You can find an article from the «Rossiyskaya Gazeta» media website below. The article is laid out in its original form, without any changes. I hope you will find it interesting.
The image was taken in the «Orda» group (Vkontakte social network).
See also: Why is the Sarmat missile so praised?
13 answers to questions about the reasons for the special military operation in Ukraine.
We tried to answer the questions that our readers ask about the special military operation. It was possible thanks to communication with representatives of the powers of Russia.
1. What are we doing in Ukraine?
As President Putin stated in his address on February 21st, in spite of everything, in December 2021 we once again made an attempt to agree with the United States and its allies on the principles of ensuring security in Europe and on non-expansion of NATO. All for nothing.
We know from history that in 1940 and at the beginning of 1941 the USSR tried to prevent or at least delay the outbreak of war every possible way. The attempt to appease the aggressor on the eve of the Great Patriotic War turned out to be a mistake that cost our people a lot.
«We will not make such a mistake again,» Vladimir Putin said. The problem is that on our historical territories, adjacent to us, an «anti-Russia» was created, and it was put under full external control, intensively settled in by the armed forces of NATO countries and pumped up with weapons.
«This is a real threat not just to our interests, but to the very existence of our state, its independance. This is the very «red line» that has been repeatedly talked about. They crossed it,» the Russian president summed up.
In fact, a carefully planned operation has been carried out against Russia in recent years within the framework of the concept of «hybrid war», so beloved in the West. As for the US information operation in recent weeks, exactly the same picture was observed on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq and Saakashvili conducted exactly the same campaign on American patterns before the strike on Tskhinvali. In 2022 it all happened again. Daily statements made by the United States and Britain stating the exact date of Russia’s attack on Ukraine created the world public opinion that Moscow was the aggressor. The United States and NATO were not going to negotiate with us. They were preparing to attack us first. It is possible that plans to launch preventive missile strikes by NATO forces on the territory of Russia were developed simultaneously with the Ukrainian offensive of the 150,000-strong group on Donbass and Crimea. In this context, President Putin’s words about the inadmissibility of repeating the situation of June 1941 with the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany become clear. That is why, by launching a special military operation, we saved not only hundreds of thousands of lives of civilians of Donbass, Ukraine and Russia, but, most likely, by this step we prevented the outbreak of the Third World War.
2. The United States has stated that NATO and the USA themselves do not threaten Russia, and allegedly all Moscow’s fears are far-fetched. Is it really so?
According to the Russian Security Council, a significant grouping of the US armed forces has recently been formed in Europe, numbering 60,000 troops, 200 tanks and 150 combat aircraft. In addition the intensity of flights near the Russian borders of American strategic bombers has increased by 40% over the past year. The intensity of aerial reconnaissance of NATO forces in the Kaliningrad region and Crimea has almost doubled. Provocations involving NATO ships in the Black Sea were constantly conducted. And if all this is not preparation for war with Russia, then what is it?
As a result, as in 1941, «enlightened» Europe went to war with the «Red Army» in 2022 again. Only then it followed Hitler’s Germany, and now it follows the United States. By the middle of February of 2022 (that is, before the start of the special military operation), up to 50 military transport planes from Western countries landed in Ukraine, which delivered 2 thousand tons of weapons, ammunition and protective equipment.
The United States has done the most: they have provided $2.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine since 2014. And on March 17th, Biden announced that he would send another $1 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine. That is, indeed, the United States is ready to fight in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian.
3. Kiev and its Western partners assure that the issue with Donbass could have been resolved through negotiations. Is it really so?
Russia has been calling Kiev for dialogue with Donbass for 8 years, but the Ukrainian authorities were not going to negotiate with their citizens, declaring them «terrorists». The end of this issue was put after the Ukrainian authorities publicly stated that they would not implement the Minsk agreements. «Russia could not continue to tolerate the genocide of the people of Donbass. The Minsk agreements no longer exist,» President Putin said. According to him, Europe could not force Kiev to fulfill Minsk-2, because there was no other way out, except for the recognition of the DPR and the LPR. And the Minsk agreements were killed long before the recognition of the republics.
4. Why did Russia launch a special military operation, although this possibility was denied a few days before?
The decision to send troops to Ukraine was indeed made promptly. The reason is the data that has appeared suggesting the upcoming Ukrainian aggression in the Donbas and Crimea, as well as the possibility of Ukraine using nuclear weapons against Russia.
