Andriy Biletsky, the leader of the "Azov" regiment who returned for a few days to Kyiv from the zone of ATO, met for an interview with the correspondent of ЛІГАБізнесІнформ.
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- There are different opinions about various volunteer battalions. In general, the efficiency of "Azov" is highly appreciated, not bad responses got "Right Sector," heard a lot of negativity about "Aydar" and "Donbas." Should all battalions be preserved? What is the future of the volunteer battalions? Will they last forever?
- Even after the capture of Mariupol in early summer of last year, I said that the volunteer battalions have a problem of a lack of professionalism and the precise systematic. But we have a huge advantage over the mobilized in motivataion - and this, believe me, is the most important thing. Napoleon claimed that in the war the relationship of the physical and material to the spiritual is one to three. If you have a motivated army, it will win three times greater in size, but less motivated army. And Napoleon, after all, was a genius.
I suggested the command a year ago not to engage in this nonsense, and instead of creating out of the volunteers a host of volunteer units, build up several high-grade, systemic brigades. Keep one of them on the front to gain experience and withdraw one or two in the rear and start training them. Create on their basis a source of manpower and work out the experimental tactics. Try NATO's methods - all the same they are objectively the best in the world at the moment. Moreover, it is impossible to restruct the whole army along the NATO lines during the war; you need to start at some point. I see the future in it.
Otherwise, the problem of the volunteer movement arises, and it consists in the fact that this movement did not become a leaven of a professional army. [...]
- Please comment on the information according to which the only thing some of the volunteer battalions are doing in the zone of ATO is protecting the objects owned by the oligarchs.
- Some do it, indeed. But "Azov" has never done this. "Sich" guards them, some units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine too. However, I must say that this "protection" is not necessarily a bad thing. Many of these objects are objects of strategic importance. The dams, for example. Also, the bridges and railway junctions. The state should ensure their protection. If not, let them guard them by the money of oligarchs. Would it be better if the dam explodes, floods five villages, destroys the plant, but we would be proud of the fact that the oligarch did not give the battalion a penny?
- What will be the real victory of Ukraine in the Donbas? Liberation of the territory by force, isolation, freezing the conflict, or maybe passing this area to Putin, as some Western experts suggest?
- Any loss of a kilometer of our land is always a defeat. That's why those imbeciles who shout that we do not need the Donbas and that it would be better to surrender the occupied territories to Putin are not even the enemies, but simply people with a low level of intellectual development. Definitely, the Donbas should return to Ukraine.
Supplying anything from our territory to the occupied ones is absurd. The West, just like Putin, is truying to impose on us the economic responsibility for these territories without political control.
But I also do not believe in the myth of the peaceful return of the Donbas. I'm talking about that miraculous plan according to which we will make reforms, create there little 50 million Switzerland, and then the Donbas residents will get enlightenment and come back to us. It is said by some politicians who are either ignorant of history idiots, or the cynical liers. For there were no such precedents in the world history. Why are the Albanians not willing to return to Serbia, why is Kosovo also cut off from them and there is no chance of its return at all?
We are told that me can return the Donbas peacefully and the example of Chechnya is often cited. Like, once they were the enemies of Russia, and now 102% of them vote for Putin. But, first, Russia pays reparations to it, and, secondly, we must not forget the history of the Second Chechen War. At first there was an overt conquest of Chechnya by Russia, then the Russians picked up a few clans, started investing the resources into them and created the so-called "Kadyrov model" of loyal Chechnya. But initially they returned the territory by force, and only later worked on the loyalty of its elite. [...]
- Your opinion about the position of the West in this war. Judging by your words, the position of the West and its vision of the future of Ukraine is largely identical to that of Putin?
- You have to understand what is happening now in the West. US is highly concerned about the Middle East crisis. Emergence of a terrific monster of IGIL, the beginning of the Turkish-Kurdish war in Turkey, deteriorating situation between Israel and the Palestinians, the situation in Iran, the war in Yemen, which has crept close to the American oil fields in Saudi Arabia. Add the military dictatorship in Egypt. That's what worries the United States first and foremost.
There is also the European Union in which grows the total crisis. After Greece the same situation threatens to Portugal, then Italy and Spain. There is a major problem with the banking sector in France. Moreover, apart from the economic crisis, in the European Union escalates the drama of immigrants. If the trend continues, by the end of the year the number of immigrants in Greece will be 6% of the total population.
All this means that the West as a whole is ready to pay any price for peace on the eastern borders of Europe. To sprinkle with powder this bleeding wound regardless of the interests, survival and the future of Ukraine. They are interested in peace with Russia and the role that Russia might play in the Middle East. For the sake of decency, they pretend that they are concerned about the future of Ukraine, but, unfortunately, the real interests of the West do not motivate it to defend our interests. Only Ukraine itself is able to defend its interests, and none will do it instead of us. [...]
Source (excerpts from the interview): http://news.liga.net/interview/politics/6394218-andrey_biletskiy_otdat_donbass_putinu_predlozhenie_slaboumnykh_.htm
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