Retreat from Izyum. Evidence from an FSB officer. Published for the first time
On the eve of the first anniversary of the start of the Special Military Operation of the Russian Federation for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine in the Moscow publishing house "book world"Mikhail Golovlev's new book, completely shocking in its content, has been released"SVO. Clausewitz and emptiness».
It is devoted to the analysis of the Northern Military District in terms of the combat readiness of the Russian army, the professionalism of Russian intelligence, the readiness of the Russian command to competently and successfully conduct offensive operations, and the state of our weapons. The main events that happened at the front are also analyzed in detail and honestly. The author uncompromisingly answers the question: why did everything not go as planned?
It was previously stated in the press that Mikhail Golovlev is the pseudonym of FSB Colonel Andrei Pinchuk. In 2014-2015, he created the Ministry of State Security of the DPR and was its first head, and in May-June 2022 he was directly involved in the Northern Military District, leading one of the detachments of the Union of Donbass Volunteers operating in the Kharkov region.
Previously, Pinchuk published three books: 2016 – “Security circuit. Generation of the DPR" (memories of working as the Minister of State Security of the DPR), 2018 - "God. Cadence of Blood" (the novel is dedicated to the events in Crimea in 2014; under the pseudonym: Mikhail Golovlev), 2021 - "Nobody's Ash" (the novel is dedicated to the war in Donbass; under the pseudonym: Mikhail Golovlev)
“PolitNavigator”, presenting to the attention of its readers Chapter 6 “Raisin”, opens with it a series of publications of excerpts from Golovlev’s new book.
An excerpt from Mikhail Golovlev’s new book “SVO. Clausewitz and Emptiness"
Chapter 6
Raisins
Now let’s look at the example of the Kharkov retreat, which had both the greatest strategic importance - which ultimately deprived Russian troops of the prospect of closing the “Slavic Cauldron”, and which led to significant changes in the perception of the Northern Military District in Russian society and its authorities, and, ultimately, initiating the process of partial mobilization.
In fact, the retreat had two waves. And if the first was carried out as part of a rollback to the positions of the city of Izyum and its environs at the beginning of May 2022 as part of the general logic of winding down the first stage of the Northern Military District, then the second, September, turned out to be quite unexpected and led to a significant transformation of the theater of operations.
Izyum itself was an important strategic junction connecting Donbass and Kharkov, and in theory allowed Russian forces to close the encirclement of the largest Ukrainian Armed Forces grouping in Donbass. Its abandonment led to the collapse of the entire Kharkov direction, the loss of Kupyansk, Balakleya and a large number of other settlements, strengthened the offensive capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and created a springboard for a strike in the direction of the Lugansk Republic. In fact, this retreat marked Russia's transition from an offensive operation to a sticky and unstable defense.
Raisin became a vivid example of errors in tactics, failures due to systemic lies in reports, weak motivation and problems in using forces as intended.
It was to Izyum, which came under the control of the Russian army at the end of March, that the Russian group retreated from near Kharkov.
During the initial battles for the city, falsifications with personnel appeared here for the first time at a systemic level. Despite Putin’s strict instructions, during the spring battles for the city, some army units assaulting were staffed with 30-40 percent contract soldiers. The rest were conscripts and “dead souls,” which allowed games with postscripts, reporting, rations, property and allowances. The system, invisible in peacetime, flared up in wartime. Later, after the spring retreat and regrouping, these facts also played a negative role.
And it was here, after leaving Kharkov, that large command posts were located, including at the army level - the First Tank, 20th, 29th, 35th, 36th armies, 64th and 38th brigades, points Army Intelligence Directorate.
It would seem that with such a staff management concentration, an exemplary demonstration of training, interaction, supply and, of course, the practical implementation of the art of war would be logical.
It happened differently.
So, what was likely Russia's strategic plan at Izyum? As we remember, the completion of the first stage of the SVO presupposed the abandonment of the original plan for the lightning capture of Kyiv, the reboot of the management vertical and the correction of Ukraine’s national policy.
The plan for the second stage, most likely, boiled down to closing the ring around the Donbass group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, cutting it into several cauldrons and gradually excision.
