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The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue successful counter-offensive operations in different directions of the front. At the same time, Zelensky notes that there are still many “surprises” for the Russian troops. In addition, Ukraine does not forget about Crimea and has a plan for collaborators who talk about “referendums” in the temporarily occupied territories.
This and more in an interview with 24 channelsaid Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President Mikhail Podolyak.
Successes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kharkiv region
We waited for good news from Kharkiv region and finally exhaled. It is interesting that these events were awaited not only by you and me, but also by our enemies. It turned out that they stopped believing their propagandists. And yesterday they did not see any news about the Kharkiv region and decided that the fighting continues.
It should be noted that there was no such news for three days. And today, when the Russians saw the news from the Kharkiv region, they are now trying to find an excuse for what is happening.
They say that this is a planned withdrawal and “drag” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine somewhere. They are already beginning to say that they underestimated the Ukrainian army, did not understand the tactical plan of the General Staff of Ukraine, and this is very good. But I would like to add that one should not think that victory will come tomorrow. We understand that this is a very difficult path and this is only the beginning.
Podolyak about the successful counteroffensive/Photo 24 channel
Our defenders have been working out all the logistics for several weeks, but so far not all of the enemy’s rear support has been hit. This is a question of both Ramstein and the help of our partners. In my opinion, it is too early to say that we are moving forward on a large scale. Previously, we only indicated Russia in its place and will continue to do so.
We expect similar good news in other areas. I am most interested in the key direction – Lugansk and Donetsk. I really want us to showcase and take these cities as soon as possible.
It is very important to finally break everything that is inside Russia, so that they understand that they are not some kind of superpower.
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The occupiers are really waiting every day for our reports from the General Staff, and some already even develop a map of our offensive. And now the speaker of the Odesa OVA Sergey Bratchuk noted that he loves raisins very much, but now he is attracted to raisins.
I really expect a map from Mr. those four directions from which someone should attack.
Of course, we will observe how the rhetoric of not only Russian military correspondents, but also of Russian society will change. Now Russian “sociology”, in parallel with the promotion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has published a poll, where already 92% sincerely support Putin and this whole bacchanalia.
The rhetoric will change, and they will already be quoting us and agreeing that everything is as planned. For me, the return of Donetsk and Luhansk is very important, because this should be a very significant event.
In any case, we see the advancement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson direction. Yesterday we even saw a video showing exactly how the Armed Forces of Ukraine keep the bridges to the crossings under fire control. Here respectively – the Kharkov direction and the liberated village in the Donetsk region, and “cotton” in the Crimea. I imagine that “bunker” who is sitting in the Altai Territory and does not understand what is happening.
But he cannot explain what is happening. He still lives in the illusion in which he was on February 24th. You remember that face when it collapsed on an armchair and tells something about Lenin and similar nonsense. This person cannot be critical of himself, this is the problem of the Russian political elite. They do not evaluate their words as something for which they will then need to answer.
Putin/Photo by Getty Images
By the way, this is one of the signs of the ill health of the nation as a whole. They behave this way because they think that the war is very far away from them.
It all happened in 2008 – the Russians came, massively killed people in Georgia and did not get no punishment. They came to us in 2014 – they massacred people and also did not receive punishment.
This has been going on for a very long time around the world, this impunity is key. After all, the path understood that he could not be punished and raise the stakes without limit. Already, they are beginning to understand that there will be no more impunity.
This is a key element – impunity.And when they entered Ukraine on such a scale, why did he sit so serious and say “we are now starting a special military operation here, we will quickly kneel down everyone”, because he understood that later, if he kills a certain number of people, then he will not be punished. Therefore, you can do whatever you want and constantly raise the rate. This is what Russia is doing. Today he understands something else, he cannot understand it, but he understands that there will be no more impunity.
