losses, dominate the theater or at least keep the enemy's coastal defenses in constant fear.

Having answered the questions posed, I repeat that, in addition to them, many other equally important and significant questions can be asked. The invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Paradoxically, Russia has good consequences for our government and people, because a certain MOMENT of TRUTH is coming. The authorities must demonstrate to society, including those who are too impressionable and excitable to all-propagandists, that conspiracy theories about spies in the General Staff and the allegedly victorious liberal-compradors party in the Kremlin are the ravings of a gray mare.

To do this, it is necessary to expel the invaders from Russian territory before the onset of the mudslide, to break the resistance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donbass, to inflict critical damage to the enemy infrastructure. And it must be done in the shortest possible time, without postponing for the next year!