EXCLUSIVE – Ukraine: “These are not men, it’s just material”, deplores Serguei Gaïdaï


Solène Leroux with Nicolas Tonev
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9:53 a.m., June 23, 2022

On the 120th day of the war in Ukraine, the Donbass region is still under fire from Russia. The Russian strikes “destroy everything” in their path, according to the governor of the Lugansk region, Sergei Gaïdaï, in particular in Lyssytchansk, a strategic industrial city neighboring Severodonetsk. At the same time, the Ukrainians are working hard to obtain arms and the official status of a candidate for the European Union. Europe 1’s special envoy to Ukraine, Nicolas Tonev, was able to meet the governor of the Lugansk region, who is Volodymyr Zelensky’s direct relay in this part of the country.

What do Ukrainians expect from Europeans? “Above all, we are expecting rapid deliveries of long-range weapons,” says Serguei Gaïdaï. “Because Russia doesn’t know how to fight!” According to him, “Russia uses the war tactics of Marshal Zhukov, dating from the Second World War”. This technique consists in “constraining by the mass”: “With us, at the moment, they rely on the mass, they do not count the soldiers.” And to explain where the Russian army recruits: “Russian officers and generals are used in the Buryat, Yakut, Chechen populations.” Independentist republics, where the Russian forces consider that “they are not men, they are just material”.

“Sometimes you have to know how to leave territory”

Asked about the strategy of the Ukrainian army against the enemy, Sergei Gaïdaï explains that “sometimes you have to know how to leave territory”, taking the example of his region of Lugansk. From the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, “we and the military immediately left 70% of the region”.

A choice made in conscience: “If our soldiers had tried to keep the front line over the entire surface, it would have been very long, it would have been very difficult to hold back the adversary.” Since then, he says, “we are four months into the war, and the Russian army still can’t take the region – which is not that big”. For Sergei Gaïdaï, “this means that the tactic was well chosen”.

Once better armed, “we will stop them immediately”

Regarding the losses suffered by Russia, the governor assures that they are “colossal”, both from the human and material point of view. However, he believes that the Russians “do not have an unlimited amount of equipment either”, even if “they have a huge amount of personnel with their population of more than 140 million inhabitants, and that they have a lot of old equipment”, like T72 tanks, old support BMPs, a “legacy from the Soviet Union”.

Serguei Gaïdaï recalls that even if “it’s not very effective equipment, when there are ten old tanks rolling around, it’s still ten tanks that are still difficult to destroy”. And to insist, in reference to Ukraine’s repeated requests for weapons from the West: “That is why we need long-range weapons, to stop this aggression as quickly as possible.” According to the governor of Lugansk, the Russians continue to advance in Ukrainian territory “because they destroy everything with artillery”. He is convinced: “When we have received the same types of armaments as them, but those coming from the West which shoot much further, we will stop them immediately!”



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