General Valerii Zaluzhnyi: I would drive around Red Square on tank flying Ukrainian flag

The Russian command is surprised that Valerii Zaluzhnyi never served in the Soviet Army. They say that without Soviet epaulettes and caps round like a huge pancake, there is no real officer. That's what Putin thought until recently, and that's why the Russians were also convinced that the barely 50-year-old soldier would be killed one-two-three. They didn't even count to three.

In reality, it turned out that the Soviet-Russian experience, together with the war in Afghanistan, the double pacification of Chechnya, the war in Georgia, as well as the invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014, were child's play compared to the experience of Zaluzhnyi. What is intriguing is that he got acquainted with the real war in the Donbas itself, with the beginning of the aggression of the mysterious 'little green men', and later the regular Kremlin troops. Zaluzhnyi, in a sense, lost that game, and his Kremlin enemies won.

What follows from that? Nothing. And just the fact that Valerii Zaluzhnyi learned from his own mistakes after the Donbas lessons. 

And, just as importantly, the Ukrainian general did not steal from his army. And the Russians believed and still believe that there is no point in serving in the army without this. 

Zaluzhnyi became not only a media hero, but also a hero for ordinary Ukrainians, and above all for his subordinates, because he treats a private the same as a colonel. He does not juggle soldiers' lives, which everyone knows despite the loss of the Ukrainian army. The Russians are betting on cannon fodder and bandits, and they are drowning in a quagmire of thieves and losers.

In addition, the general does not have a Cossack mouth, as in old paintings and engravings, and his nose is different from the noses of the great chieftains, Mazepa, Sahaidachny or Kryvonos. In appearance, he is stocky and good-natured, although since the beginning of the war, many Ukrainians believe that at least in his youth he was very handsome. Zaluzhnyi always shaves his hair bald. And since this fashion is present in almost all armies of the world, no one asks him why. Maybe, like most 50-year-olds, just going bald. That does not harm Zaluzhnyi in any way.

Gold medalist from Novohrad-Volynskyi

He comes from Novohrad-Volynskyi, a town that during the Polish-Bolshevik war was under the army of Piłsudski. The Riga Peace Treaty of 1920 decided that Novhorod would still come under Soviet rule, because it is only 150 km from Kyiv.

He was born in 1973 in a class-appropriate, worker-military family. He wanted to be a soldier since childhood. He was 18 years old when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine declared independence, so he had no chance to even slightly touch the military education in the Soviet version. He studied at the Institute of Ground Forces of the Military Academy in Odesa and at the National Defense Academy in Kyiv, where he was awarded a gold medal for the best for his achievements. Before he began commanding a mechanized brigade, he went through all stages of a military career. In 2014, a few months after the Revolution of Dignity, which overthrew the then president Viktor Yanukovych, he graduated.

This was after the surrender of Crimea, and the war was going on in Donbas. Valerii had the dubious pleasure of seeing the pictures shown on all the world's televisions about how Ukrainian officers, including generals and admirals, surrender to the Russians and declare their loyalty to Moscow based on old preferences or on Kremlin tips.

Exit from the Debaltseve Ring

Admiral Denys Berezovskyi turned out to be a symbol of national dissent, who, after being appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian fleet, "greeted the little green men" from the Kremlin who were walking around in Sevastopol. Russia annexed Crimea not because it was so strong, but only because of Ukrainian weakness.

At that time, the Ukrainian army was almost completely destroyed. Voluntary self-defense units began to be organized across the country, supported by Ukrainian oligarchs, some from the heart, and some because Putin's aggression interfered with their interests.

The West thought that after the annexation of Crimea and the emergence of people's quasi-republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, everything would finally work under the old Russian or Soviet "umbrella". The normalization in the East, so dear to the West, will come again. Not many were willing to notice that in Donbas, units of troops loyal to Ukraine and volunteer battalions were fighting regular Kremlin aggression.

To the last drop of blood, as in the Donetsk airport or near Ilovaisk. With the realization that this stage of the war was lost, but also that the great battle for Donbas would drag on for years, even if the world forgot about it completely.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi was on the Donbas front. He commanded a brigade in Debaltseve, where Ukrainian troops suffered significant losses. Russia spread propaganda that the Debaltseve Ring was closed by insurgent puppet troops of pro-Russian republics from Donetsk and Luhansk. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians fought with the regular Russian army and had no chance in that battle. The very construction of relatively safe evacuation routes from Debaltseve seemed to be an art that bordered on a miracle. About 300 Ukrainian soldiers died, but ten times more soldiers managed to escape. The town of Debaltseve is no longer on the map.

The result of the defeat was the Minsk Agreements signed by President Petro Poroshenko. Russia was not going to fulfill them anyway.

We will not greet Russians with flowers!