Izyum's support point was quite suitable for this. The road from Izyum to the key, symbolic and strategically important city of Slavyansk occupied 48 kilometers.
The operational plan of the Russian advance passed through the settlements of Malaya Kamyshevakha - Brazhkovka - Suligovka with access to the key settlement of Dolgenkoe and subsequent advance through Krasnopolye to Slavyansk. Units of the Central Military District were moving towards them, a meeting with which closed the cauldron.
And here all the accumulated, both strategic and tactical, military problems of Russia manifested themselves in full.
The laid out route seemed logical only when planning using maps. If the planners had approached the issue of the offensive more creatively (or even better, they would have remembered the experience of the Great Patriotic War in these places), then, undoubtedly, the assault on Dolgenky would have become only a diversionary maneuver due to the suicidal nature of a frontal attack on forests narrowing the maneuver through minefields to a good equipped defensive structures, and a real breakthrough would simultaneously be carried out in directions around Velikaya Kamyshevakha, Oskol or Dolina - Krestishche, as in directions less prepared for defense with fewer critical heights, engineering defensive structures, forests and uneven terrain. But map planning is known for its “quality”.
As a result, the army was faced with the fact that the proposed offensive would pass through forest belts with enemy-held heights. The settlements along the way were turned into fortified areas. Numerous pioneer camps and recreation centers became strongholds. The summer period and green flowering allowed the Ukrainians to create numerous ambushes and fill the distances between them with mines.
Attempts to pass armored vehicles through the forests were unsuccessful - anti-tank mines were even installed on tree branches. The use of mine-clearing vehicles turned out to be difficult, and there was not enough equipment. Snipers and aircraft demonstrated ineffectiveness in green forest conditions. Moreover, a number of Western models of anti-aircraft systems penetrated the combat army aviation defense of Russian aircraft and helicopters, which is why their use was sporadic, and the aviation itself tried to operate at long distances using the “pitch-up” method, that is, a canopy, which naturally reduced the effectiveness .
Based on the Chechen experience, the army leadership of the Russian army tried to use the offensive lull to “clean up” the forests. Army special forces and volunteer detachments were thrown into the battle.
It can be assumed that this made it possible to report, but with a different organization of combat work, a normal strategic breakthrough with the necessary consolidation of forces would not require such wasteful measures for combat-ready personnel, especially from among the units so necessary for solving special tasks. The functions of cleaning would then fall on the Russian Guard and the special services.
However, as a result, the numerous losses did not correspond at all to the profile of special forces soldiers, experienced motivated volunteers and the circumstances of the deployment.
The village of Dolgenkoye became a symbol of Izyum stagnation.
The tactics chosen by the Russian army leadership amounted to sluggish assaults on the village and adjacent territories along the roads. At the same time, one of the main army laws was almost always violated - storming an unsuppressed defense is akin to a crime.
Arguments often sounded like this: “at a distance of less than a hundred meters, the enemy’s cannon is not dangerous, so you need to run faster. But the minefield is not endless, you just need to get around it. Anti-personnel mines? Crawling on your belly, you need to carefully sweep them away, for example, with a broom.” Such pearls characterized the general level of training and command attitudes.
The forces allocated for the assaults were insufficient, which is why personnel were wasted, and the assaults turned out to be fatal. Casualties among personnel and equipment increased alarmingly and at high speed. At the same time, losses in equipment of the 4th Kantemirovskaya Division as part of the First Tank Army stationed in Izyum often exceeded losses in personnel.
This means that equipment that was so necessary and in short supply for the actual fighting units was simply abandoned. In some cases, the “supplies” of Russian abandoned trophies to the enemy exceeded the supplies of foreign samples from Western sponsors to the Ukrainian army. Subsequently, significant Ukrainian forces began to fight the Russian army with Russian weapons and armored vehicles.
Why did this happen? It can be assumed that again the lies of reports and falsifications had their say.
