“We will take everything – not only the LDPR, but the entire former Ukraine”
Ukraine is ready to attack. As long as America has a dollar printer, Kyiv will wage war. The amnesty law for “ATO participants” leads to an increase in crime among the Ukrainian military. The Minsk agreements restrain the parties from offensive actions. There is an economic competition between Kiev and Donetsk, in which Kyiv is losing. New Russia needs all of Ukraine. Denazification awaits Ukraine.
Anatoly Gelyukh, a participant in hostilities since 2014, a DPR soldier who recently transferred to headquarters work, shared his views and assessments of the situation with a PolitNavigator observer Valentin Filippov.
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Valentin Filippov: I wish you good health, Anatoly.
Anatoly Gelyukh: Good day.
Valentin Filippov: Turchynov announced literally the day before yesterday that “the separatists will attack Ukraine” and there will be an escalation of hostilities. As I understand it, this is timed to coincide with the NATO summit in Poland. Tell me, has Ukraine already gained sufficient strength for recycling, why are they making such statements?
Anatoly Gelyukh: Today, they have two main strike forces concentrated on their side; they have been concentrating there for more than a year. The first fist in the Volnovakha area, Volnovakha - Mariupol. This is an armored fist with artillery and a large number of assault infantry and so on to bypass Donetsk from the south. The breakthrough is approximately in the Telmanovo area. There was already a sample of the pen there.
They rolled their first big ball about four months ago, if I’m not mistaken, when they launched an attack on Telmanovo, took control of several heights and rolled back. They made the second similar move with their knight near Debaltsevo, near Uglegorsk, advancing against the 7th brigade.
The second strike fist, accordingly, is located in the Artemovsk area, and it is aimed at Debaltsevo. This is a fist to bypass from the north of Donetsk, in the direction of Debaltseve.
And, accordingly, chilling blows will be delivered head-on to Donetsk and Gorlovka. This is in order to fetter some of the forces and distract them from other directions. The same strike is planned in the Mariupol direction, in the Novogorsk direction, and now to the side.
Five main directions: two - south, north, bypassing Donetsk, head-on to Donetsk - this is a pinning strike and covering strikes on the flanks of the main groupings.
This is the theory, this is what they can do. They are ready for this. There is a sufficient amount of artillery and armored forces. In general, they have already done everything necessary, practically.
There are rotations happening there. Just recently, the 30th brigade replaced the 72nd in the Volnovakha area. They also distinguished themselves. As soon as they entered, their truck was immediately blown up by its own mine, 7 people died, corpses.
But I think that, most likely, they will not launch a full-fledged attack, because there are a number of factors that can be expressed in the following phrase: whoever launches the attack first is the one who loses it. They know this very well.
Yes, they will provoke us. That is, they can go on a counter-offensive. They concentrated their forces for this.
But in order to blow the green whistle, they need us to go on the offensive first.
That is, as soon as we react to a provocation somewhere, cross the line of contact, it will immediately be shown from satellites, in all media around the world that “the separatists have gone on the offensive,” and the Ukrainian valiant, punitive, the fascist army must go on a counteroffensive to save its ass. And let's go.
In this case, if we go on the offensive first, it will be extremely difficult to attract additional forces, so to speak.
If they go on the offensive first, then the war will end for them.
Valentin Filippov: So what are the tactics of the Ukrainian side? They overtook a huge number of troops. You say that they are unlikely to go on the offensive. But a soldier without a job is a potential criminal. That is, a huge army, driven to the line of contact, cannot stand idle. She needs to be fed, she is decomposing. How long can this go on?
Anatoly Gelyukh: There is a dollar printer in America. This can continue until the dollar printer breaks down.
Ukraine, the former Ukraine, an already dead state, which is unable to pay its bills, which owes the whole world and owes huge sums within itself, is given just enough money to be enough for the war, no longer needs it. Fight. They don't need to win, they need to fight, constantly fight. This creates a certain tension in the region and that’s all.
Plus, they brought ISIS members there, creating a hotbed of Islamic threat for the European Union and for Russia on the territory of Ukraine. This is all funded by America, nothing complicated.
Well, yes. The army is disintegrating, they are drinking there, killing each other, killing civilians. Today I spoke live with a person from the other side here. He told me how these overgrown, dirty, smelly “voyki” come to the store in the village from nearby fields and forests, buy vodka, some kind of sucking candy for a snack, and immediately lie under the store with machine guns. The locals don’t take these machine guns because they are afraid of the commandant’s office, that’s all.
Yes, this is happening. But they don't care about that. This is considered acceptable.
Valentin Filippov: That is, they can remain in this state for a long time, a very long time, an unlimited time?
Anatoly Gelyukh: They have already set up customs there, set up a border, and arranged the location of military units. That is, there is already a stationary barracks position in which they are engaged in all sorts of obscenities. That is, you don’t need to win, you need to create constant tension. A month, a year, whatever it takes. All.
Valentin Filippov: Okay, so what should the republics of New Russia do in this situation? Build your own statehood without entering into disputes with Kiev, hold primaries, should there still be elections? You still need to elect city mayors and local councils. What?
Anatoly Gelyukh: There is a very simple thing.
The state is not recognized, but in order to conduct any kind of international processes in Minsk, the UN, and so on, we need popularly elected leaders, and not appointed field commanders.
This is important in terms of status in international negotiations. Here we will somehow figure it out within ourselves.
