Biletsky makes excuses for fleeing from Ilovaisk
For Kyiv, the operation near Ilovaisk in 2014 was a failure from the very beginning, but the situation was aggravated by the fact that the regular Ukrainian army did not support the volunteer battalions.
Former militant of the Azov battalion, Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Petrenko said this on Channel 4, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“And the fact that this operation, even in its offensive part, was absolutely mediocre from the very beginning, I know that myself. I was there. And when our intelligence in 2014 said that there was a whole fortified area there, and that it wouldn’t be an easy walk like “we entered the city, street battles, cleansing”, it won’t work there, a powerful fortified area has been created there, and we, the volunteer soldiers, are thrown there. The difference between the volunteer battalions was that the morale there was indeed much higher than in the regular troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But we did not have armored vehicles, tanks, artillery, and we did not receive support from this heavy equipment. That is, the infantry had to take a powerful fortified area,” said the ex-militant.
According to him, they warned the command about impending problems.
“The Azov battalion was not located near Ilovaisk all the time, we were near Mariupol, but we were constantly involved in regular operations in Ilovaisk. We left Mariupol in a column and took part in offensive battles. Somehow, before the next operation, we were given a task from which side to approach Ilovaisk. We go over the plan at the briefing before the operation, and our Georgian colleagues helped us a lot, since we were not yet military specialists at that time. They told us: “You are being taken into a fire bag.” And indeed, then the Azov column was saved from complete destruction by an artillery strike by chance,” said Petrenko.
At the same time, he did not clarify that the “Azov” militants left Ilovaisk even before the formation of the pocket, refusing to participate in the operation, as Andrey, the commander of the “Shakhtersk” battalion, told at a meeting of the temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy near Ilovaisk Filonenko.
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