Ukraine was preparing for full-scale war with Russia 5 months before it started

Ukrainian troops in Donbas began preparations for Russia’s full-scale invasion as early as the autumn of 2021.

Source: Oleksandr Pavliuk, Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who was in charge of the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas at the time of the outbreak of the full-scale war, in an interview with Radio Liberty

Quote: "There were all the signs that we would encounter the enemy, and not only from the occupied part of Donbas, where the Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic militant groups operate but also from the territory of Russia [the Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic are non-recognised and self-proclaimed quasi-state formations in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts – ed.].

Therefore, in the autumn, we began to take certain actions to successfully meet and inflict maximum damage on the enemy. We realised that the balance of assets and personnel was and would be not in our favour, but we still had no other options – we had to stand up because the whole of Ukraine was behind us.

Therefore, we had been preparing to repel a full-scale aggression for five months. As early as January and February, we received messages from Defence Intelligence of Ukraine which suggested that such an option was possible. 

And in February, we did everything we could to meet the enemy with dignity: all positions were reinforced as much as possible, all possible options were calculated, all reserves were moved – we conducted full-scale training at least twice, and there were many local training exercises.

This played its part, perhaps decisively. The fact that on the first day, when all the command centres, all the command posts, all the places where our troops and storage points were supposed to be concentrated were hit, they struck places that were empty."

Details: Pavliuk stressed that the Luhansk part of the defence was the most dangerous because the Russians were attacking from the south, north and east.

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