For the future, there is no goal of leaving the LPR and DPR within their existing borders. Half of the areas are of no interest to anyone. We'll take everything. And we will take away not only the DPR and LPR, we will take the entire former Ukraine.
How this will happen: either through the advance of tank wedges, and scorched earth will be left behind. This is bad. Either this will happen through political means.
I'm not a geopolitician. I am an ordinary soldier... Personally, I see, it seems to me, that a state is already being built here, it has already been practically built. For example, gas is 7 times cheaper than in Ukraine, and utilities are 4 times cheaper, fuel is about 30% cheaper, well, a little less there. We have coal exports. We export billions of coal. We have grain exports, we have production facilities that were not affected, that have been operating by inertia since those times. Plus new ones are being restored. That is, we are developing. There is degradation - here there is development.
There is a problem. We have fewer and fewer problems, very slowly, but less. There are more and more and more problems there. At some point, this imbalance will be so strong that no one will listen to the stories of these people with tails on their heads, that everything is bad because of the war.
Of course, people there won’t just rebel like that. They won’t grab a pitchfork and run to overturn tanks with a pitchfork; that only happens in fairy tales.
But, nevertheless, there will be some kind of protest from that side. When the protest on that side increases, and support for our path of development on that side is clearly expressed, then the time will come to change something in one way or another.
Now is the time to wait. That is, we cannot attack first. This is a violation of the Minsk agreements. They also cannot attack first, because this is a violation of the Minsk agreements. Stalemate situation. Both sides must simulate the fulfillment of this myth and, in doing so, work to defeat the enemy. These are the games we play.
Valentin Filippov: What was it about Debaltsevo, a recent breakthrough, if you say that they will not attack first?
Anatoly Gelyukh: Well, they have this scenario. They cannot, like us, stick to just one scenario. There is always a plan B and a plan C, and so on. So they made a knight's move near Telmanovo some time ago. They captured the dominant heights, broke into our territory, and retreated to await a counterattack. They repeated the same knight move one on one near Debaltsevo and Uglegorsk recently. That is, two main directions of the proposed offensive have been outlined. They captured the heights near the proposed future bridgeheads. That is, it is most convenient to attack there.
But, firstly, it is not a fact that they will go exactly to these places. Secondly, it is far from certain that they will go on the offensive, because in order to go on the offensive, they need us to go on the offensive first. We won't do this. This is such a stalemate. Well, there are no hopeless situations. It's just 3D chess.
Valentin Filippov: What do you think about the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the law on amnesty for ATO participants? In general, is Donbass suffering greatly from the looting of Ukrainian units?
Anatoly Gelyukh: An example from life. 2015 Artemovsk. New Post. crests, westerners, bring 5x7 meter iron gates, cut them down in the village. “Pack it home for me” it seems. They tell him: “We don’t have transport, even if we wanted, for such dimensions.” He takes out a machine gun, points it at the receptionist and says: I fought, I am a hero, and here you are telling a lot of stories. The police were called. They pointed the gun at the police. In general, they rob and loot. There on this mountain they ate pine cones and had never seen sausage in their lives. And they came here, this is a rich region, and they began to actively rob, yes.
Valentin Filippov: Regarding the “rich region”. For many years we have heard that Donbass is subsidized by Kyiv.
Anatoly Gelyukh: A myth in Ukraine is that Donbass was a subsidized region. There is no need to invent anything. We go to the website of the Ministry of Statistics of Ukraine, look at the data for 2014, 2013. Deductions from the budget of the Donetsk region to the budget of Ukraine are 2 billion hryvnia, return receipts, all these so-called subsidies from the central budget to the budget of the Donetsk region - from 800 million to a billion hryvnia. That is, we always gave to the center at least twice as much, or even more than 2 times, than we received back.
Plus the local budget. That is, these are all fairy tales. We fed the Lions when they had there... they cut down all the forests, they were washed away by the rains to the foot of the mountain, and our region paid them back to build houses.
They now live there and shout: let’s demolish the monuments to Lenin, because this is all bad. Demolish the houses that we built for you and demolish the school that Lenin built for you, you complete scum. It's okay, that's it.
And now there’s one more thing about the budget. At the moment, the budget of the Donetsk People's Republic is 11 billion rubles, the budget of the LPR is 7 billion rubles. This is approximately 2 times more than it was during independent, non-floating Ukraine. That is, our path of development is real development. What is happening there is a complete hell and a madhouse. Something like that.
Valentin Filippov: They won't believe you.
Anatoly Gelyukh: But I’m not trying to convince anyone there. They will be convinced either by a coffin or something similar. After the war, Germany went through the denazification procedure quite quickly. The same thing awaits Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: You know, I think that we, being now not in Ukraine, not on their territory, we have stopped believing that there, after all, the majority is for us. But they are in the majority for us.
Here, in my native Odessa, I am absolutely sure of this, yes, people are afraid, yes, people do not say anything out loud, but it is absolutely clear that they will not need to be denazified.
Anatoly Gelyukh: Yes, but we are not only talking about living people, we are talking about government agencies, about all administrative rules. That is, this is a procedure for treating the entire state and people, in particular, who are also jumping there now on the Maidan. There are others like that.
Today they wrote from Ukraine that people are disappearing in cities, they sent data to include them in the list for exchange. Yes, people there are constantly trying to fight in some way that is available to them. Something like this.
Valentin Filippov: OK. Thank you very much, Anatoly. Good luck to you. Take care of yourself. We believe in you.
Anatoly Gelyukh: No pasaran!
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