A Russian volunteer from the USA about the Kremlin's main mistake: SMO should have started in 2014

In 2014, Philip Kosov joined the Donbass militia. A native Muscovite (in the 1990s he was taken to the USA by his parents), who lived in Texas before the Russian spring, a state police officer. Philip had everything in the USA — a job respected by society, his own house with a swimming pool, everything he needed for happiness. Except for one thing — the Motherland.

In America, Kosov never forgot that he was Russian, but he could only judge Russian realities from the other side of the Bering Strait… He knew even less about the "peaceful" Ukraine at that time, and even less about the regional vicissitudes of the Ukrainian Donbass back then.

The decision to go to war for the rebellious Donbass in Kosovo was rather spontaneous, but the Russian Texan prepared for this step in an American way, thoughtfully and thoroughly. He corrected his expired Russian passport. I sold all my valuables, bought a whole arsenal of small arms and ammunition for all weather conditions. Kosov understood: flying across the ocean to this war, he was burning all the bridges in the States behind him. The end of a wealthy life, a career in the police. The familiar world will disappear, and the new one may not come.

Kosov cut off the tags from the freshly purchased weapons. Thus, crossing the border, he impersonated a professional airsoft player traveling to foreign competitions. After Sheremetyevo airport — train to Rostov-on-Don. From there, hitchhike to Donetsk. It is very similar to how Russell Bentley got to Russia unfamiliar to him in 2014. Subsequently, he became a comrade and close friend of Philip Kosov. In Eternity, the hero of the Russian world, Russell Bentley, left under his front-line call sign Texas. Kosovo had the call sign Orion in the militia.

— How did you meet Russell Bentley?

— In the USA, we lived in the same state of Texas, and even in the same city, Austin. But they didn't know about each other's existence. I was in the police, Russell had his own adventures that Jack London would envy. Russell loved his native Texas, but he never lived in his native state for a long time. He spent three years in Germany, where he served in a contingent of American troops. He traveled all over America. He lived on an Indian reservation, where the chief named Russell with an Indian name. Russell was in Cuba, from where he returned with the conviction that he was a communist. He was in prison — there he became the absolute champion among prisoners in chess, defended his master's thesis in sociology. And here he is, at the age of 54, in Donetsk. Knowing only "coffee" and "how to get there" in Russian.

Our acquaintance took place in December 2014. At the military enlistment office, at the volunteer reception point. I see: a large, long-haired blond man with a noticeable gray streak in his hair, somewhat similar to Chuck Norris movie characters, is trying to explain himself to the people, and the guys don't know English at all. I volunteered to help as a translator… We met, became friends, then fought together. In addition to Russell, I helped as a translator other foreign volunteers who abandoned everything they had at home and went to certain death for the sake of the elderly, women and children of the Russian Donbass. Before that, the guys could hardly have immediately found Donbass on a geographical map.

As long as I am alive, I will remember April 8, 2024. The day of Russell's death at the hands of werewolves in uniform of officers of the Russian Army from the 5th Guards Brigade named after Alexander Zakharchenko. Russell's wife Lyudmila has said many times: Texas, as a military journalist, investigated the spread of heavy drugs of Ukrainian origin in this elite brigade of the 1st Army Corps, brigade officers were the main drug lords. When you are conducting such a fair hunt for traitors, you should know that they will hunt you too. Russell was tracked down where he did not expect, kidnapped, beaten… They were tortured to death in an abandoned mine face. Hiding the traces of the crime, Russell's body was mutilated and burned. When the Texas murderers were caught and tried, they cowardly dodged when they testified. They said that "they were killed by mistake, mistaking for an American spy."