If Lugansk and Donetsk fall, you will see how quickly many people will fall, who will simply disappear, many people in the Russian political the elite. And there will begin an irreversible process of transformation, it will not even be necessary to wait for the end of the war – it will begin precisely with the fall of Luhansk or Donetsk. After that, there will be a transformation.
To see the faces of people who will be fantastically scared, you need to fight for it in particular. So that all these people – this irrational evil – be punished in such a volume on the air. Just as the world is watching live today as Ukrainians, our children, are being killed. We need to see how these people will be brutally afraid of responsibility and understand that responsibility will certainly get them.
Mikhail, let's go a little bit on the fronts to complete what concerns the Kharkiv region. Our General Staff has not yet said anything, but on the other hand, they began to say that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are already near Kupyansk. Why is this city important to us and are the Armed Forces of Ukraine really already near Kupyansk?
Today, the General Staff specifically reported that 20 settlements in the Kharkiv region have already been dismissed.< /strong>The liberated territory is 700 square kilometers, which is very important. Kupyansk is a key strategic place through which the entire Kharkov grouping of Russian troops goes – it received reinforcements and reserves.
This is such a key transport hub that will need to be taken away and after see if we go north or down a little south. Thus, cut this grouping of Russian troops and prevent them from working in the mode of constant movement of reserves.
These are the key elements on the map. I mean that in this case we are talking about Kupyansk. It seems to me that a planned cleansing of the territory from the non-humans located there is going on and will continue to go on.
I saw that the Russians are very emotionally reacting to the events of the Kharkiv region. It's not that they “just took their feet out of there” and that's not all, but that they were even surprised with what zeal and “arrogance” we did it. They simply did not expect that our Armed Forces of Ukraine could not enter cautiously on the sides, but with complete “impudence” break into the rear of the enemy.
It seems to me that Russia is so intellectually weak that on the 197th day one could already understand that Ukraine is generally a different state that fights differently. We have absolutely mobilized Armed Forces, which are professionally much higher than the Russian army, in particular, these vaunted paratroopers, special forces, etc.
They could film their armed forces and show their people living in cities where there is no gas and roads. And when they are faced with an army that knows how to fight, then it turns out that all these cartoons are the 70s, the Soviet Union.
Therefore, everything goes according to the Ukrainian plan quite clearly. There was only one question – the amount of resources. That is, Russia has been accumulating Soviet weapons for decades, modernized them a little, and today threw all this into Ukraine.
I think that in Europe they can’t even believe that such a volume of weapons, it doesn’t matter – rusty weapons, tanks, artillery, MLRS, such a quantity in millions of shells – you can throw it on the battlefield and not get an advantage.
Destroyed Russian weapons/Photo from Facebook of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
This indicates one thing – Ukrainian society is at a different level of development, the Ukrainian army is at a different level of understanding of what modern types of war are . This is important and very good.
In general, I think that we do not need to pay attention to any emotions of the Russians, except for one – this beautiful squeal, when they say “I really don't want to leave here “.
But you will have to, because we have already packed the suitcases for you.
No, what suitcases? They must pay. Look, these were not only military occupiers, there were occupiers and civilians – these are illegal migrants. We can call people living in Crimea today illegal migrants who have entered and occupied someone else's apartment, they have to pay for it. We have to bill for everything they did. Therefore, it is not necessary to say so lightly that “we packed our bags for them,” goodbye. No, I think that it is necessary to bring everything to the end. And to bring everything to the end in a legal sense – Russia has a lot to pay for everything that it brought to the territory of Ukraine, in full.
Therefore, please return the suitcases, and put a certain amount of money in there, which you must pay to people who have lost everything. And for 8 years, everyone lost because of any subjects. You see how they look and talk, because these are not people with whom you can communicate about something – these are some strange subjects. And such things need to be brought to an end not only by military means.
In general, I advise our army, of course, it is not necessary to advise a working army in this way, but I believe that we should behave as harshly as possible on the battlefield. The most severe, that is, to destroy without any regret what is there. I mean the entities there.
