Bron van wat?
Te midden van al het nieuws over het vredesplan bracht journalist Jimmy Rushton een interview met Bohdan Krotevych, de voormalige commandant van Azov uit. In het gesprek uitte hij vooral kritiek op de Oekraïense opperbevelhebber Syrskiyi.
“I Know We Can Win”: Ukraine’s Most Famous Soldier on the State of War
https://offbeatresearch.c...dier-on-the-state-of-war/
Hij vertelt waarom Azov, in tegenstelling tot andere eenheden binnen de Oekraïense strijdkrachten, geen tekort aan personeel heeft – en dat heeft heel veel te maken met Syrskyi.
”Azov uses people according to their talents. And also an important thing is that Azov keeps their promises,” Krotevych says. He explains that upon recruitment, servicemembers are assigned to the role they originally signed up for — no last-minute job swaps. “Azov is part of the National Guard of Ukraine, which is part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs […] It’s more security from generals like Syrskyi, you know.”
“Even right now, those people that are being recruited to the air defence forces, they go there understanding that in three months, they may be transferred by Syrskyi to an assault unit,” Krotevych says.
Maakt niet uit waar je specialist bent, de kans is altijd aanwezig dat je wordt overgeplaatst bij de infanterie / voetsoldaten. Zelenskyi had al eerder dit jaar bevel gegeven dat luchtverdediging personeel niet mochten worden overgeplaatst [
Bron]. Schijnbaar gebeurt dat wel onder order van Syrskyi.
Recent manpower shortages have led to numerous cases of highly trained specialists being transferred from air defence units and even mechanics and technicians from the Ukrainian Air Force to infantry units. “But when journalists ask the General Staff [of the Ukrainian Armed Forces] about such transfers, the General Staff says that this is not true,” Krotevych says. “They lie. But people talk to each other, to the military, and they know that it is true. And these lies just completely destroy the trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We spoke with other pilots, and they said that our brothers, our engineers, were transferred by Syrskyi. Our engineers, our staff were transferred by Syrskyi. So, General Syrskyi is lying. And he’s commanded to lie to others, his units and his commanders.”
Een cultuur van liegen is ontstaan, volgens hem nog erger dan bij de Russen (hoewel ik dat lichtelijk betwijfel)
For his part, Krotevych believes the “culture of lying” that once infected the Russian military has now become more prevalent on the Ukrainian side.
“I think that Russians stopped their lying culture in the army, maybe in the beginning of 2024,” he says. “They stopped lying, and we started lying.”
Goede bevelhebbers zoals Drapatyi nemen ontslag of worden ontslagen, en als je politiek betrouwbaar bent of goede connecties hebt, word je naar boven gepromoveerd. Het meest schrijnende voorbeeld hiervan is de aanstelling van Manko.
Krotevych believes Manko — Colonel Valentyn Manko, commander of the Assault Forces — is the latest example of an individual promoted due to political reliability and personal connections rather than talent.
Far more serious were multiple cases where Manko posted photos and videos on social media, showing uncensored military maps. In one case, Manko was accused of posting a TikTok video with a map showing uncensored positions of Ukrainian troops — a claim he denied, instead asserting that the map showed only known settlements. Critics and analysts, however, were quick to point out that Manko had posted more photos on social media with uncensored maps showing various troop positions, and Krotevych believes this exposed the positions of Ukrainian soldiers.
Syrskyi zet "zijn" Assault eenheden in voor PR missies, vaak voor een verwaarloosbaar doel. Deze eenheden lijden grote verliezen ("meer verliezen in 1 maand dan Azov in 2 jaar"). Wel krijgen ze voortdurend nieuwe rekruten en goed materiaal, dat terwijl vrijwel alle andere brigades een gigantisch tekort hebben aan personeel.
Krotevych argues that Syrskyi’s favoured assault units — which answer directly and only to him — are frequently used for militarily useless and highly costly PR stunts, driven by political pressure from Kyiv. “In one assault regiment under Syrskyi, there were more losses in one month than [Azov] took in two years,” Krotevych says. “It’s too stupid to lose people so Syrskyi can say to the President, ‘Mr. President, I carried out the operations that you asked me to do’, it’s stupid. I know how many losses we got in other units to free some village and to make a Telegram post. And in a week, that village would be re-captured by the Russians. It’s so stupid, no, I don’t understand.”
Volgens hem zou je wie dan ook van de straat kunnen plukken en hij / zij zal het niet slechter doen dan Syrskyi.
Verder had hij ook nog een interessante comment over de mensen die denken dat drones de oplossing zijn voor alles (dat lees ik hier ook regelmatig). Volgens hem zijn ze dat dus niet.
Krotevych is also dismissive about the assessment of some (mainly Western) commentators, who argue that Ukraine can make up for the current shortfall in infantry simply by producing more drones. “This is so stupid, you know. Yeah, we have FPVs and robots and they will win this war and we will drink a coffee and look at this from a distance of about 100 kilometers,” he says. Krotevych does not believe in “game changers” and dislikes the term intensely. “War is about units, all types of units. It’s about logistics, it’s about defence, it’s about assault. Combined arms. Ukraine needs infantry […] just not under Syrskyi’s command.”
Well, sir, on first sighting the French, I naturally gave the order to advance. That's my style, sir.
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