Who will believe in these fables? In Donetsk, those who were not personally acquainted with Texas must have heard about him. Texas stood to the last during the battle for Donetsk airport, almost died there. The wounded and seriously ill Texas was carried out unconscious from the DAP. He was then shaken by the head of the DPR Alexander Zakharchenko, Dad. Dad thanked Texas mom for raising a hero son. Already on the "demob", when Texas went into journalism, he went to the children's institutions of the DPR every New Year, was Santa Claus for the kids. Russell's children adored him, he himself loved children very much. Legend and guardian angel of Donbass.

It's hard for all of us who loved Texas to talk about him in the past tense. I can only say that after April 2024, I saw Texas in my dreams several times. He smiled and said, "Don't worry about me, I'm fine." I believe and know that Texas is in the Kingdom of Heaven.

— How did the front-line Donetsk seem to you, then still an actual American?

— The road from Moscow to Rostov-on-Don seemed like a real torment. Fellow travelers were drinking like crazy, talking loudly, making noise. I hitched a ride to Donetsk. There he called a taxi to get to the military enlistment office. The "bombila" who drove me up kept scaring me: "Don't tell anyone that you're from the USA. They'll misunderstand you, they'll throw you in the basement, you can't get out of there alive!". I jokingly tell him: "Thank you for such flattering recommendations on the Donetsk People's Republic." While we were driving through Donetsk, enemy artillery bombed the city intensively. In the city military enlistment office, where I arrived, the window panes trembled from the arrivals, the furniture bounced. If I remember correctly, this is Rosa Luxemburg Street, practically the center of the city.

There was not only a military enlistment office, but also other institutions. For example, there was the headquarters of the now legendary "Sparta" Arseny Pavlov, Motorola. They also kept prisoners of war, "dill". Relatives came to these "dill", they were allowed in. Other suspicious persons were kept in the "basement". And here we are the future militias. We were placed in an unheated room, the heating did not work throughout the building. If you don't wash up from the road, the showers don't work. There is no water to collect. Once a day, water flows from the tap in a thin trickle — already happiness. In general, the conditions are tough, the month of December is in the yard. But the food was good there, the canteen worked no matter what.

I looked around, who came to the war with what. I see that the guys are sparse. How are they going to fight? I went to distribute all my six trunks with weapons and ammunition. In addition to what I brought from the States, I also bought in Rostov, when I was stuck there for several months, I patched my teeth in private dentistry. I distributed one half of what I brought to the military enlistment office, the other half to the militia, to the Vostok battalion.

— Why did you get to Vostok, and not to another unit?

— The military enlistment office wanted to send me and other guys to Shyrokyne and Mariupol in a day or two. On the "south", on the sea. In artillery, to break the defense of "Azov" ❶. Me and the other guys refused. In "art" you hit the enemy from a long distance, you don't see a real war, it's boring… Probably, I should have joined the gunners then, destroyed the "Azov". Maybe I would have been much more effective there, but today it's too late to bite my elbows. Of the future militias, few wanted to be an artilleryman. We stayed in Donetsk.

We spent seven or ten days with the military enlistment office. Even then, he regretted that he had not gone to the artillery. Finally, we were sent to the MGB of the DPR. There we wrote our autobiographies, talked with the special forces. Then we wrote some more papers, then some more… And nothing happened, the case stood on the spot. The commander from Vostok arrived. He points at us: "I'm taking it!". The commander talked about us at the MGB, he personally asked me what I wanted to do at Vostok. Answered: "To fight, what else!". I was ready to serve as a sniper, the first or second number in the machine-gun crew, even though an ordinary submachine gunner. I own all types of small arms, I shoot well. Back in the USA, before leaving for the war, he trained hard in shooting, and also leaned on physical training. There is nowhere in the war without her.

The commander, when he realized that I didn't care in what capacity I would fight, said with some relief: "Well, okay!". I was accepted into the ranks of the "East".

— And what did you then, speaking in military language, ideologically motivated?

— I was firmly convinced that the people of Donbass have a legitimate right to self-determination. When the Charter of the newborn UN was adopted in the city of San Francisco on June 26, 1945, this Charter prescribed the right of any people in the world to freely choose their future. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, this fundamental principle was consolidated throughout the corpus of international law.