Today I even asked myself the question, is there enough adhesive tape for our defenders in the Kharkiv region? Those videos with those taken prisoner, I was glad that we would have an exchange fund. However, I'm not sure how good this exchange fund is. We understand that they don’t want to take away the so-called mobilized from the DPR, LPR, so I understand that there may be questions here. My own question to the fact that there were photographs, allegedly we took some whole lieutenant general in the Kharkov direction.
Sychev. Now this information is being verified, because he was in the status of a lieutenant colonel when he was detained. But now all information is checked, because there are different options. To make sure that this person is related to the command of the “East” direction.
What is the situation in Crimea
As for the call to Crimea, so that our people leave, evacuate and provide information about the occupiers. How is it going here, grant?
We will not name sources, because we understand that people are still in danger, because only two structures operate in Russia – the National Guard, which knows how to beat women, children and the elderly, and the FSB, which runs around apartments and looks for people who provide do not provide information for Ukraine.
Mikhail Podolyak/Photo by OP
By the way, yesterday Crimea went to protests, which is the first time I seems to have happened after 8 years.
Of course, because they released the killer – a local resident. Indeed, moods are gradually changing in Crimea. People understand that freedom and democracy are returning there, because it has nothing to do with Russia.
You understand that Russia is a camp in which it is strictly forbidden to be free and democratic. Therefore, other moods are returning to Crimea – there is a significant increase in protest moods. And people who are inherently Ukrainians and just stayed for different reasons.
These people are already starting to provide some information – there is quite a lot of it. Not all information is verified because it is difficult to do so. But the information helps us greatly to assess the scale of what is stored in Crimea today.
In general, we believe that from a military point of view, Crimea is a support for the residual resistance of the Russian army. This is a military base. They did not invest in the development of the peninsula, because it was not needed from an economic, tourist and environmental point of view. They invested there only in bases, fuel, shells, aircraft, air defense systems – “invincible and masterpiece” S-400 systems, which “have no analogues”.
I, by the way, I am very proud that the Ukrainian army proved that buying something Russian on the arms markets, where the marking “made in Russia”, is strictly forbidden even to countries that are still fighting with bows and arrows. That is, they do not need to spend money on Russian weapons.
So, a lot of information is being verified today, and I think that Crimea will be a key element in deblocking our territories. That is, it will be necessary to destroy it through sabotage and partisan work, and there is someone to do this. Destroy all the infrastructure located there – so that there is no additional military capability of the Russian army.
From there come certain reserves, from there comes military equipment, and all this needs to be destroyed.
– Zaluzhny said that “if you, suddenly, did not guess, then, in fact, our work.” Questions arise: what, how and why now? I have a feeling that we have been watching for a month what Russia will do, because they beat their chests so hard and shouted that Crimea is sacred land and they will not surrender it.
You raise the question much more difficult. It is a question of rebirth even of our nation. Because for some time we also thought that we should be more careful and scary somewhere … We are gradually coming to the conclusion that even if you are fighting for your freedom, then you must fight with an open visor, speak and call a spade a spade.
Certainly, we were not afraid of the reaction expressed by this strange Mr. Medvedev, who said that they would start a “judgment day”. Crimea is the sacred territory of Ukraine, as well as a number of territories that were given to the Russian federal republic in due time, if we are talking about 1953-1954, in exchange for the territory of Crimea.
Then there was an exchange. And it is desirable for the Russians not to talk about this, because we gave away, for example, the same Taganrog region, which was absolutely evolved from a civilizational point of view. And they took away the territory that needed to be worked out.
Deputy head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting with veterans of the Second World War. He tried to convince them of Russia's “power” and voice loud threats to Ukraine.
And Ukraine made Crimea what it looks decent today – namely Ukraine. There was no Russia there and was not even close. Therefore, we consider Crimea to be absolutely sacred Ukrainian territory. There are no other legal or factual circumstances that would say that Russia has some kind of tangential relationship to the Crimea. But we are careful and civilized.