5. But does Ukraine have nuclear weapons?
Remember that it was Zelensky in Munich on February 20, i.e. the day before Russia recognized the independence of the LPR and the DPR, who said that Ukraine was ready to withdraw from the Budapest Memorandum and acquire its own nuclear weapons for its protection. Perhaps Kiev already had everything ready for this: both carriers and components for the manufacture of nuclear warheads.
So, Ukraine is armed with tactical missiles «Tochka-U», which have already been launched several times towards the territory of Russia. These missiles are capable of carrying nuclear charges. (Reference RG: «Tochka-U» is a missile system with a firing range of up to 120 km, was adopted in 1988. After the collapse of the USSR, at least 90 serviceable launchers remained in Ukraine. Now they are owned by the 19th Missile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The number of missiles can range from 40 to 100 units.)
Do not forget about the missile design bureaus of Ukraine, Yuzhmash and Yuzhnoye Design Bureaus, in which, if needed, it was possible to restore the production of ballistic missiles again. The former Soviet research institutes engaged in nuclear research, as well as the network of nuclear power plants, have also been preserved. All this makes it possible to create both a «dirty» atomic bomb and, with the help of Western partners, «conventional» nuclear warheads. As it turned out, the Kiev regime, in cooperation with the Pentagon, worked not only on nuclear issues, but also on the development of biological weapons. According to the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Konashenkov, documentation on the emergency destruction of especially dangerous pathogens was received from employees of Ukrainian biolabs on February 24. These are pathogens of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases.
6. Is this a special military operation or is it still a war?
The entry of Russian troops began in the «polite people» mode. Russia was not going to launch a full-scale military operation. Along with the troops, significant forces of the Rosgvardiya, such as OMON and SOBROV units of different regions, were also introduced, but their tasks do not include fighting regular units and enemy aircraft. That’s where the losses in the first five days came from.
The February 24 strikes with only high-precision weapons and only on military targets also spoke precisely about the peacekeeping mission of forcing Kiev to peace. And President Putin stressed that the Russian army is fighting the nationalists.
7. Why did the Ukrainian military not hear Putin’s call?
The thing is that the Ukrainian grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard, concentrated at the borders of the DPR and LPR, was «charged» for a quick victory in the Donbass. In fact, all these tens of thousands of soldiers were the very nationalists. Because we cannot call, for example, gunners or rocket men from regular units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, daily shelling the civilian population of Donetsk, just military men carrying out an order.
A week before the start of the special operation, the official representative of the People’s Militia of the DPR, Eduard Basurin, reported on the map of the offensive on Donbass, which was stolen from the AFU. There it was clearly laid out when it was planned to strike with long-range artillery, when MLRS, when aviation, then strikes by operational tactical groups (OTG) «North», «South» and «East».
Moreover, Donetsk, Lugansk and several other cities were not planned to be stormed, but simply surrounded and blockaded, while simultaneously waiting for the intervention and landing of NATO «peacekeepers» on the border with Russia.
On March 6th, it became reliably known that the AFU offensive operation on Donbass and Crimea was supposed to begin on March 8th.
8. Who do they mean by Ukrainian Nazis in Russia?
After the Maidan of 2014, the leaders of Ukrainian neo-Nazi organizations and militants who fought in the Donbas entered the «renewed» Verkhovna Rada, received posts in the government and the office of the President of Ukraine.
These figures are proud of their Ukrainians so much that they do not consider people living in the Donbas to be people. During the eight years of genocide in the DPR and LPR, up to 14 thousand people, including more than 500 children, were killed by Ukrainian punishers.
The methods by which Kiev has been waging war with its own citizens since 2014 are not much different from the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the occupied territories. The same applies to the use of residents of Mariupol, Kharkiv and other cities as a human shield. A similar tactic is used today only by the militants of ISIS (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) in Syria.
Ukraine is not just a Western «anti—Russia» project, but in fact a labor educational concentration camp for the Russian-speaking population that has been operating for the last 30 years. All these years there has been a gradual dehumanization of «Muscovites» and «Katsaps», which accelerated and reached its apogee in 2014. It was then that Ukrainian aircraft bombed Lugansk and Donetsk, killing women and children, and in Odessa, in the House of Trade Unions, nationalists burned people alive, laughing and justifying it by killing «separators» and «colorads». The last 8 years in Ukraine there has been a severe suppression of all free-thinking and the slightest sympathy towards Russia.
