[REGNUM] In recent days, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, like a vacuum cleaner, have been pulling former military men from high political positions. This means that the Ukrainian offensive is a matter of the near future, its preparation is already at the final stage.
On Monday, March 20, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine terminated the powers of the people's deputy from the "European Solidarity" Mikhail Zabrodsky. But for those who follow Ukrainian politics, the news was expected. On Friday, March 17, the leading Ukrainian media, as well as some parliamentarians, reported that Zabrodsky himself was resigning. The Ukrayinska Pravda publication published a photo of Zabrodsky's statement dated March 10.
At the same time, both the media and politicians claimed that the people's deputy would become Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny. “General Zabrodsky has long been helping the General Staff, personally Valery Zaluzhny,” said Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, a member of the Voice faction .
FROM PITERA TO KOSOVO
Zabrodsky is not just a general. He is one of the most famous military leaders of modern Ukraine.
He is 50 years old. Like many Ukrainian elites, he was born in Dnepropetrovsk. But Zabrodsky received his higher education already in independent Russia: in 1994, the future Ukrainian People's Deputy graduated from the A.F. Mozhaisky Military Space Engineering Academy named after A.F. Mozhaisky, after which he served under contract in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for five years.
After serving five years in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, he returned to his small homeland and in 2000 began serving in the 95th Separate Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a platoon commander. Thirteen years later, Zabrodsky became the commander of this brigade.
From 2005 to 2006, under the program of international military assistance, he studied in the United States at the College of Army Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 2009, he was appointed to the post of commander of the Ukrainian contingent in Kosovo, which was based on the military personnel of the 95th brigade.
The glory of a gifted military leader came to Zabrodsky in 2014, when Kyiv launched a punitive operation against the inhabitants of Donbass.
RAID
From July 19 to August 10, units of the 95th Brigade under the leadership of Colonel Zabrodsky and in cooperation with units of the 25th Separate Airmobile and 30th and 51st separate mechanized brigades made a 460 kilometer raid from Slavyansk to Mariupol. At the same time, 160 km of the raid passed through the rear of the militia.
"To be precise, out of 460 kilometers of this raid, only 160 passed through the territories controlled by the militants (Donbass militia - ed.), where our paratroopers captured powerful enemy fortifications literally on the move, as was the case near Lisichansk. Thus, the passage of other troops that were moving behind the 95th Brigade was ensured," Zabrodsky himself later said.
Of course, this was not without the traditional Ukrainian "overcome." This is how the "powerful fortifications" of the militias from the legendary “Ghost” brigade of Oleksiy Mozgovoy look absolutely fantastic, who actually waged a guerrilla war against regular Ukrainian troops and in the summer of 2014 simply did not have any serious fortified areas. The main equipped defense nodes were ordinary checkpoints.
It was during the Zabrodsky raid that the Ukrainians managed to take Saur-Mohyla for a while. This strategic height closed the narrow neck of the "cauldron" in which the Ukrainian troops found themselves trying to cut off the Donbass from the border with Russia. The center of events was the Izvarino border crossing in the Luhansk region. The Ukrainian troops, which rushed to him, were themselves pressed to the border with Russia and cut off by the militias from the main forces. It was to their rescue that the Ukrainian paratroopers, led by Zabrodsky, hurried to their rescue.
The subordinates of the brigade commander assured: without Zabrodsky, the raid would not have been so successful.
"We went there to pull the boys out of Izvarino - and to do this, we had to go through Saur-Mogila. In a word, we really got behind enemy lines, in the very ass. And they got out of there only thanks to Zabrodsky - his cunning and his intuition," said the battalion commander of the 1st battalion of the 95th Brigade.
However, even here the victorious reports of Ukrainians do not reflect the completeness of the picture. For example, it was during this raid that the militia destroyed a column of paratroopers that was breaking through the city of Shakhtersk.
Not surprisingly, some of Zabrodsky’s soldiers even insisted that during the raid they were confronted not by the militia, but by regular Russian military men — those who were later nicknamed the “Northern Wind” in the Donbass.
FROM GENERALS TO DEPUTIES AND BACK
Despite the fact that Ukraine could not avoid losses in the Izvara Cauldron, Zabrodsky became, perhaps, the most famous Ukrainian military leader at the time of the beginning of the punitive operation in the Donbass.
