Yesterday I saw how Slavyansk has changed in a week after the announced evacuation. Despite the good weather, there are much fewer people. During a sermon, the pastor at Good News Church urged anyone who was still hesitant to leave. Unfortunately, the railroad tracks are being shelled, and traveling by train is no longer as safe as it used to be. Therefore, the church takes its members by bus from Slavyansk to fellow believers in Ternopil, and at the same time evacuates the inhabitants of Lysichansk, Severodonetsk and Popasnaya on a daily basis. Getting people out of Rubezhnoe is almost impossible.
Intense battles were going on all week near Slavyansk, cannonade was constantly heard. The first echelon of the occupiers has been stuck for a week somewhere in the distance of 30 kilometers and cannot move any further. But the second echelon is on its way - troops from the Far East, the last combat-ready reserves, are arriving. If something happens in the Caucasus, on the border with China or Afghanistan, Russia now has nothing as a defense. It will be harder for us to fight off the second echelon; temporary success of the enemy is possible, but soon the rains will begin and the Russian army will get bogged down. Yesterday the first green sprouts appeared on the trees, and today they have already blossomed. This means that in just a few days it will be possible to get close to enemy positions unnoticed. In order to bring the units that fled from Kyiv and Chernigov into combat readiness, the invaders will need a lot of time, because the third echelon will enter the battle when it is already too late to attack. The occupiers will need a lot of time to bring the units that had fled from around Kyiv and Chernigov into combat readiness, so the third echelon will enter the battle when it is too late to attack.
According to the adviser to the head of the presidential office A. Arestovich, the Ukrainian army is on the defensive, struggling to hold back the many times superior forces. There are no forces for the liberation counter-offensive, and after the hot phase a long protracted war is ahead. Therefore, it is better to immediately agree on Russia's return to the old DPR/LPR borders, which can be considered a crushing victory. However, the negotiations are negotiations, but I do not believe that the Ukrainian society will agree to the conclusion of peace when Russia withdraws to the borders of February 23, 2022. After the atrocities in Bucha, it is unbearable to think that Donetsk, Lugansk and other Ukrainian cities, which have been suffering under occupation for eight years, will not be liberated. Ordinary people will see this not as a crushing victory, but as a defeat.
In fact, the situation looks somewhat different. The Ukrainian army does not stand on the defensive, but is waging an active maneuver war. This is neither a defense nor an offensive, but a third type of military action, which can be called Makhno tactics after Nestor Makhno. Such tactics allow to destroy the enemy despite his military superiority both on one’s own territory, when he advances and in his rear, when he defends. Arestovich is right that if the Ukrainian army, imitating the Russian one, starts storming Donetsk with columns of armored vehicles, it will suffer monstrous losses.
However, nobody is going to fight like that. I think within a month, Ukrainian troops will grind the second and third echelons of the Russian offensive against Slavyansk and Barvenkovo, and then transfer the fighting to the rear of the enemy. No one will stop at the administrative borders of the DPR/LPR. Or rather, no one will be able to stop the mobile Ukrainian units that will bypass the cities, cut off communications, destroy supplies, retreat in danger and make new surprise raids until the enemy flees, as it was near Kyiv.
If Putin now withdrew all troops to the old DPR/LPR borders and bit into the defenses, he could have held on there. But he needs victory at any cost, and so he will not rest until he destroys all his reserves in a suicidal attempt to encircle and destroy the Donbass group. However, the only thing in his power is to present as a gift to his supporters by May 9 the destruction of the cities of Donbass, which he is already shelling with missiles. Therefore, the evacuation was announced. The main thing is to save people. Then, after the ninth of May, everyone will be able to return.
There are reports from liberated towns and villages that people have been found tied up everywhere, with signs of torture and a bullet in the back of their heads. This means that the special services were given a plan to shoot civilians, just as in 1937 NKVD was sent down a plan to arrest enemies of the people. Only now is worse than 1937, because the systematic terror of the secret services is superimposed by the chaotic terror of the military. In terms of cruelty, this is already approaching the Red Terror of the Civil War.
The Putin regime is the heir to the Cheka-NKVD-KGB system. What is called the October Revolution was actually a putsch, after which the Bolsheviks occupied Russia, and then Ukraine and other countries. They were not revolutionaries at all, but occupiers. Of course, they used in their ideology the archaic idea of collecting lands. This idea underlies the aggressive wars of the Russian Empire, but with the advent of a new era, it should have remained in the past, like, for example, the idea of the Ottoman Empire or the Arab Caliphate. The Bolsheviks revived it, transforming it to fit their ideology.
However, the Bolsheviks are a dragon with two heads. One head is the party, the other is the special services. During the 1991 revolution, only one head was cut off, the second survived. This led to a military-chekist coup in 1999 and the establishment of the Putin regime, which, despite the massive support of local residents - collaborators, still retains its occupational character. It follows that the atrocities of the Russian invaders on Ukrainian territory will sooner or later spread to the territory of Russia. First, there will be more reports of rape and murder of children, then it will become clear that the kidnappings and murders of oppositionists are not isolated, but planned. If Putin stays in power, he will first bring back 1937, and then 1918. Therefore, Russians need to get rid of the illusion that at least part of the old quiet life can be preserved. Armageddon has already come, and it is now impossible to dodge the choice between the forces of good and evil.
