I was wounded in battle, the edited video of which I posted, and I am not on the front line now. This injury is not very serious, but there was a penetration under the chest. The fragment was removed, everything healed, and I will be back with my brigade in a week. Other guys were more seriously wounded. They are also recovering and doing well.
Over the past six months, our brigade has been near Tokmak, and now we are in the Avdiivka area. I am often asked what war is like. I have dealt with this topic a lot before I went to war: I read, watched, and was interested from both a historical and military point of view. The Second World War has always been one of my favorite topics. But no matter what you read, what you watch, or who you talk to, you still won't feel it until you've been there.
It's the same with fighters. Soldiers come who have not been under fire; they consider themselves very brave or prepared. The first battle shows that they are not psychologically ready for it – they turn sour and have to learn to deal with it. Some people are the opposite: you think they will be the weakest fighters, but they turn out to be the bravest, the most resilient, the best. Although courage is not a quality that is overly needed in war, and the word "heroism" probably has a negative connotation. There, you have to work in a team and perform your duties correctly to avoid losses and hit the enemy. As we say, the heroism of some people is always the "missteps" of others. Someone failed to do something, and others crawl under tanks with grenades.
In war, what matters is your training, the skills you acquired in training, and then in combat or communication with other comrades. It is always easier when new people join an established team because they quickly learn with more experienced fighters than a purely new team. Our 47th Brigade was newly formed, so the first battles were difficult because many did not have this military experience. Now they have it, so they must pass it on to make it more effective.
There are still motivated and clever people in the army, but their number is decreasing
There are many other skills, and courage is one of them. If a person is only brave but doesn't understand what to do or how to do it in a team...We don't fight one by one. We always fight in a unit, at least a group of 10 people, a platoon, a company, or more. You can't just be some individual Rambo, and everyone else is an extra. No, you always work together; everyone does their job. This is an understanding of teamwork, management, awareness, and fulfillment of duties. We call it work. If you do it well, then that's the most important thing.
The army is a centralized, hierarchical system with a strong command. There are no changes from below or from within. These changes can only come from the top, though it can be at the request of the grassroots. What the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said that a small Soviet army cannot defeat a large Soviet or Russian army is true. We cannot win with the same approaches. But, unfortunately, this transformation is not happening at the pace and scale we would all like. One of the reasons why I was transferred to the 47th Brigade at the time was because this brigade was being formed according to new principles – it would be more NATO-like and everything else. Unfortunately, it is tough to make these changes internally in the conditions of our current system, all the old laws, old regulations, and some outdated statutes that no longer correspond to reality. Because there is always some boss who will show you a piece of paper that says how to do things according to the 1970 charter, which is simply translated into Ukrainian. This really stops everything.
That's why we still have a lot to do in our army to transform it into a more modern, effective army than it is now. Our military is based on the people there, not on the system that is being built or has been built. Given the challenges we face, it is not quite as effective as it should be.
There are still motivated and clever people in the army, but their number is decreasing. Indeed, there is a problem with the need for more people. In addition, many new people are coming in, who, as we say (not a very correct word), are of lesser quality than before – less motivated, less prepared. This is true. I'm saying that we need to change our working principles, the same as Zaluzhny said. We must be more technological, efficient, and modern than our enemy.
Acting with the same methods - infantry assaults, mechanized fists - is not working now. Our counteroffensive in the Zaporizhzhia direction showed this. Because we acted in principle in the same Soviet system of offensive, which was never implemented in our country because we did not have such opportunities. This shows that it is ineffective, and we must choose a different tactic.
The problem is not that these are Soviet methods. In Germany, we talked to American commanders while studying the Bradley. They are even more detached from life because they did not have such challenges or similar wars. They use approximately the same tactics. It may not be the same as Soviet tactics, but in general, they are tactics that do not correspond to the existing conditions.
Now, the battlefield is very well visible from reconnaissance drones. All mechanized columns are hit either by artillery or targeted mortar fire, and most importantly, by FPV drones, which work very accurately. A $700 FPV can disable a Bradley that costs three million. It won't destroy it; you have to finish it off separately, but it can knock it out of the fight, and the column will stand still: if it is walking through a minefield, it cannot go on.
All this has been shown, and all these videos have been seen. We must discuss this, draw conclusions, and look for new approaches. The old methods no longer work for us, and people at war constantly seek something new.
It has been almost a month since I have been at the front. When I come back from my injury, something new will happen. Someone has already invented something new; someone is already thinking something new: "Yeah, they do this, and we do that, and we do this, we do that." It's a constant game of getting ahead of the game. It is challenging for a hierarchical, administrative system like the army to respond flexibly to such challenges.
The first time I returned from the front and came home for a few days, the contrast was, of course, enormous. When you see lights, houses, people who are not in uniform, lots of people, cars, traffic jams, packed shops, people in coffee shops... It was shocking, of course, and then annoying. Then you come to terms with it. Because you realize: firstly, you are fighting for people to be able to live a peaceful life, and secondly, not everyone is ready to fight. This fact must be accepted.
Not 100% of men in our country are ready to join the army. Not everyone is needed there. When people say, "Oh, take these deputies, bribe-takers, or drivers who break the rules to the front," it means some kind of punishment, a punishment battalion. No, I will never take a soldier who does not want to go on an assault. I can motivate him, but I will never force him. I can have ten people with me, but they must be the ones I am sure will do their best.
If you saw the video, you saw how my group worked as a team. Everyone there was motivated and in their place, they knew what they were doing, and no one was forced. And if you force people to go with sticks, nothing good will come of it.
But we need to change our information policy and tell people the truth. It's impossible to tell the whole truth, because it may not always be in their favor. But to say frank things, to mobilize people, first of all morally, this war can be long. It will be difficult, and we will not cope without their help.
Avdiivka is now being stormed with fewer armored vehicles and more infantry, and they are coming to the same conclusion as we are. Wagner PMC did the same thing near Bakhmut; others are doing the same: small infantry assault groups that infiltrate and gradually try to find weaknesses and enter somewhere. But they keep up the pressure because we understand what Putin's strategy is: to capture the entire Donbas in their configuration of "liberation." Donbas has always been a priority for him. He wants to reach the administrative borders of Donbas to sit down at the negotiating table, to show that they de facto control these territories and "come on, Ukraine, give them up." That's why they will continue to pressure Avdiivka and the entire Donetsk area.
The situation is challenging. They are slowly pushing us back. There is no encirclement yet, but it is possible at any moment. I hope we can stop them and push them back. But we are not yet one hundred percent sure of this because they are throwing enormous forces, continuing to make these offensives at any cost.
The most important thing is people, not a piece of territory. Even if we lose Avdiivka but save all the people there, we can retake it with smaller forces that will have favorable conditions. Victory at any cost is a Soviet slogan. We need to be more flexible and modern, and, indeed, we need to take care of our people so that they learn and gain experience, have good morale, are motivated, and are effective. If we "cut down" our army, then there will be no one to fight – to defend Avdiivka, Donetsk, and Crimea.