Those who disagreed with the Kiev regime were imprisoned, tortured and killed without trial. The population, especially young people, were brainwashed with Nazi ideas. That is why there are many ethnic Russians, including residents of Donbass, in the ranks of not only the AFU, but also the Nazis of Azov (an extremist organization banned in the Russian Federation) and other national battalions.
9. Why does the local population not resist the nationalists?
For 8 years, people have been so intimidated and terrorized by the militants of the National Security Service, as well as by the SBU officers, that they still do not believe that this power has come to an end. Most of all, they are afraid that Russian troops will destroy warehouses, equipment and weapons, after which they will sign peace and leave Ukraine, leaving them alone with the Nazis and Bandera.
10. Will the Russians leave?
Russians will not. At least until the last Nazi is destroyed or put on trial in Ukraine, as well as those leaders who gave criminal orders in the Donbas. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has been recording every shelling, death and injury of civilians in the DPR and LPR for all these years. Every commander who gave criminal orders is known by name.
Criminal cases have been initiated for every fact of terrorist attacks and murders of journalists and public figures in Ukraine. It can be assumed that Russia will not appeal to the Hague Tribunal, but will hold a demonstration military tribunal on the territory of Ukraine. It is expected that the construction of a peaceful life will be monitored by temporary civil-military administrations, which will include militias and representatives of Donbass, as well as pro-Russian citizens of Ukraine. And the Russian Armed Forces and military police will be involved in the format of a peacekeeping contingent within the framework of the CSTO.
11. Why didn’t Russia do the same thing in 2014? After all, we still got sanctions.
At that moment, Russia was not ready for the sanctions that have been imposed against it now. The country’s economy could simply not stand it. In addition, in 8 years it has been possible to almost completely complete the rearmament of the army and navy with modern models of equipment and weapons, including providing a sufficient number of high-precision weapons.
12. There is an opinion that most Ukrainians, after 30 years of Bandera propaganda, will never accept Russians and Russia, and we are doomed to a constant guerrilla war and terrorist attacks. Is it really so?
No. For example, Nadezhda Savchenko — the banner of the Maidan and an implacable fighter against «separators» and «Rusni» — after a trial in Russia for complicity in the murder of Russian journalists, amnesty and return to Ukraine radically changed her views.
13. What is the scenario for further developments?
It is assumed that after the establishment of peace in the country, free and fair elections will be held, the Ukrainian people will choose their own leaders from those who have not stained themselves with blood and cooperation with the criminal regime. Ukraine as a state will remain, but in what status is a matter of future negotiations.
«Our missiles will reach Moscow»
The adviser to the head of the president’s office, Arestovich, who is calling for a «total rail war» today, threatened Moscow with missile strikes a year ago. Here is a quote from his speech on TV: «Putin will get to the point that Ukrainian missiles will be directed at Moscow in the near foreseeable future for one simple reason that we are working on a missile program. And our operational-tactical missiles will be able to reach Moscow.»
This is about the threats that Russia is eliminating today. And besides Arestovich, there were also generals who threatened strikes on the Crimean Bridge, politicians who promised to retake the Kuban or occupy the Belgorod region. They have to answer for my words.
World Tour of Democracy: who was bombed by the USA:
- Korea and China 1950 — 53 (Korean War)
- Guatemala 1954
- Indonesia 1958
- Cuba 1959-61
- Guatemala 1960
- Congo 1964
- Laos 1964-73
- Vietnam 1961-73
- Cambodia 1969-73
- Guatemala 1967-69
- Grenada 1983
- Lebanon 1983, 1984
- Libya 1986
- El Salvador 1980
- Nicaragua 1980
- Iran 1987
- Panama 1989
- Iraq 1991 (Gulf War)
- Kuwait 1991
- Somalia 1993
- Bosnia 1994, 1995
- Sudan 1998
- Afghanistan 1998
- Yugoslavia 1999
- Yemen 2002
- Iraq 1991-2003 (USA/UK on a permanent basis)
- Iraq 2003-2015
- Afghanistan 2001-2015
- Pakistan 2007-2015
- Somalia 2007-2008, 2011
- Yemen 2009, 2011
- Libya 2011, 2015
- Syria 2014-2015