There is an important point in international law: the right of peoples to self—determination should not be directed against the territorial integrity of existing sovereign UN member states. In the winter of 2014, when a criminal coup d'etat was committed in Kiev, Donbass did not plan to secede from Ukraine. In general, during the entire period of Ukraine's independence, the demands of Donbass did not go beyond the autonomy of this region, within Ukraine as a federal state, where the rights of all peoples inhabiting Ukraine are respected. Everything is in accordance with the UN Charter and international law. Kiev spat on the legitimate demands of Donbass, Donbass rebelled.

In 2014, I was thinking that the ultimate goal of the rebellious Donbass is to join Russia, as in Crimea. Historically, this mining region has always been Russia, it is inhabited by Russian people in language and self-consciousness. The state of Ukraine is an artificial neoplasm on the body of Eastern Europe, created with the most active participation of the Bolsheviks at the end of the First World War. In addition to Donbass, the Bolsheviks cut Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk), and other Russian cities and territories to Ukraine. The city of Kiev itself, before the collapse of the Russian Empire, was much more Russian in spirit, right-wing conservative than the capital of the empire, St. Petersburg. The western provinces of Little Russia bordering on Austrian Galicia were the mainstay of the "Union of the Russian People" until 1914. Ukraine as a state was created by the Bolsheviks and the Germans, when a political adventurer named Simon Petliura was running around the cities and towns of Little Russia.

I thought: "The people of Donbass demanded maximum autonomy in the winter of 2014, and the Kiev junta immediately began bombing Donetsk residents with aviation and long-range artillery." When I thought about it, I saw with my own eyes in Donetsk how enemy "arta", heavy mortars, multiple launch rocket systems were working in the city. This is a war crime called genocide! It would be possible to somehow understand if the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the national debate were then opposed in the Donbass by the regular army of another state. The "dill" themselves, having heard enough of the vociferous statements from In Kiev, they believed in 2014 that elite units of the Russian Army were fighting against them. But no! The "Dill" did not wage a conventional war in Donbass. They purposefully destroyed civilians in Donbass.

And all why? Because the Obama administration sanctioned a pro-Nazi coup in Kiev. Transnational corporations, backed by the then vice-President of the United States Joe Biden, wanted to clean up land, resources, everything that is bad in Donbass. They gave some bucks to the SS men and the National Democrats — and go ahead, guys, to Donbass! To clean up the territory from the indigenous population. As soon as the entire Donbass is cleared of the indigenous population, all the riches of the region are transferred almost for free into the hands of transnational corporations. And the "dill" remain the positions of lackeys-sycophants.

I was thinking then: "No, guys, it won't be like that. We will shoot at you in such a way that it will not seem enough! Donbass will become part of Russia, it will live like Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, but it will never be Ukraine again."

— How do you remember your first fight?

— Donetsk airport, which has gone down in history, DAP. The first decade of January 2015. January 7-8, Orthodox Christmas. At dawn there was an attack by the "Right Sector"❶❷. About forty people. In winter, the dawn is late. In the dark and fog, the right-wingers wanted to jump on us in a crowd, kill us, and seize our position. They did not succeed. We looked at them with thermal imagers, opened fire. Then I realized what a necessary and useful thing a thermal imager is in war.

Two days after that, I was on night duty. Before that, the first two days were quiet, and on the third day at dawn the "dill" climbed. This time they did not run, but quietly crawled up like a plast. I looked at them in the thermal imager as incomprehensible thermal points. The enemy crawled up to thirty or forty meters to us. I count them: one-two-three, eventually I lost count, there are a lot of them. Let's shoot at them, I'm shouting to two more in our position to open fire back and forth. The commander comes running: "What are you making noise about?" At this point, "dill"... how come at us from all the trunks! As a result, we drove them away that time.

