Even three years after the Russian invasion, the Ukrainians are wondering how it is possible that the Russians without much resistance in February 2022 managed to occupy the territory of Switzerland in the south of Ukraine.
Their rapid procedure from Crimea meant that Ukraine lost the city of Cherson within a few days, and the Russian armed forces threatened Mykolajiv, where – if they were successful – could attack the Odesa.
Express moving of Russian troops east in turn meant that the coast of the Sea of Azov was in danger. Russian troops on February 27 occupied the port city of Berďansk and then moved to the western gates of Mariupol.
South defended one and a half thousand soldiers
Some answers to the questions associated with the fall of the south gave Ukrainian Major General Andrij Sokolov, who was Deputy Commander of the South Operational Headquarters in 2022.
In his words, at the time of the invasion of the Russian troops, the group of south had a defensive power of one and a half thousand people. We recall that the section of the Crontic front was 150 kilometers long.
“In the 59th Brigade you would count 1300 members. Why so little? Because this brigade shortly before, sometime in December, it left the zone of common forces (OSS – defense of the part of the Luhansk and Donetsk region, which was under the control of Ukraine until February 2022, note Red) and renewed its fighting capacity, ”said Sokolov for.
According to him, most of the brigade was in the training center in the Olesh Sands in the Charson region, some in the Kiev region and, for example, the engineers of this brigade were in training in the Chmeľnyc region.
“Plus, we still had about 250 people in 137. Of the 250 people, there were part of the drafts, ”he described the situation of the Sokols at that time.
According to the officer, only a part of these men – a platoon consisting of several dozen men – was immediately in front of the Bridge near Čonhari, a strategic place through which Russian military technology finally rolled into the Ukrainian territory. The other two platoon was located at the Kalančak control station and the village of Kajira.
“In fact, these three support points were those where they faced the opponent on the first day (invasion),” he said in an interview, admitting that the Ukrainians in the south had not had enough reinforcements in the time of invasion.
According to him, only the escalation of the situation required at least two brigades to prevent sections in front of Cerson and Melitopol. The defense of the south in the planning counted with four.
Finally, Sokolov managed to “cover” the Melitopolian section with a single tank rota shortly before the invasion of the Melitopol.
“The problem was probably that we did not have enough power and means. The enemy concentrated his troops in a large territory from Belarus to Crimea. We also needed forces in the OSS zone, we needed to cover Kiev, North, Slobožaneshchyna (northeast Ukraine) and Kharkovsky section. I think we didn’t have enough strength, ”he said.
Uninterminated bridges
At the same time, the Ukrainian troops found another problem – when the order came to take defensive positions and reflect the attack, it had to improvise. While the Luhanská and Donetsk area defended the network of trenches and bunkers, the south did not have the status of a special zone. It would require a full -fledged defensive line to expropriate someone’s land. Therefore, the army could not be engraved by the beginning of the invasion – not even deploying its technique – where she needed it.
The questions also appeared around why important bridges were not detonated through which the Russians eventually got to Ukraine controlled territory. In connection with this, an investigation has also been launched in Ukraine.
Already in the first days of the invasion, the reports that the bridge on the Čonhar Peninsula was overwhelmed, but with the reference that the bridge was refined, but the units in the south were confronted with enemy forces that exceeded them up to fifteen times.
Finally, the story of why at least one of the bridges did not fly into the air told a direct witness – a soldier 137. He was on the night of 23 to February 24, 2022 near Čonhari. Sistersvatovsky, who spent more than a year in Russia’s captivity, that after fire has begun and interrupted the connection with command, the decision remained to destroy the bridge on it. He decided to detonate him. But there was no explosion.
The soldier had two versions: either they managed to conquer Russian sabotters, or the interconnection wires were damaged by mortar shelling.
Also known is the story of a 27-year-old soldier Vitalija Skakun, who detonated the bridge near Heničena for the cost of his life. According to the Ukrainian media, everything was ready for destruction on the bridge, but there was no detonation for technical reasons. Skakun’s friend Oleksandr Tkač for the army website said that Skakun decided to detonate the charge even though they were ordered to withdraw. Shortly after the young Mariňák ran to the bridge, there was an explosion. According to one of the versions, the Russians launched fire after it, so it is not clear whether the bridge managed to detonate himself a soldier, or it was a consequence of a Russian attack.
Authorization is needed to flood
Why the bridges did not fly to the air on the link with Crimea, the former commander of the operation of the United Forces, General, Serhij Najev, is also the latest.
In an interview for the Ukrainian army on the given section, he was picked up by five bridges in 2014, when the Russians annexed the Crimea. One bridge in 2022 eventually detonated the whole, in the case of another bridge destroyed part of it.
According to the Ukrainian General, soldiers on the Crimea border were distributed by about 1500 mines, although the real defense would require to distribute at least two hundred thousand. For this, however, the army in the Kersonian and Zaporoža region, where combat operations did not take place until 2022, had no legal authority.
“Imagine the situation that the commander will come to the owner of a property and say: Can I place an artillery battery with you? And the owner asks, On the basis of what reason? ”Najev said.
According to him, in the territory of the Carson and Zaporožská region, similar measures were taken, which were valid in the Donetsk and Luhansk region before the Russians invaded Ukraine. “Then the military command would kick trenches, the mines – not one and a half thousand, but hundreds of thousands,” he said.
All of this eventually allowed the Ukrainian army to be adopted by martial law, which Kiev introduced on 24 February 2022 at 5:30 after the Ukrainian territory began bombing Russian missiles and Ukrainian towns issued Russian military columns. In the context of the war, however, it was a late step. Najev himself in an interview for UP pointed out that it takes months to prepare a full defense, not days.
We add that on February 20, 2022, the former Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, that Russia did not form a border group at the border and considers “it inappropriate to speculate whether the Russians will attack Ukraine tomorrow or tomorrow”.