We accepted, unfortunately, the bad rules of the game that our partners offered us by default in 2014: “Let's pretend that we don't understand Crimea, but let's not pay attention to it.” And we played for a while, accepted this game. Again, this was a bad decision by the Ukrainian side.
You remember that until 2021, when the first Crimean platform was in place, there was practically no talk about Crimea at all: the de-occupation of Crimea, the possibility of even military de-occupation – it was generally taboo . Do you remember that in 2015 and 2016, all that was about Crimea was the boards in Kyiv, which put “Crimea is Ukraine.” Indeed, in Kyiv it is necessary to explain that Crimea is Ukraine, because we “did not know” this.
But, meanwhile, today it is clear that we are more and more starting to play with with an open visor: both in the Kharkiv direction, and in the South (Kherson-Zaporozhye), and even more so – in the Crimea … What do you see: this territory is absolutely ours. And the world accepted this not only de jure, but also de facto. The world believes that we must return these territories.
We offer the Russians to leave everything that they illegally built in Crimea and leave this territory voluntarily, give it to the owner, that is, Ukraine.
We propose to do this voluntarily. If they do not do this, we have the right to deblock this territory by military means, release and destroy the illegal elements that have been built there. Including Russia's military infrastructure.
The West is talking about it. He says: “Please use whatever you need, because this is your territory and you have an absolute right.” International law confirms this in full to do whatever you see fit.
Because Crimea is Ukraine. Like the rest of the territory of Ukraine itself.
This is an axiom that we must write in golden letters. Instead of a mausoleum, there should be such a cube and on it should be written “the territory of Ukraine is an absolutely taboo topic for Russia. Never go beyond the border of Ukraine. Only if you are asked to go.” But I think that we will not ask the Russians for a long time to come to us.
Shaping the Russian Opinion on Ukraine
Every morning when I look through the statistics from the General Staff and see how many killed infidels we have, I am very happy, and then I think that there are almost 52 thousand of those who will not be able to return home and tell their children: “Son, remember, never go to war in Ukraine” .
A very good wish. But I think that we will do everything right. A very difficult path is just beginning on the de-occupation of the territory. It will be difficult for us to pass it, but we will definitely pass. You see and hear how people think. There is a consensus in society that you need to go this way. This is important for a state called Ukraine to exist in such a powerful form. We will definitely do what you say.
We will come up with a form how to write for every Russian”Never enter the territory of Ukraine. Once you enter here without permission, you will never come back” . I would like only not at the expense of the lives of our boys. I would like it not to be 50 thousand, but all this bunch of people with Russian passports, including our collaborators, so that they don’t go anywhere anymore.
Then let's go to Kherson. I remember when the first talk began that we were going, cautiously speaking, on a counteroffensive. Then the General Staff said not to tell anyone anything. At the same time, different opinions and directions were expressed in this regard. Was it our informational victory?
Our General Staff is very creative and professional. They are actively analyzing, and not like the Russian headquarters, what is happening and where. We have very good intelligence data in terms of movement and permanent redeployment of one or another Russian unit. We see where there are more weapons, where there are fewer weapons.
Podoliak/Photo Office of the President
For us, the counter-offensive looks a little wider – not a specific attack only in the Kharkov direction or only, for example, in the Kherson direction. No, this is a simultaneous attack on 10, 20 directions – this is the “thousand cuts” tactic. What for? To reduce and minimize your losses. The key to Ukraine's counteroffensive is the significant increase over the past 2 weeks in the intensification of shelling of precisely logistics support.
That is, all these warehouses are of different types, these are all fuel bases, operational tactical headquarters. In addition, transport hubs. All this is destroyed. Unfortunately, we are still a little short of accumulated weapons. If there were more of them, specific heavy weapons, the same high-precision MLRS systems with guided missiles, then, probably, we would have unblocked our territory even more effectively.