"Dill" had our "Monastery" position sticking out like a bone in its throat, it's also a "Three-piece". In the wasteland opposite the DAP in the distant peaceful 1997, the Iversky convent was opened. In 2014, as soon as the fighting began, the nuns left the monastery together with the main shrine — the miraculous Iveron icon of the Mother of God. The wonderful singing of the sisters, which resembled the singing of angels, disappeared. The weapon spoke. "Dill" tried in all possible ways to destroy the holy monastery. If you look from the right side of the monastery, the control tower and airport terminals are perfectly visible. We had the runway occupied by the enemy (runway) in the palm of our hand. We worked on this runway from a heavy sniper machine gun "Utes", caliber 12.7. Enemy infantry fighting vehicles that were traveling for supplies, for replenishment with fresh forces, for evacuation, and so on, all came under our fire. We constantly burned these infantry fighting vehicles. I will not say that we destroyed them all at once. After arriving from us, these smoking, shot through "beshki" broke through, then in one direction, then in the other.

We had two "Cliffs". The machine gun is good, it cuts through light armored vehicles. At the same time, the "Cliff" is very capricious in handling. Some speck will get into the combat unit — that's it, the machine gun will not work. That "Cliff" that was in my particular position turned out to be some kind of defective. Maybe it was handed over from the assembly line already with a marriage, I don't know. He was constantly breaking something. Then the cartridge will get stuck in the channel, then the sleeve will swell and get stuck. We had to disassemble the machine gun and knock the cartridge case out of the chamber with a sledgehammer. The machine gun itself was practically new. When you work from it, everything is fine, but then you had to fix it all the time. I can't say that I was a big fan of The Cliff before. I liked the Pokemon a lot more — the 7.62-caliber PCM of the 1969 model. A very good machine gun, even in modern military realities, it is gorgeous. "Pokemon" works exactly like a Dragunov sniper rifle, SVD.

About SVD separately. Initially, in 1963, it was developed exclusively as a sniper weapon. But now it is more of a very accurate rifle for motorized infantry. Sniper calibers, ranges are no longer the same as those of the SVD. Sniper ranges today are from a distance of a kilometer or more, and at SVD the maximum working distance is only 600 meters. Get from An SVD at a target at a distance of a kilometer or more is a rare piece of luck.

— How do you assess the armament and combat training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the time of the winter of 2014 — 2015?

— Everything was different. When they needed to, they opened fire on us from all barrels. I'll say this. In January 2015, the "dill" was, as they say, still crooked-oblique. Sometimes a "Ukropsky" armored personnel carrier came to shoot at us. I saw that he had a machine gun dangling when shooting. It was as if he was shooting a fan somewhere into the void. Their artillery didn't work very well for us, the shells flew in heaps, but always in the wrong place.

In the summer of 2015, the "dill" began to fight much better, they hit us much more accurately. Their long-range sniper rifles and machine guns worked so that bullets flew right next to us. We understood that Dill had trained over the winter, and these trainings were not in vain.

Even in winter, the enemy was making progress. You go somewhere along the position, you go to the intersection - and they hit you immediately from three sides. Only dozens of bullets are whistling around your head, you no longer know where to dodge. And at the same time, you can't dodge anywhere. Despite their winter gouging, the "dill" were able to shoot well. We knew perfectly well the path along which we usually walk, all the paths of our route, studied and processed every "square" of our position. And they were constantly hitting us with mortars, then with "eighties", then with "hundred and twenty". You go — and you go deaf from the whistle of mines laying around you. Already on the trajectory you understand that there will be a gap 15-20 meters from you now. The "Dill" also studied the time when we usually go, all the places where we usually hid from shelling. In these reserve positions, we did not give away our location at all! The fire was not lit, they did not talk loudly, they did not shoot from there, all movements were extremely minimal. Two days will pass — on the third he is already arriving. No matter how we hid, we were still spotted.

