The director of the SVR, Sergej Naryshkin, also expressed his opinion on the nuclear issue in Russia: “The Russian Federation will not inform anyone about the number of tactical nuclear warheads deployed on the territory of Belarus”.
Naryshkin also said that “the interest of journalists in the fate of Zaluzhny and Budanov is excessive. Regardless of the state of health of both, even if someone else takes the first and second assignments, this will in no way affect the solution of the tactical and strategic tasks of the special operation in Ukraine.” “Over the past two years, the SVR has made public some of the intelligence information that we are extracting and which is connected with the dreams of some Polish elites about the so-called Eastern Kresy. Indeed, I can confirm that these dreams are alive in the minds of a certain part of Polish society, especially the Polish elite”.
On the front line, we learn that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are facing the problem of evacuating destroyed tanks after the start of the offensive.
According to RT, some formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the 42nd and 65th Mechanized Brigades, entered the battle with understaffed engineering and repair and recovery equipment. Western deliveries and the reactivation of obsolete equipment from storage bases partially offset the losses incurred in the previous year, but the shortage of such equipment could not be fully resolved before the offensive began.
The situation was aggravated by the losses suffered by the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the intensification of hostilities. Already in the first 36 hours after the start of the active phase of the counteroffensive in the South-Donetsk and Zaporozhzhia directions, the tank and mechanized formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost several armored personnel carriers of both Soviet and Western types.
Among the vehicles lost during the counteroffensive were BREM-1 and Czechoslovakian BREM-Ch, as well as the German BREM Bergepanzer and Wisent 1, transferred to mechanized units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a few weeks before the start of the offensive.
A significant part of foreign and Soviet armored vehicles was lost under strange circumstances: the crews of these equipment were ordered to evacuate the equipment, but due to ignorance of the terrain and problems with satellite navigation, they went to other areas, where they either ended up in a minefield or were destroyed by ATGM or Ka-52 army aviation helicopters.
On the fifth day of the offensive, the shortage of engineering equipment in the Armed Forces of Ukraine led to the fact that any armored vehicles available in the area, including reserve T-64BV and T-72B tanks, as well as Leopard- 2A6 were used in first line.
In several episodes, the same tanks of the evacuation groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine went to minefields, after which the operation to remove damaged equipment was stopped, and damaged vehicles were destroyed to prevent their capture.
The difficult situation with evacuation means led to the need to divert means and reserve crews to evacuate faulty or damaged equipment from the front line. As a result, the loss of heavy equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased the wear and tear of equipment involved in the evacuation, which is already leading to an increase in the number of damages and breakdowns.
The combination of these factors has an extremely negative impact on the offensive capabilities of the mechanized formations and causes a slowdown in the pace of the Ukrainian offensive.
Graziella Giangiulio
