Huge armed mass prompted to look for solutions: Zaluzhnyi on how Russian army was stopped

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi told about this in a documentary project A Year authored by Dmytro Komarov.

Zaluzhnyi noted that Russia is a country where military science, in his opinion, is developed at a fairly high level. Therefore, Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion in a comprehensive manner, and the enemy was planning the operation in great detail.

However, 8 years of war taught Ukrainians how to fight, which the Russians did not expect.

"We were in a very difficult situation. Our only chance was to develop a plan that would allow us to inflict maximum losses on the enemy in the shortest possible time, so that they would abandon their main strategic tasks and focus on others," Zaluzhnyi said.

Since the Ukrainian army had much less artillery, shells, tanks and armored vehicles, they had to be creative. In particular, according to Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, a classic defense was built near Kyiv, combined with the actions of mobile units that conducted active defense and counterattacks. And the entire area was covered by sustained defense units. The groups moved frequently and used old pillboxes for cover. In many places, the Kyiv defense line actually ran along the World War II defense line.

"Military history shows that armies much smaller in size and combat potential defeated the enemy. This huge mass, armed with missiles, aircraft, guns and millions of shells, made us realize that we had to look for solutions. We had to inflict maximum losses on the enemy in the shortest possible time so that they would refuse to continue their actions on the larger territory of Ukraine. And it worked," added Zaluzhnyi.