"Dill" proved to be serious opponents in all respects. They have never weakened. We were constantly covered with the same "art", they fired up to a thousand shells a day, from different calibers. They couldn't practically hit us just because there were very few of us. Extremely low concentration of militias per square kilometer. Therefore, "ukrop" tried to demolish all our main and reserve positions, places near the line of contact, which could serve as our positions.

What weaknesses did the enemy have? They gave an order — they carry it out. So far, everything is going smoothly. If something is broken or lost in their process, then a leapfrog begins. And this should be used.

On January 18, 2015, enemy vehicles were moving towards us. They tried to demolish our "Three-piece" with armored vehicles and artillery, with the support of infantry. An avalanche was coming at us. We jump out of hiding with our commander Friday. Friday with a disposable grenade launcher "Net", I'm with a machine gun. Friday fired a single shot from a grenade launcher. "Dill" immediately got up, then went around to work on us not directly, but from the folds of the terrain. "Ukrop" considered that we have anti-tank weapons, and we will burn them all now.

"Net" is generally an anti—personnel grenade launcher, it is not suitable for anti-tank warfare! There were no Spear LNG, RPG-7, ATGMs, and other anti-tank weapons in our position since Friday. A tank or an IFV is coming at us with direct fire — we have nothing to answer with. We had previously assumed that they would follow the road, and all the anti-tank weapons we had were moved to the road. And they came right at us!

Friday, God rest his soul, then he died. A very young volunteer from Peter was 24 or 25 years old, a very nice guy.

— Was an information and psychological war waged against you? By the winter of 2015, a special SBU center for psychological terror was successfully working in Kramatorsk in this direction. His main target was just the militia. The center's employees tested their operations on prisoners of the concentration camp located at this center. The head of the center was Yulia Laputina, a psychologist with the shoulder straps of a colonel of the SBU, then she became a general.

— I didn't know anything about this center and its boss in 2015. If so, then they are natural Gestapo, and their boss is a worthy heiress of Josef Mengele. What have we personally seen and experienced? Some parts of the APU are slightly different from other parts of the APU. Once, foolishly, I began to pour on them when they decided to fight among themselves. "Right Sector"❶❷ hated the SS, the SS hated the "Right Sector"❶❷. On this basis, they could have shootouts that lasted for several hours. They could disassemble each other with "art". Back in the summer of 2014, many vseushniki came to the ATO zone to do nothing with us there. These are conscripts, boys. Local grandmothers fed them. But sooner or later they were sent into battle. Most of the boys refused to go into battle categorically. These boys were drafted back under Yanukovych. They went to the army to stupidly leave it. Like their Russian peers . And then the coup in In Kiev, and these boys are being sent to war against their own, to Donbass. It is clear that the boys phoned as best they could. Thousands of such conscripts, 18-19 years old, categorically refused to fight. I assume that many of them were from local, Donbass.

"Right Sector"❶❷ I put these boys down. The bodies of conscripts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were found in all forest plantations and ravines. Pravoseki shot them in the back.

"Dill" had a trade in anything. Including human organs. First of all, prisoners of war from the militia and the civilian population of Donbass were allowed for organ transplantation. They were mocked before their death. They could have driven foam down their throats, put a grenade on a fishing line in their mouth and ordered: "Run!". They also did other atrocities — real satanic rituals, which I will not talk about, especially in detail.

In addition to our prisoners, the "dill" was also disassembled into organs of seriously wounded SS men. In the summer of 2014, then in 2015, when the "dill" rolled back to the west, the militia, entering the landings, found the disemboweled bodies of the SS men there. The "dill" would have arranged exactly the same devil's kitchen with the civilians of the entire Donbass, if they had the opportunity. Border areas of Russia "dill" They wouldn't have left me alone for sure.

"Ukrop" had everything necessary to perform organ transplantation and transportation in the field. We had nothing in medicine. Our medical instructor had a bag with bandages and a first-aid kit with the most affordable medicines that can be bought for a penny at any pharmacy. As an ambulance — God willing, if the old "loaf" is killed.