On August 23, 2014, he was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine, and the next day he already commanded the parade in honor of the Independence Day of Ukraine. When the Ukrainian military marched along Khreshchatyk, their brothers-in-arms, who were captured in the Izvaria Cauldron, were walking along Artem Donetsk Street under escort of the militia.
But this did not affect Zabrodsky. His tactical genius was also praised by Western experts.
As a result, in March 2015, Zabrodsky was appointed commander of the Highly Mobile Airborne Forces of Ukraine (later, the Airborne Assault Forces). On June 3–4, 2015, it was he who commanded the Ukrainian formations during the battles for the Donetsk suburb of Marinka, which the DPR forces unsuccessfully tried to take control of.
And already on August 1, Zabrodsky received his first general rank - he became a major general.
In November 2017, Zabrodsky was appointed commander of the Antiterrorist Operation forces. It was under his leadership that one of the largest rotations in the "ATO zone" took place, during which several brigades of air assault troops entered the front line.
In August 2019, a popular military leader resigns to take part in politics. He becomes a member of the Verkhovna Rada on the lists of the European Solidarity bloc of Petro Poroshenko. Back then, many believed that Zelensky would keep his promises to bring peace to the Donbass, and Ukrainian hawks like Zabrodsky tried to secure a comfortable future under the new circumstances.
SCENARIOS OF THE UKRAINIAN OFFENSIVE
And now the illustrious military leader returns to the troops, which makes one suspect that Ukraine is preparing a new assault operation, similar to the Zabrodsky summer raid of 2014, and this preparation has already reached the finish line.
There are several options for where this raid can take place.
The most obvious is the neighborhood of Bakhmut. On March 20, the same day that the Rada terminated the powers of Zabrodsky, the founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin addressed the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with an open letter.
"According to available information, in late March - early April, the enemy plans to launch a large-scale offensive and deliver flank cut-off strikes in order to cut off the Wagner PMC unit from the main forces of the RF Armed Forces," Prigozhin wrote.
In this regard, he asked the head of the RF Ministry of Defense to take all necessary measures to prevent the Wagner PMC from being cut off from the main forces of the RF Armed Forces, as it "will lead to negative consequences for the NMD."
Another direction of a likely Ukrainian strike is the regions of Russia bordering the northern Ukrainian regions.
"Of course, if we take from North to South, there is a high probability that one of the strikes will hit our territory in the area of the city of Belgorod," the same Prigozhin noted in an interview with RIA FAN on March 17.
According to him, the entry of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into the territory of the Russian Federation destabilizes the domestic political situation and creates a bargaining chip. And it is quite likely that such plans of the Ukrainian command explain the attempts of sabotage in the Belgorod region.
But there is another direction that the Ukrainians themselves are hinting at.
GROUPING "ODESSA"
Zabrodsky is not the only Ukrainian politician and military man to retire these days.
Earlier, the head of the Odessa Regional Military Administration Maxim Marchenko was removed from his post.
"The struggle continues… And I believe that I should do what I can do best – kill enemies and fight for the future of Ukraine. I hope that soon I will return to my favorite business. But my soul and heart remain forever in Odessa," Marchenko himself said in his farewell address on March 15.
He himself is a former commander of the infamous Aidar battalion. After that, Marchenko was the deputy brigade commander of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, and from May 2018 to September 2021 he commanded the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade, in which he was directly involved in a number of military operations.
On the evening of March 20, it became known that the command of the group of Ukrainian troops "Odessa" divided the southern region of Ukraine into "red", "yellow" and "green zones for journalists". This was reported by the Operational Command "South."
Even accredited media representatives are prohibited from working in the "red zone." This zone included not only the areas of the Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson and Nikolaev regions adjacent to the front line, but also the border regions of the Odessa and Vinnitsa regions.
In addition, all critical and military infrastructure facilities, sea and river ports, regardless of geographic location, were included in the "red zone."
All this suggests that the Ukrainian command is thinking not only about attacks on the Kherson and Zaporozhye directions, but also has not said goodbye to the idea of a campaign against Transnistria.
However, whatever the direction of the Ukrainian strike, it is symptomatic that in recent days in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, like a vacuum cleaner, experienced military leaders have been pulled out of political positions. This means that the Ukrainian offensive is a matter of the near future, its preparation is already at the final stage.
March 21, 2023
Ilya Ropshin