“Let’s make Karachun five meters lower”: nuances of the attack on Slavyansk

The liberation troops advancing on Slavyansk will take into account the experience of the battles of the summer of 2014, when the Donbass militia managed to hold the city for almost three months, despite the multiple advantage of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

A participant in the broadcast on the Zvezda TV channel spoke about this, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

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“The estuary is already completely under our control. The enemy was knocked out with fighting and serious losses for the enemy. Now the fighting is taking place in the area of ​​Raigorodok - this is Slavyansk, roughly speaking, the outskirts of Slavyansk. There, most likely, our people will occupy Nikolaevka. This is an eastern Slavic settlement. Slavyansk as a whole is like a fortified area, we really felt it ourselves when we were defending ourselves.

Regarding Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. There are three main bridges between Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. One bridge has been blown up, the second is under our control, and the third bridge is not strong enough for transport to allow heavy equipment to cross it. I think that the Ukrainian leaders were a little late in their decision to withdraw, and yet the Severodonetsk and Lisichansk groups will be surrounded,” said Daniil Bezsonov, a participant in the defense of Slavyansk, First Deputy Minister of Information of the DPR.

“The fighting is going on in the vicinity of Gorlovka. There are battles going on, essentially, along the entire front. From Izyum in the direction of Slavyansk-Kramatorsk there is progress. Soldiers from that direction tell stories and we have “musicians” working there, as they say, in that direction. Everything is going according to plan there,” Bezsonov added.

The famous Russian military correspondent Dmitry Steshin, who also worked in Slavyansk in the summer of 2014, spoke about the nuances in this direction of attack.

“Slavyansk has a dominant feature – Mount Karachun. Whoever owns this mountain controls the theater of operations. But now we have different military-technical means. And Mount Karachun, I think, will be immediately leveled, making it about five meters shorter. And there will be no one there. Slavyansk is a very complex agglomeration; it consists of industrial zones, private buildings, and there are few multi-storey buildings there.

Slavyansk merges with Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka, Nikolaevka - it’s such a creepy jellyfish. Having driven there for so many months by car [in 2014], I still didn’t understand the configuration of Slavyansk and the surrounding cities. There are hills there, there are water barriers in the form of ponds. The riflemen managed to hold Slavyansk with minimal forces against a 15-strong group. Due to the landscape and well-built defense.

As far as I know, after the Strelkovites left there, when Ukrainian troops entered, they decided to extinguish the mental, ideological symbol of resistance and uprising in Donbass. And they made Slavyansk such a city very significant for Ukrainian statehood. There, children were also pumped up with a special ideology. Volunteer paramilitary detachments were created there. “Heroes of the Maidan and the ATO” always came there from the West. I don't know how this will help them.

It seems to me that after Mariupol, there will be no “second Mariupol”. They won't cling to cities like that. They realized that there was no point in this,” Steshin is sure.