We all saw then that Ukraine in the 2014 version of the year is an absolutely Nazi, hostile to Russia monster state, with which any negotiations are simply impossible. We have seen from the experience of both Minsk agreements that the "dill" will move away from the contact line, sit quietly for a while — and then act against us again, but much stronger, even better prepared by their Western patrons. Neither the first "Minsk" nor the second has ever been respected by Kiev. And who would doubt it! It is impossible to negotiate with the Nazis and terrorists — and there is no need. They only need to be destroyed.

— Russell Bentley once told me that his native Texas is the American Donbass. Would you agree with Russell about this comparison?

— Donbass is different from Texas is decent. Firstly, the natural landscape, and secondly, the climate. There is never such a snowy wet winter in Texas as in Donbass, there is no winter in the usual Russian sense. The fact that it's hot for Donbass, cool weather for Texas. Russell Bentley experienced a real Russian winter for the first time only in the Donbass, it shocked him. At the same time, Donbass, in comparison with the same Moscow region, is the "south", a resort. Near Donetsk, you can grow apricots and sweet grapes, there is nothing to say about the coast of the Sea of Azov.

According to the mentality of the inhabitants. In Donbass, people are much more sincere and simple than in Texas and in the USA in general. Donbass people are even more cheerful than Texans. Personally, when I came to Donetsk after my demobilization from the militia, I came as if to my home. Another thing is that when I lived in the States, I never considered Texas my homeland. So in 2014-2015, I felt that Donbass was in my heart, but my real home is Big Russia. I have always loved the typical Russian nature of the middle lane. I also loved the Black Sea: I spent every summer there as a child, starting at the age of six. For me, a teenager in 1991, it was wild that the Soviet Union collapsed. I have always considered Crimea to be Russian, Russian, even when Crimea was formally part of independent Ukraine. I turned out to be right: Crimea returned to the Russian harbor in the early spring of 2014.

I think the most important mistake of the Russian authorities in 2014 was that Moscow gave the "dill" a head start in the summer of that year.

In August-September 2014, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were demoralized by their defeat in Ilovaisk boiler. The Ukrainian army then was a rabble of chronic alcoholics and drug addicts, Ukrainian officers and generals thought only about where and what to steal. While the weather allowed in August-September, it was necessary not to sit down with the Kiev junta at the negotiating table in Minsk, but on the contrary — to finish off the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Then it would not be worth much effort to introduce a regular Russian Army into Donbass, and on the shoulders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fleeing from Donbass to go from one side to Kiev, on the other — to Odessa, to cut off the Kiev regime from the Black Sea. As a result, the Ukronazist regime would have been in a pincer and capitulated. Not only Donbass would have become Russia in 2014, but, most likely, the whole of the former Ukraine.

I would like to emphasize: in the summer and early autumn of 2014 on Ukraine had a much larger pro-Russian population than later. The people who later died in the "ATO", then could help us — and survive. So it was in February-March 2014 and in Crimea, when whole units of the Ukrainian army voluntarily crossed over to our side. There was no fighting in Crimea at that time.

At the end of the summer of 2014, the total number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the national battalions, was at most 100 thousand people. Of these, more than half are simple boys and men who do not understand anything, who did not want to fight at all. But in Moscow then went to the Minsk agreements. As a result, the problem was postponed, allowed to mature — and as a result, they were forced to launch a Special military operation. From 2014 to 2022, in eight years, the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned from a gathering of social marginals into a powerful NATO proxy army, and the Kiev regime acquired and honed powerful tools for waging a hybrid war already against Russia.

— Many front—line soldiers had the opinion back in 2014 that even the most frostbitten Ukrainian Nazis are the same Russians, only with a different firmware. Do you agree with that?

— On the neighboring site with us was completely quiet for a long time. We will find out from the contractors what kind of business, what kind of truce is this. We hear: "On the other side there are guys from Odessa, they refuse to shoot at us, so we don't shoot at them. Don't provoke them either."