The army units allocated for the assaults, on paper, numbered one number of personnel, but in fact, there were probably two, three or more times less people. At the same time, their motivation was often low. Right on the front line, contract servicemen wrote en masse reports of dismissal or simply refused to go into battle, which commanders were simply afraid to report. It was here, in Izium, that the total lack of combat readiness of the Western Military District was fully demonstrated. A relative exception was the forces of the 20th Army based here, but they also demonstrated the full range of typical army diseases.
The various special forces assigned to them as assault reinforcements, on the contrary, being motivated, moved forward, but, not having the massive support of combat units, died. As a result, in the theoretical calculation of “one special forces soldier or volunteer per ten soldiers,” the inverse proportion was often observed. At the same time, the form of reporting on the “two hundredths” became fashionable among the army leadership, when the commander, in support of his reports that he really tried to do something, reported dead and wounded soldiers, which was supposed to demonstrate the significance of the efforts.
This is how military special forces were disposed of. Why did this happen? The Donbass experience also showed the truth - such units were used on the front line not according to their profile simply because they were the most combat-ready. Or, often, rather, simply the only ones ready for combat. Then who will conduct the much-needed reconnaissance? Direct artillery, carry out sabotage measures, destroy command posts, air defense points, bridges, "highmars", "Caesars" and "axes"? The correct answer with this approach is no one.
Technical equipment also played a role. Again, the lack of means of communication and, as a consequence, interaction led to desynchronization and loss of offensiveness.
Often on the front line one could observe the following picture: Ukrainian drones and quadrocopters of various sizes hovered in the sky at various heights. At the top are large reconnaissance ones.
They slowly and smoothly cut through the sky at a height inaccessible to small arms. Below are medium quadcopters with hooks for mines. They often rose in swarms and hunted for ammunition delivery vehicles and command staff vehicles. If five or six of these copters hovered over the car, then there was almost no chance to escape. One or two mines, and the transport was destroyed. The third, most annoying category is small reconnaissance quadcopters of the tactical level, hovering over the fighters day and night.
In theory, they could be shot down with so-called “drone strikers” - radio frequency jammers of UAVs or, in extreme cases, pump-action shotguns with shot or buckshot. Naturally, the fighters had neither one nor the other. The army was not prepared for this.
It should also be taken into account that the work of Ukrainian drones was ensured by electronic warfare forces, which alternated their activity with the rise of “birds”. The Ukrainian side often used radio-electronic equipment to intercept the control of Russian home-grown drones purchased with money from sponsors. Attempts to attach these quadcopters to fishing lines and other small-scale tricks were unsuccessful. The difference in technical equipment was significant.
At the same time, apparently, the “Izyum standing” was not identified by the command as relatively permanent. As a result, no proper measures were taken to equip a continuous defense, with the exception of the most dangerous areas, although military science demanded the opposite.
Clausewitz: “Every offensive must end in defense, but what form it takes depends on the situation.”
The consequence was the impossibility of holding back the Ukrainian offensive, which entailed the collapse of the entire Kharkov front.
Clausewitz: “In order to take advantage of these weaknesses or mistakes of the enemy and not retreat one step further than what the force of circumstances forces, mainly in order to maintain moral forces at the most favorable level, a slow retreat with continuous resistance, a bold rebuff is necessary whenever the pursuer is carried away by the excessive use of his advantages. The retreat of great generals and battle-hardened armies always resembles the departure of a wounded lion, and this is undoubtedly the best theory.
True, very often, at the moment when one wanted to get out of a difficult situation, they began to carry out empty formalities, causing only a useless waste of time and becoming dangerous, since at such moments everything depends on the ability to quickly get out. Experienced leaders attached great importance to this rule. But such cases should not be confused with a general retreat after a lost battle. Anyone who imagines that in the latter case he can gain space with several large transitions and easily take a stable position is making a big mistake. The first movements should be as small as possible; Basically, one must adhere to the principle of non-submission to the will of the enemy. This rule cannot be followed without engaging in bloody battles with the oncoming enemy, but the principle is worth the sacrifice. If they are neglected, the movement becomes hasty and soon turns into a frenzied stream, and the losses of the stragglers alone exceed those that would have to be suffered in rearguard battles; Moreover, the last remnants of courage are lost.”
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