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AFU Major: Putin Wants To Share Responsibility For Defeat With Lukashenka

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AFU Major: Putin Wants To Share Responsibility For Defeat With Lukashenka
OLEKSIY HETMAN

NATO can do something “bad” to the regime in Belarus.

British intelligence said that Russia was moving additional forces to Bakhmut. They are removed from the front line in the Donetsk region. Will it play any role at the front?

Oleksiy Hetman, Major of the Reserve of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, answered this and other questions for the website Charter97.org.

— The Russians are transferring their forces to Bakhmut just from near Avdiivka. They have been trying to capture this city for almost a year, but they have not succeeded.

It is the airborne troops that are being deployed to reinforce the Wagner private military company, which has suffered very heavy losses in Ukraine. It is no longer a serious fighting unit. If there were about 45 thousand of them in autumn, together with the mobilized convicts, then at the moment there are less than 6 thousand left. Naturally, they decided to strengthen them.

If we talk about whether they will be able to capture Bakhmut, then from the point of view of military strategy this will not give any advantages to the Russian Federation. If they are really strengthened by manpower, equipment, artillery, then we will retreat to Chasov Yar. Between Chasov Yar and Kostyantynivka there are already our fortifications. In principle, the Russians will not advance further.

As long as we can keep the defense in Bakhmut, we will do it. I emphasize that there was no command to withdraw, but when they stepped up attacking operations on Bakhmut at the beginning of this year, our military-political leadership said that if something happened, then we would withdraw from there. In general, no one will hold on to the name of the place.

Now there are heavy battles, we are holding the defense. The Russians fail to capture the city.

— Regarding the situation in the north of Ukraine. There is an opinion that Putin is serious about dragging Belarus into the war, because this is too big an opportunity for Russia not to take advantage of it. Do you agree with this opinion?

— Putin has been thinking about it for a long time. Nevertheless, I think that Lukashenka still has some kind of self-preservation instinct. He understands that if Belarus directly takes part in the war with its Armed Forces, and not just provides its territory for storing certain ammunition of the Russian Federation, for training Russian military personnel, and even as a place from which MiG-31 carriers of “Kinzhal” can take off, then it will be a completely different story.

Putin dreams of dragging Belarus into the war, because then this war would no longer be a Russian-Ukrainian one, but, one might say, a world one. The Russians see that they are losing on the Ukrainian front and they need to share responsibility for the defeat with someone.

It is naive to believe that the Belarusian army will be able to give some serious battle to the Ukrainian one, especially since we have a fairly serious grouping in the north. Let me emphasize that sharing responsibility for the defeat is Putin's main goal.

If Lukashenka's troops fully enter the war, then he will most likely fall under the same criminal prosecution by the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

If Putin provokes Lukashenka to attack one of the neighboring NATO countries (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia), then it may turn out exactly as he said — “a strike on Belarus from four positions.”

I think that the NATO countries will destroy the enemy, as they always do. Then Lukashenka's regime will not feel good at all. He could put under attack not only his army, but also ordinary Belarusians. Unfortunately, there is no other way in war.

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