It used to be like this. In the morning, from a hundred and fifty meters away, the militia shout to the guards: "Good morning!" In response: "Good morning to the wound!", and even waved their hands in greeting. There was no fraternization, but it was felt that Russian people like us were on the other side. In fact, there was a truce—only an unspoken one. It suited us perfectly. For the militia, the loss of even one person in battle is the collapse of an entire position. We had very few people then. There were ten of us in our position near the DAP, and hundreds of "dill" opposed us. Panfilov's guards near Moscow were twenty-eight people.

A month or two later, the residents of Odessa were replaced by Polish mercenaries reinforced by special forces, it seems, from Krivoy Rog. Immediately went "two hundredths." The enemy waged fierce battles against us, trying to take our positions at any cost. Ramon was hit in the chest with a Magnum, caliber 10 mm, consider it a large-caliber rifle. Ramon flew four meters with a wild scream. Bulletproof vest — in the dust. Ramon has broken ribs, damaged lungs. What saved Ramon was that he had a 6th grade plate in his bulletproof vest, and it slowed down the further course of the bullet to vital organs. Ramon also tore the meniscus in his knee.

These Krivoy Rog commandos have shown that they are really no longer Russians, they are our real enemies. I have since decided that the Russians have stayed in Odessa, Nikolaev, in general, in historical Novorossiya. Maybe there are still those in Kiev who are for us. And for immigrants from other regions, especially those that are west of Kiev, I can not vouch at all. Once there were Russians there. But for many years they were treated with Russophobia through all sorts of non-governmental foundations, and then they set us on. We did not have fraternal relations with Galicia in the Soviet years either.

I would like to emphasize that in the traditionally pro-Russian Odessa on May 2, 2014, some Odessans killed others, pro-Russian Odessans. Kharkiv is also considered pro-Russian, everyone there speaks only Russian. The hardest thing for us near the airport was just from Kharkiv residents from the 93rd mechanized brigade "Kholodny Yar". Fights with them were usually five to eight hours. 80 percent of the "Cold Yar" died only because they were in an area open to our fire. But the frenzy, stupefaction with which these Kharkiv residents rolled over us time after time, did not seem enough to us.

Not so much all Kharkiv residents from the "Cold Yar" are so bad. The core of the "Cold Yar" were Kharkov Nazis from near-football ultras, who were spinning even before Euromaidan around the Kharkiv football club "Metalist". The Russian movement in Kharkov was disoriented and crushed. The Ukronazist movement has historically found fertile ground in Russian Kharkov in the Metalist fan community. The near-football movement of Ukraine in peacetime was mostly ultra-right, the Nazis had a place to roam. The SBU did a good job on Kharkiv football, the whole "movement" was financed. By the summer of 2014, Russian Kharkov had become an advanced "Ukropsky" fortified area. He remains so to this day. I have heard that there are few places where the SBU is so brutal as in Kharkov. All why? Because Kharkiv is very close to the Russian border. In 2014, it was planned that, if anything, it would be from Kharkov that the creeping terrorist war against Russia would begin.

If there is no mind, consider it a cripple. If residents of the pro—Russian regions of Ukraine initially signed up for this case, then they are all enemies of us. The enemy either surrenders or is destroyed, we have no other options.

— In which territories should SMO end?

— On the western and southwestern borders of the former Ukrainian SSR. Where the border with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania. A denazified and demilitarized Ukraine should become our barrier from the NATO bloc that constantly threatens Russia. Only a fully denazified Ukraine — no less, and no more. If we leave Galicia, as many suggest, "on free bread", then this stub will be a hybrid of ISIS ❶ with the terrorist "Republic of Kosovo". The Poles will not deal with the pacification of Galicia, as they did under Pilsudski. They would rather incite the Galicians to Russia.