Donbas was bleeding, and the West still did not notice that this was not a peripheral conflict, but a prelude to a real war for the independence of Ukraine. Zaluzhnyi gained more and more importance in the army, which, thanks to him, felt the need for reform. The officers learned war in practice on the Donbas battlefield, and during the breaks to rest from the front, they trained with NATO officers on training grounds in the western part of the country.

No army in the world has undergone such intensive training. Western advisers were shocked by the speed of its modernization, and especially by its way of thinking. It was widely believed that when they first met the remnants of the Ukrainian army shortly after 2014, they were faced with an army more Soviet than Russian, led by incompetent, often corrupt commanders. Soon the level of training of special forces or airborne troops was not inferior to the best American or British units. Admiral Berezovskyi, who was a symbol of treason - Putin made him the deputy commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet - and many other officers like him ceased to reflect the face of the Ukrainian army.

Let's repeat - General Zaluzhnyi had combat experience in Donbas. He knew that the Ukrainian army must learn to command according to NATO standards. If it had been familiar only with the Soviet-Russian tactics and strategy developed on the eastern fronts in the 1940s and later in Afghanistan and Chechnya, it would have been doomed. Although he never believed that Russia had the second army in the world.

Instead, Western observers predicted that the future Ukrainian war would look like the front of 1943 - the Russian masses, the size of the army, cruelty to the civilian population, as well as indifference to the lives of their own soldiers would win.

Even before the February attack, General Zaluzhnyi did not hide that the long-term war in Donbas and military cooperation with the West should make the Kremlin think twice if it decides on a full-scale aggression: 420 thousand Ukrainian soldiers and every commander without exception have already looked into the eyes of death (…). We will not give up a single piece of Ukrainian land! I assure you that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are ready for battle.

Ukrainian soldiers, security forces, and civilians are ready to meet the enemy. They will definitely not greet him with flowers, they will not run away. He addressed the Russians with only a few words: "Welcome to hell".

My people are not drunk fools!

Zaluzhnyi is waging war as promised: drones to destroy Russian convoys with equipment and supplies, Ukrainian artillery attacks many kilometers from the front, as well as special forces and partisans conducting subversive activities in the occupied territory. Military analysts, war theorists, and officer training schools have been talking about this for years. Proof of Ukrainian heroism was the recapture of the airport in Hostomel near Kyiv twice, where Putin sent selected paratroopers, Kharkiv, the expulsion of Russians from the Sumy region, and above all the lost battle for Azovstal, which tied the attacker's troops in one place for many weeks.

The general knew from Donbas that decisions on the front cannot be made only by generals, initiatives from below are important, local recognition of enemy forces, which the top leadership often does not have access to, or at least not immediately. He decentralized the command of the army, which is something completely incomprehensible to Russians even now. They send a bunch of generals, colonels and majors to the front line, and those, as a result of the skill of Ukrainian intelligence, partisans and cooperation with electronic espionage systems, die and die, they are buried with honors somewhere near Moscow, Leningrad or Grozny in Chechnya. Or their burials should be hidden, because the low morale of the Moscow army will deteriorate even more.

Zaluzhnyi openly says that the Ukrainian army consists of young and professional soldiers, many of whom carry a marshal's mace in their shoulder pads:

These are completely different people, not at all like my generation when we were privates.  Soon the army will be completely changed. They know foreign languages, do with electronics we, and know how to use the opportunities provided by computers. They cooperated with NATO and were trained in the West. Our sergeants are not shirt-sergeants from the Soviet and Russian army, dumb, and drunken fools. They are not cannon fodder, because no one would dare to assign them such a role. They know how to fight, and almost every one of them is trained to the extent that they may well receive an officer's rank.

The most experienced military experts did not believe in the skill of the general. When at the end of last year, Western intelligence was sure that Moscow would attack Ukraine, Kyiv was given several dozen hours, and everyone predicted defeat, another infamous capitulation after 2014, as well as a change of power to pro-Kremlin puppets. They were probably to be headed by Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia under the guise of local special forces after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.

And it was worth believing General Zaluzhnyi. He wanted recognition of his competence more than a place in the top 100 most influential people in the world, among which the weekly Time included him.

Jump, hit, retreat

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when the attack on Kyiv by the best Russian guardsmen and special forces was repulsed (although part of the east and south was lost), it was time for the "jump, hit, retreat" tactic. The Kremlin commanders, who were taught on the schemes of the Second World War, did not quite understand what to do with it. Weapons brought from the West, which almost every soldier can use, came in handy: anti-tank Javelins, Stingers, and Polish Peruns for combating airplanes and helicopters. To the applause of the local residents, the Russians gave their heads to fight back, saying that they would occupy Ukraine for several days. The tale of Ukrainian Nazis terrorizing the civilian population spread among the aggressor's army. It turned out that neither Ukrainians want to live under the Kremlin's boot, nor the military, territorial defense, and partisans are thinking of surrendering.

Zaluzhnyi received the nickname "iron general". And such a nickname is not given for nothing. In the first hours of the aggression, anything could really happen and many options for the development of the situation were considered. Important people in Kyiv recalled the defeat in Donbas and Crimea in 2014. Zaluzhnyi assured that he would give advice.  President Zelenskyy has become an icon of the struggle for independence and democratic values ​​for the whole world. Zaluzhnyi - today he is invited to the most important NATO congresses via the Internet - made it so that Zelenskyy very successfully began to play the most important role in his life. Zaluzhnyi himself categorically refuses to be interviewed, and does not get in front of the camera. He is dressed in a field uniform, and if there is a photo of him on the Internet, it is from the front line.

A good general and a bad general

Ukrainian comedian Yehor Krutogolov said quite seriously: "If you put a photo of any Russian general next to a photo of our commander-in-chief, you will immediately see where there is evil and where there is good.  Looking into Vasyl Fedorovych's eyes, you see self-confidence, intelligence, and kindness. All the best, Mr. General, good health and strength!".

Against Zaluzhny came a Russian ace, General Oleksandr Dvornikov, ten years older than Valery, whom Putin appointed commander-in-chief in Ukraine after other military defeats.

Dvornikov was able to pacify the Chechen highlanders, including destroying the rebel villages to the ground. Destroyed Syria, destroyed Aleppo, regardless of the civilian population. Undergoing military training during Soviet times in the Far East in Ussuriysk, and then at the Academy named after Frunze, he went through the full path of the Soviet-Russian army career. It didn't help him.

But Dvornikov can talk about luck. If he lacked that, he would have left Ukraine in a zinc coffin, like the Chechen Magomed Tushaev, Volodymyr Fromov, and a dozen others, including a certain Kutuzov from the Moscow troops formed in the annexed part of Donbas, who was not spared the name of the great commander of the Napoleonic Wars. Dvornikov accidentally managed to escape from the command post before a well-hit Ukrainian strike.

They killed him and ran away

Kremlin portals pay a lot of attention to Zaluzhnyi. He had already said goodbye to them several times, and the evidence was video and eyewitness testimony. The only problem was that a day or a week after what the Russians said was a successful attempt, General Zaluzhnyiwas talking to NATO officers.

Moscow propagandists said that he was stealing. Maybe not personally, but his wife and daughters definitely, because they have three rural plots and one apartment. The Chery Tiggo t11 car, photographed from all sides, was supposed to be the crowning proof of the moral decline of the general. In fact, this Chery Tiggo 0 is a Chinese ersatz copy of the Toyota Rave 4; and the automaker even made a fake Daewoo Matiz.

And - apparently, Valerii Zaluzhnyi constantly makes mistakes in tax declarations. The comment usually asks, "Doesn't that make you think?".

Under the guardianship of astral bodies

Since Zaluzhnyi avoids the media, not much is known about him. His wife Olena works in a bank. The eldest daughter chose a military career. The younger one is a doctor. The general seems to love cats, as he says on social networks. Before the war, during vacation, he threw off his uniform, put on comfortable clothes and traveled with his wife in Ukraine, preferably where the beaten track ends and authenticity begins. And to Novohrad-Volynskyi, because the general often misses his hometown.

We can assume that he has a sense of humor. War was already in the air when one journalist asked for an interview with the general and jokingly asked if he would like to ride a tank under the Ukrainian flag through Red Square. Zaluzhnyi replied that of course he would like to, besides, he also plans to drive along Moscow's Arbat. Despite this, he would like to reassure Russians that he will do it delicately, because Arbat is a monument, and monuments cannot be destroyed. The Kremlin portals, which now glorify Putin's fighters when they destroy an ancient cathedral or church, grabbed him by the throat.

He loves Facebook. In social networks, he reports how his soldiers shot down another plane or helicopter, smashed an "ancient, because it's from the time of the Second World War" column of tanks and, in general, how they give themselves advice. He also writes: "The Armed Forces of Ukraine are the shield of Europe", "The price of freedom is high. Remember this!", "Ukrainians have forgotten about fear. Our goal is victory".

Due to Facebook, the date of his birth (July 8) is known, so it was possible to count about one hundred thousand wishes for health and happiness on the networks. Warm, sincere and serious words of congratulations, as well as notes that enthusiastic teenagers place in the profiles of world pop culture stars: that General Zaluzhnyi is the best, the most talented, understands and knows everything, knows languages ​​(this is a fact); Valerii's qualities can be compared with the list of qualities that the Poles bestowed on the Polish Pope when they knew a little less about him than they do now.