I emphasize again. It is very important that we all understand. There is no one direction where we consolidated all our forces and moved there. There is no one Kharkiv direction – 10 Kharkiv directions, there are 10 Kherson directions. And there are constantly certain robots to de-blockade.
This is a correct informational work, because Russians do not understand at all what will happen tonight, what will take place tomorrow morning. This gives us additional leverage to influence the situation. It is very important. There will also be a Kherson direction, there will be a Melitopol direction, but I personally most of all expect an active offensive operation in the Donetsk-Luhansk direction.
Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II has died
I see confirmation of information, that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain died at the age of 96.
The great era has come and it will slightly reformat the political process today, including in Britain. Replacing the head of the throne is a big procedure, like the burial itself. This will slightly shift the focus of the world media, which will focus on this tragedy in London.
Elizabeth II/Photo by Getty Images
But I think it's really an era – 96 years. Elizabeth II saw the Second World War and she essentially saw the Third World War. I think that this influenced the leader of Britain.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022 at the age of 96. Recently, her health began to fail. Her Majesty recommended medical supervision. The woman was on the throne for 70 years and became the record holder in the history of the British monarchy.
As for the Donetsk and Lugansk directions. Today there was a message that we have liberated one of the villages in the Donetsk region and at this moment in the long occupied territories, which have been under the occupation authorities for 8 years, they are talking about new so-called referendums. Now they allegedly agreed that they would hold them on the 4th, on the day of some kind of “ unity “. Our General Staff even says that in the temporarily occupied territories of Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, preparations are underway for the so-called referenda.
In them “Day of unity of the occupied, humiliated, offended, plundered territories.” Only such a holiday can be in Russia. There is no Russian federation – there is an empire that has been built on the ruins and puts pressure on certain ethnic minorities, so the day of unity looks a little mockery.
- Firstly,there is no point in discussing any legal initiatives from quasi-entities, such as the criminal enclave of the DPR, LPR, etc. There are no grounds to consider any referendum valid, even the Crimean one. I've been talking about it all the time and constantly stressing it – it had no legal consequences.
- Secondly, it didn't rely on any laws. That is, Ukraine could not hold such a referendum according to the law.
In the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the possibility of such a territorial referendum was not clearly spelled out.
< strong>And Russia has no concept of a referendum at all.That is, the territory of Evenkia cannot come out and say that “we want to have the right to self-determine and we want to hold a referendum on secession from Russia2. This is nonsense.”
That is, the state is holding a referendum according to a contrived law that does not exist. Of course, the Ukrainian referendum is not recognized by anyone in the world. It is legally void and thus leads to nothing.
Moreover, we now see that a banal de-occupation will take place in Crimea in one way or another. That is, either we ask those people to stay there until the end of the century, which will be very short, or go somewhere. After that, we will claim them because of extradition procedures from Russia.
Referendum in the so-called LPR and DPR
These are unknown quasi entities that no one needs. There is no LPR and DPR – there is the occupied territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Just like there is the occupied territory of Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkiv regions.
There are Russian troops there, there is violence, and occupation administrations have been forcibly established there, which, at the same time, are committing mass war crimes. That is, legally, within the framework of international law, especially since the war was not provoked, there is no mandate in Russia to carry out any military operations on the territory of Ukraine. Including, on the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions and in Crimea.
The so-called referendum/Photo collage Channel 24
It must be understood that Russia does all this completely at random, without relying on any international normative documents. Thus, everything that Russia has legally invented, that is:
- referendum,
- ruble,
- banking systems
All this is legally null and void.
In principle, it is important for us to know what from the point of view of the referendum? It is important for us that all these people who publicly declare their intention to hold referendums do so. Thus, we will assume that they want to commit a legally fixed crime.
Why do I want one of the key defeats to be in Donetsk and Luhansk? Russia will perceive what is happening and our demands in a completely different way. And among our demands, I will tell you in detail the proposal, but this is not a proposal, but an ultimatum demand to hand over to us all the people, regardless of whether they are citizens of which country they are, who created crimes, including those of a legal nature.