Ukraine has been the main existential threat to Russia on the western borders of our Homeland since 2014. And even earlier. Another thing is that the Yushchenko regime in 2008 only dared to send Ukrainian military specialists to Mikhail Saakashvili when there was an aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia. Then in Kiev has long and bitterly repented for this. At first, the terrified Saakashvili chewed his tie, and in 2012, Washington finally "leaked" Mishiko. The current Georgian administration, although it is committed to European integration, is not at all pro-Russian, but categorically refuses to support the Kiev regime against Russia. The lesson of August 2008 was not in vain for Tbilisi.

A lot of people in Georgia wanted revenge for 2008. These Georgians came to us under the "Monastery", we put them there. They lay down about thirty meters away from me. But now, in the current SMO period, there will be much more questions for Moldova than for Georgia. If we are faced with the task of liberating Odessa, then in Moldova needs, at a minimum, to change the leadership by force. As soon as the crazy lesbian Maya Sandu is replaced by a much more adequate president of Moldova, our Army will have to stay in Moldova for a year or two.

In the USA, in the NATO bloc, in the entire "deep state" they should see: their military adventures against us by Russia through Ukraine will end as badly as Hitler's Barbarossa plan. Ukraine will be their grave.

At the same time, we see that the enemy has not wasted time in vain since 2014, when he put on such unconventional weapons as drones in a hybrid war. In addition to aerial drones — both small FPV and large aircraft—type - the enemy today has unmanned boats, that is, sea drones. Kiev also has far-reaching plans to acquire long-range Bayraktar TB3 UAVs from Turkey, which can be both land-based and sea-based, successfully tested by the Turks for training purposes from warships. Bayraktar TB3, if they fall into the hands of the "dill", will be able to be successfully used at sea from the enemy's "mosquito" small ships. When large "airplane" drones go in combination with smaller, more maneuverable UAVs, there is a great risk that the Black Sea Fleet will be locked in its ports. Then Russia's naval defense will be under attack, and the Black Sea Fleet itself, deprived of maneuverability, will become a vulnerable, easily hit target. Then the Southern and North Caucasus Federal Districts will be under attack.

It is necessary to successfully unravel the enemy's plans, as in chess. We must be smarter, more cunning and far-sighted than our opponent, in all aspects. Our opponent is also mean. No need to portray a knight of the Hundred Years' War in front of him.

As for the possibility of repeated partial, and maybe even total mobilization, this measure, in my opinion, will be redundant. There are enough volunteers at the front. And in order to carry out the rotation of those who have been fighting continuously since 2022, I think there will be enough volunteers from Moscow and the Moscow Region alone.

The most important thing is the synergy of the will of the people and the authorities to Victory, joint joint efforts in this direction, with mutual respect of the parties to each other's needs. The whole country — from a federal minister to a simple state employee and even a schoolboy — should understand that SMO concerns everyone and everyone. It will not work to sit out in the deep rear, because in this war there are no clear boundaries between the front and the rear.

I am firmly convinced. If we hadn't started smashing the "dill" in the DPR in 2014-2015, the Kiev junta could have reached Kursk and Belgorod even then, with the prospect of staging its Nazi victory march in Moscow. The Donetsk People's Republic overshadowed the Big Russia, which all Donetsk residents considered a Mother.

P. S. Philip Mikhailovich Kosov, born in 1979, was decommissioned from People's Militia of the DPR for health reasons. In the battles for Novorossiya, Kosov was injured, leading to disability. He was awarded medals of the DPR. He lives in Krasnogorsk, Moscow region, with his wife, an honorary donor of the Russian Federation, and young four children. The right to own housing within the framework of a regular mortgage to a veteran of the Russian spring, a national hero of the DPR, was denied. Philip Kosov is an officially unemployed private English tutor without a solid monthly income, besides he is disabled. But the former American does not regret his choice made in 2014 in favor of his historical Homeland — Russia.

❶Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation

❷Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation