The real UAF : From a decrepit military to psychotic thugs

2015-10-13T18:08:00+02:00

The agony of the Banderist punitive army

October 10, 2015.

Maksim Stepantsov, Novorossiya.

Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski.

http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/10/the-real-uaf-from-decrepit-military-to.html

----------------------------------

The basic and red line in the howling of Ukrainian nationalists is one, primitive thought: unhappy Ukraine suffered under the yoke of the communist regime, which represented nothing more than than the Russian people. Therefore, “Moskali out” and “Bandera will come and bring order.”

Actually, it’s possible to say that Bandera came and precisely such an order was established which could have been if Ukraine nationalism somehow won in the past, in the Civil War or Second World War. Already then, the country would have been ruined, partitioned into a number of banana states having a colonial status with a primitive economy, sham armed forces, and led by puppet governments managed from the American Embassy.

Even after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine inherited one of the largest industrial bases in Europe, advanced scientific and cultural potential, a developed agriculture and an army armed with nuclear weapons which was ranked number three in the world ranking.

However, instead of developing a new government, for 24 years they have busied themselves with searching for internal enemies, which has in the end led to a bloody fratricidal war.

Since the very beginning of the war in Donbass, the command of the armed forces of Ukraine was faced with such a problem as a lack of equipment and weapons. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 21 divisions, including 4 tank divisions from the Kiev, Odessa, and Carpathian military districts came under the jurisdiction of Ukraine. Plus 8 artillery brigades, 4 special forces brigades, 2 airborne brigades, 9 air-defense brigades, 7 attack helicopter regiments, 3 aircraft armies, and a separate air-defense army.

A staff of 700,000 people! And that’s not counting the 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles and around 2,600 tactical nuclear weapons.

Ukraine eventually, willingly lost its nuclear weapons, but almost all of the above-mentioned Soviet material remained on the “Independent” territory. How, then, in 2014, did soldiers of the Ukrainian army, which had declined to 150,000 (from which, according to some sources, only 60,000 were “active”) happen to be without weapons?

It’s very simple. Since its inception in 1993 as an independent state, Ukraine literally started to “eat” its Soviet heritage, including the military heritage. Thus, the economic condition of the country came ever-closer to the bottom every year.

However, those at fault for this process of unprecedented degradation somehow turned out to be the Russian-speaking citizens who only had to be “hanged from trees,” and everything would turn out ok. The people of the East and South of Ukraine, from the first years of “independence” were forced to glorify Petlyura, Bandera, Shukhevich, and abandon their heroes, whether they be Ivan Kozhedub, father Sidor Kovpak, or Petr Vershigora. Unsurprisingly, as a never culturally and ethnically homogenous country began to collapse, they couldn’t think of anything better for pacifying the rebellious than carrying out punitive operations and “organizing a “friendship train” formed by death squads of untethered nationalists. This turned out to be the “people’s army” formed according to the precepts of Bandera, Shukhevich, Dontsov, which was not so much capable of fighting as carrying out terror against the peaceful population.

This is precisely why all the mobilizations of the UAF failed, and the self-defense units of Donbass, recruited on a voluntary basis from yesterday’s miners and tractor drivers, put up a heroic resistance.

The southern cauldron, Saur-Mogila, Ilovaysk, and the Debaltsevo cauldron were featured on television screens necessarily with backgrounds of wrecked T-64 tanks, destroyed BM-21 volley fire systems, burned army vehicles, and abandoned artillery positions from which nothing was taken.

Simultaneously, Ukraine carried out several waves of mobilization and formed new military units, detachments of the National Guard, etc., which at times added more “worthless” units to the not so simple situation with troop equipment.

In one year, almost all combat aircraft and air-defense systems were destroyed, naval forces were in ruins, command was seriously disrupted, unprepared “mobilization waves” decreased the quality of land forces sharply, and the number of combat-ready equipment was sharply reduced due to large losses.

And this is all true despite the boastful statements by representatives of the Kiev regime. In their report, “Global Firepower” experts cite such data. Under the previous administration, the UAF had a total of 4,112 tanks, and because of losses only 2,809 remain. If earlier the air force had 400 combat aircraft, today experts count only 222. As a note for experts and readers, the main losses occurred among the 200 sections which in 2011-2013 had undergone capital repairs and modernization. In terms of “air forces,” over the last year Ukraine has dropped from the 20th to the 45th position in rankings.

And on February 24, 2015, “Military Informant” reported that the UAF has begun commissioning D-48 85-mm anti-tank guns from long-term storage bases which were designed in 1948 and which entered into service in the Soviet army a little later in 1953.

At the beginning of June, 2015, photos appeared on the internet depicting Ukrainian soldiers loading onto railway platforms 203-mm howitzers of the B-4 model from 1931.

And on August 27, 2015, a correspondent for the television company TSN, Andrey Tsaplienko, wrote on his Facebook page with indignation that he found the 1944 issue of the Maxim machine gun among the weaponry available to soldiers of the UAF’s 53rd mechanized brigade stationed in the Roven region.

Finally, on September 11, 2015, two significant events occurred. First, photos were leaked on the internet which showed the UAF firing 76-mm ZIS-3 model guns from 1942 somewhere in fields. Second, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that a decision had been made to restore and return the Soviet ZIL-151 and ZIL-157 trucks. Let’s recall that the first was released in 1957, and the second in 1958.

If an APC or car sits for 30 years under the open sky, then it is just a pile of useless metal and is not viable. And after huge restoration work, it will travel only 200-300km and then die. The reasons: quality of the engine, lack of spare parts, lack of technology and expertise. This is all equipment from the ’60’s and ’70’s. Old and dead.

However, in the conditions of the collapse of the economy and armed forces, the operational decisions were taken to further the fight against the “Soviet heritage.” The Ukrainian Institute for National Remembrance (UINR) compiled a list of 105 monuments and memorials of the Soviet era which are still on the streets of Kiev and which are to be “dismantled.”

Last posts on ato

The real UAF : From a decrepit military to psychotic thugs