That is, they showed the initiative to carry out illegal legal actions on the territory of Ukraine – the organizers of the referendums. We will need to be extradited to Ukraine in order for them to receive legal terms.
Blackmail Zaporizhia NPP
< p>The experts and I are trying to find out why the occupiers need the Zaporizhzhya NPP. We agreed on 2 points: the first is that they wanted to secure Crimea for themselves, but something did not work out, and the second is that they no longer respond to intimidation with a nuclear button. Therefore, now they have pushed into our territories and are frightening us with our nuclear power plants, saying that these are not their territories, they are not related.
It is a little more complicated if we are talking about the ZNPP. Thus, the first plans (occupiers – Channel 24) were – to seize the nuclear power plant and transfer electricity to the Crimea. They do not leave these plans. But they will not succeed, because their hands grow from the wrong place.
But they use such topics as the ZNPP as a constant, large-scale and blackmail game. They are constantly saying something, firing at something, something is happening. It's like informational pressure on public opinion in other countries.
Zaporozhye NPP/Photo from ZNPP Facebook
Because we are already looking at the Russians cynically, we understand what they are and work with risks. And the society of other countries, they are a little panicky about any information about nuclear power plants. They believe that there may be Chernobyl, etc. For them, this is essential.
Therefore, Russia simply constantly throws these topics into society, conducts something “on its own initiative.” This is a classic technology for Russia – it came, seized someone else's critical infrastructure, breaks something, fires.
But at the same time, this individual nebenzya (Russia's representative to the UN – Channel 24) says that they are initiating a meeting to discuss security issues at the ZNPP. And this is a global topic, everyone starts talking about something and so scares people in other countries. This is Russia's tactic.
Military actions during winter
I saw the statement of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who said that the war in Ukraine is approaching a decisive stage. As I understand it, he meant that hostilities would subside in winter, and in the spring – whoever is better prepared will have an advantage.
I do not think that there will be a lull in the fighting for the winter, because we already fought in February and March of this year, when there were severe weather conditions. I don't quite understand this at all. Yes, for certain societies there is a concept – we fight in comfort, but for the type of war that we see now, and for this type of intensity, there is no chance to stop it for a while.
Why? This is not beneficial for us at all, because during this time Russia will be able to mobilize a certain number of prisoners and debtors, that is, it will receive a certain amount of manpower that they do not need, but will have machine guns and be on the battlefield. During this time, they will be able to repair a certain amount of mothballed equipment, in particular tanks and guns.
It is clear that all this will not create great dangers for us, but it will still increase the number of losses that we will carry. Why do we need this?
Because I think there will be no stopping. The climax of the war is a somewhat strange concept for us on the 197th day of the war. For us, every day is a culmination, because it solves some issues – tactical or even strategic.
But it seems to me that the key thing today is the offensive that goes in all directions, these attacks on logistics. It looks completely different for the Russians – if they hid behind propaganda for 190 days and said that they control something, today they understand that in three days the situation is somewhat different, but not in the sense in which they thought.
Anthony Blinken's visit to Kyiv
September 8 in Kyiv arrived Anthony Blinken. And it's strange that a few days ago the US president was asked if Russia is recognized as a sponsor of terrorism, and here is Blinken's visit. Are these unrelated things?
This is all connected, but not from the point of view of recognition of legal status, because this is a more difficult path, because it significantly changes the disposition of Russia in general. But in order not to reduce Russia to the level of Syria or North Korea, this should be a consensus decision of the political elites of key states. They will discuss it, it is a matter of time, because Russia cannot be considered otherwise by the number of recorded war crimes.
Moreover, if before everyone thought about the “red lines” in the behavior of Russia, today everyone understands that there is no fear there. But this is a gradual process of refusing to let Russia sit at more or less decent negotiating tables.
