Russians Confused: Ukrainian Offensive To Surprise Everyone

A major military secret has not surfaced.

To date, the Ukrainian army's counteroffensive may postpone due to several objective reasons, such as unfavourable weather conditions, the state of Ukraine's arms supplies, military planning in the General Staff, etc. However, the leakage of classified US data on military support to our country is a minor problem and, in fact, not a problem. These documents do not contain the key thing: information on the time and place of the AFU offensive.

This offensive will be unexpected and surprise everyone, as the AFU General Staff does not follow World War II-type methods. The greatest threat is not to grant the enemy the pause he desperately needs. Oleksiy Hetman, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war and a major of the AFU reserve, expressed this opinion in an exclusive interview with obozrevatel.com .

- The Washington Post reports that Ukraine is as allegedly postponing the spring offensive and gives three reasons: unfavourable weather conditions, slow delivery of military aid, and leakage of classified US files. Other media outlets provide similar assessments. Do you think such information is credible? No one knows the plans of the AFU General Staff. Do you think that the counteroffensive may start later for these or other reasons?

- Let's go through them in order. What does affect our counteroffensive? Firstly, weather conditions. Our different leaders, both political and military, have already repeatedly mentioned that. The offensive requires heavy equipment, self-propelled artillery, SRPA, which ride separately. They can't drive where there's mud.

They don't drive on roads, highways. They drive in fields, plantations so one one could detect them. The soil should be dry. Even though this is the twenty-first century, the technology development, there is no difference in this case. That is the first reason.

The second reason is the appropriate amount of armaments that our partners must provide. One cannot simply give a command to carry out a counteroffensive. A combat order must be developed. It should contain actions for each unit that will take part in the operation. It is not only a question of large units but also of small ones, including platoons. The means of communication, the routes of movement and the equipment these men should have in their arsenal and the fuel and lubricants that should be in reserve must be specified.

It is not aabout 'digging from fence to fence'. All activities should be calculated; milestones to stop at should be identified. Everything falls under calculation, in particular, the amount of fuel and lubricants. No one is going to refuel tanks and carry a tanker of fuel behind.

If the calculations are incomplete, but there are 95% of them, there is no sense in an offensive.

Thirdly, the recent leakage of information. This has the slightest impact on our offensive actions. It did not contain any epecially classified information. First of all, there was no information about where and how we were going to conduct our counteroffensive. There are a lot of pages. They enumerate the weapons supplied to Ukraine.

By and large, one can find it in open sources. This document just lumps it all together. One cannot say that there is anything that could seriously disturb us. There is nothing like that there. Although, it is not good that some information has appeared.

I think our General Staff could change its plans. But it might not change anything, because there could be variants. Only Russians are fighting like that. While Ukraine and NATO countries have several variants of military operations. If one doesn't work, they take another.

Hence, I believe this leak did not change anything. One option could have been postponed and another adopted. People in the General Staff work all the time, without days off, 12-16 hours a day. They work through all the options. It is a very serious job.

There's one more aspect. We expect the counteroffensive to be one mighty blow, as it was during the Second World War. Everything will happen in a way we can't even imagine. Our military leadership has repeatedly stated that the actions we would take during the counteroffensive will surprise the enemy. They will surprise us, too. We will not rush headlong into an attack. We will act differently. You'll see how. That is the military secret.

- So, we, who observe the situation from the outside, do not know the plans of the General Staff. We can only forecast one thing for certain: the counteroffensive may start, at the least, once the fields have become runnable for heavy equipment?

- Yes, it is at the very least.

- There are now more pro-Russian statements in the Western and world press related to the war in Ukraine. The Belarusian foreign minister also made another "peacekeeping" statement during his visit to Budapest. He called on Ukraine to immediately declare a ceasefire and return to peace talks. Lukashenka did the same earlier. Do you think Russia can somehow influence our allies or those who are still hesitating, and use this situation somehow?

- This is what they are doing. Let's not get into international relations, but look, for example, at the statement of the President of Brazil who offers us to give up on certain territories to end the war. Some African countries are also making statements. Russia is trying to look for partners around the world. It puts some pressure on our European and American partners.

Why are the Russians suddenly so peaceful? Things are bad along the front line. When our counteroffensive, in one form or another, occurs, they will fail. They need a pause to bring up reserves, additional equipment. They will talk about peace. They will say that people should not die. But not because of humanity-related reasons, but because they have started to lose in this war.

One will not forgive either the Russian leadership or the leadership of its ally, Belarus, for losing the war. Neither the population, nor the local elites will forgive. Neither Lukashenka, nor Putin will stand. This is why they need a pause.

As for The Washington Post, a year ago, they said Ukraine would not stand for more than three weeks. I don't think this publication is an agent of Russia, but it has people working there, just convincing journalists, saying nice things about peace, peace talks and so on, because war is bad. It's hard to disagree with that.

Once on a Lithuanian TV show I offered to seize a part of their territory and kill people, while they are going to cry for help, because you are attacked by the enemy. And you will hear that you don't need such powerful weapons. Let's solve issues peacefully.

One offers the same to us. What negotiating table do you mean? Russia is killing our people every day, trying to destroy our country. Now we are defending the whole of Europe from the Russian invasion. Don't they understand that if Russia does not lose here, it will advance?

Unfortunately, many publications are unable to separate the wheat from the chaff. They call, under good slogans, for things that can only damage our relations with our partners and the prospects for the country's liberation. We need to make counter-statements, to prove to our partners that such appeals are not a step towards peace; it's an attempt of Russia to strengthen its capacity to continue the war.

- Indeed, it is very easy to call for an end to the war, the surrender of territories, when we are not talking about our own country. One last clarification - you said that the enemy needs a pause to recover. How long should it last?

- They need at least a few months, so they can prepare the reserves they are trying to mobilise. But it is better for them to stop the war on the front line where they are and put it into a state of trench warfare. So they want a semi-frozen conflict for six months or a year. This is the perfect scenario for Russia.

During that time, they would be able to sum up, analyse mistakes and build up even more weapons production. And then to deliver a new, more powerful strike. If we make such a mistake, if we give the enemy this opportunity, we may not withstand this second strike even with our NATO allies. That is the great danger.