Zaluzhnyi is a hero, a mentor, and a beloved defender. He surpasses the greatest Ukrainian princes. Even the astral bodies, wrote supporters of astrology, endow him with especially warm care. Ordinary people, pop stars, writers, poets, artists, and celebrities bow their heads before the general. One transgender singer, very popular in Ukraine, said that there is only one hero in her life - Mr. General. If Michelangelo were to carve General Zaluzhnyi based on internet records, he would have a combination of David and Moses, the most handsome and intelligent man in the world.

And the most interesting thing is that, as the author of the article on the Politico website accurately said, Zaluzhny is a hero, but by no means a star.

DURING THE WAR IN UKRAINE, A MILITARY WOMAN HAS THE SAME WEIGHT AS A MILITARY MAN.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote: "For personal courage and significant contribution to the protection of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, I award the title of Hero of Ukraine with the award of the Golden Star to Colonel-General Oleksandr Stanislavovych Syrskyi".

Since August 3, 2019, Oleksandr Syrskyi has been the commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. With the beginning of the Russian invasion, he became the commander of the defense of Kyiv. On March 18, for the successful defense of the capital, he was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, II degree. From 2017 to 2019, he commanded an anti-terrorist operation in eastern Ukraine. He coordinated the withdrawal of troops from Debaltseve. For the battles on these terrains, he was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III degree.

Colonel Oleksandr Vdovychenko - commander of the 72nd Brigade. Brigade, which dealt a decisive blow to the Russian occupiers during the fighting in the village of Moschun on the outskirts of Kyiv. His "Black Cossacks" successfully defeated the Russian special forces. They were effective and suffered surprisingly few casualties, which proved the professionalism of the soldiers and the commander.

In 2005, Vdovychenko graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Forces and began his service in the 72nd Brigade. He has been at the front since the Russian attack in 2014. He fought in Donbas, in particular in Mariupol. In 2017, he successfully held the Avdiivka industrial zone for over a year.

Colonel Vdovychenko does not delete the mobile phones of the fallen soldiers. He says they are still alive in his memory. He wrote to his subordinates: "The terrible battle for Kyiv is over. Battles for Ukraine are ahead. I am proud of our friendship, brothers!". He emphasizes that he has not even served a single day in the Soviet army. His soldiers also appreciate this: "We were never considered cannon fodder, unlike the Russians. We are friends".

At the beginning of the war, President Zelenskyy awarded Lieutenant Anton (surname withheld) from the 128th Detached Mountain Assault Brigade with the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III degree. He is 22 years old and commands the company as the oldest officer in the division. "I didn't retreat because I understood that someone had to lead the people. If we all fear this war, we won't be able to win. Although everything was completely incomprehensible at the time. We didn't understand a lot of moments, but we had tasks that needed to be performed at the maximum".

He added: "Of course, you get used to death over time. But the death of a soldier and the death of civilians are not the same thing. I didn't think war was like that. When we went to the front line, children still waved at us. And when we were returning, we saw a store destroyed by a rocket. It was night, we shined a flashlight into the funnel and saw burnt bodies, two parents and five children. This is a terrible memory. After this, you want to work even harder to destroy the invaders".

"A fragile, young, beautiful girl in a camouflage uniform fashionable among the military", portal ukraina.com writes about Valeria (surname not disclosed). Such an appearance can easily mislead. In fact, she is a real fighter. Valeria is an operator of an anti-tank missile system  from Javelins to Ukrainian Corsairs. During a battle with 80 units of enemy equipment, she was wounded in the leg; she calls the shrapnel scar "the Joker's smile". She had to learn to walk again. After that, she returned to the front

Valeria is 25 years old and has a 6-year-old son. She studied tourism. The woman joined the army as a volunteer, as she did not want to work in the headquarters. Her husband is also fighting.

"When I was injured, I felt that a person is not immortal, unfortunately. At first, you have confidence that nothing will happen to you. And after an injury comes the realization of how vulnerable a person is. But I knew where I was going. Therefore, I immediately agreed with my husband that if one of us dies, the other will return to the department's permanent deployment point so as not to risk his life and leave the child an orphan".

In an interview with Ukraina.com, she tells how she fights sexism in the army and in civilian life, and how much effort is needed to make the word "military woman" have the same weight as "military man". She has two combat awards. She received the nickname "Wasp" for her sharp tongue, which she uses in the case of unambiguous mockery. Colleagues are happy to warn the new ones about this.

Nameless (name and surname withheld), 19-year-old serviceman of the National Guard of Ukraine. Using hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, he shot down six Russian aircraft and one cruise missile. For this, he was awarded the star of the Hero of Ukraine, which was announced by the head of the operational department of the National Guard of Ukraine.

Translated from Gazeta Vyborcha dated August 12, 2022.