The world will come to this point, and this is important, because the charter of the country sponsoring terrorism will significantly limit Russia's financial and economic opportunities in third world countries – India, Africa or Latin America, where she now earns money.
Anthony Blinken/Photo by Getty Images
Meanwhile, Blinken came to Ukraine, clearly meaning that this is very important. The United States clearly supports both strategic and tactical Ukraine. He brought specifics in terms of financing military programs, not only today, but also an additional several billion dollars for the countries of the region, which should strategically look at Ukraine's military capability.
This suggests that Putin's plan is really interesting, because he increased the border and activity of NATO, accelerated the reformatting of weapons of all countries located in the east of Europe. You can see that we are moving to NATO standards, and this issue is already strategic, because it will already be appropriate training and production.
That is, Putin has a fantastic plan that made Ukraine the leader of Europe< /strong>, raised military alliances and updated the military-industrial complex of the West, which gave us the opportunity to reformat our army much faster, and showed that Russia does not have effective modern weapons, a normal army, and generally lives only by behaving like a gopnik.
We ask our partners to recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. Why don't we call war a war in official documents? That Russia declared war on Ukraine?
These are legal statuses. There is a de facto war, but there is a legal status. Russia didn't declare war either. That is, you need to understand that proactively declaring war is not the same as declaring a counterwar.
Russia went very cunningly – it wanted to deceive its people and called the war a “special operation.” Thus, it is not subject to international law in terms of aggression. After all, there is no such thing in the legal plane as war, but there are questions of aggression. Russia thought that it would get around this wording – that “a country called the Russian Federation committed aggression against Ukraine.”
They continue to say that they did not commit aggression, but that they are conducting here, as they say, “a military operation limited on a certain territory.” It is clear that we see this as a war, because they are attacking our territory, but legally it looks like an operation.
Therefore, we cannot be the first to say the word “war” (in official sources – Channel 24). It's all legal. But de facto the world understands that there is a specific war between Russia and Ukraine, and they help us. They informally say to each other that this is a war, so help will be like during a war. Lend-lease speaks about this, because in the USA they understand that this is a war.
Meeting in the format “Ramstein”
The 5th “Ramstein” passed, they said that it was the last one before Lend-Lease, but they allegedly announced another meeting in two weeks. Therefore, they say that one should not expect specific figures. But, as I understand it, they no longer take into account how Russia relates to these weapons.
No one pays attention to this anymore. It makes no difference what Russia says there, its statements are just like informational noise. But I'm talking about something else – “Ramstein2 is an extremely effective platform. Defense ministers gather there, they analyze the war in an analytical format and draw conclusions among themselves.
This is a kind of “academy”, they gather there, discuss the consequences of specific actions for a specific time, conduct analytics on whether there are enough resources, whether they need to be increased, and after that they discuss another question – who, from the point of view of the military-industrial complex, can increase the supply to Ukraine one weapon or another.
By the way, I've always been a fan of mainly declaring what we get. I think that this is unnecessary information in general, the main thing is that they quickly get to Ukraine logistically and go where they need to go.
It seems to me that today everyone in the world, including our partners, already understands that there is no point in talking about what will be transmitted once again. And right today they are transmitting everything they need, making adjustments to their plans.
I constantly emphasize that when they say that they give us something less, everyone understands that we need more parity, but I I see how our guys are fighting and it looks more efficient – with fewer weapons they fight more effectively than Russia.
But with such a number of weapons, a country like Russia, in principle, does not exist in the world, the military-industrial complex did not accumulate as much weapons in warehouses. And Russia has been collecting everything for itself since Soviet times, in order to use it later.
By the way, they did not think to use all this in Ukraine and bring to us the Caucasus, the Far East, and the Pacific Ocean , where they can find it. That is, the volume of weapons that they spend is exorbitant.
But in other countries there was no such production. And now these countries understand that it was a mistake in strategic terms – to reduce the production of military equipment, and this is being corrected, including with the help of Ramstein.
