2024-09-25 22:41:37
The August incursion into the Kursk region showed the West that there was no need to fear Vladimir Putin and convinced Ukraine again that it could still win. Major of the Ukrainian army Ihor Lapin says this in an interview with Aktuálně.cz. He describes what tactics work against the enemy and why, according to him, tendencies towards authoritarianism can be observed in Ukraine.
In an interview, a veteran of the 2014 war in Donbas and a participant in the fighting for the Hostomel airport at the beginning of Russian aggression two years ago believes that Ukraine will not win until the Russians begin to feel the consequences of the war. Fifty-five-year-old Lapin also has a political past. Between 2014 and 2019, he worked as a member of parliament for the National Front party of former Prime Minister Arsenije Yaceňuk.
Can we consider the unexpected incursion into the Kursk region in August as a sign that the Ukrainian army is not out of breath and is still capable of defeating the enemy?
It’s complicated. This war is a war for our survival, for the survival of our state. We have no choice but to try to transfer the war to Russian territory, because without that we would never have a chance to win. Look at Russia, the war doesn’t really affect the people there yet. They go to work, to the theaters, to the cinema, they are fine. While rockets are hitting us, we have no water, no electricity. The Russians have no such problems, they do not feel the war. But how would World War II have turned out if the Soviet Union and the Allies had not attacked Germany?
The Russians can prolong the war. They still finance the army and pay their soldiers from oil and gas. They can also recruit Syrians, Africans and others. Unlike us, they can actually fight indefinitely.
Is the Kursk operation successful?
So far yes. We moved Putin’s so-called red lines. Putin, as always, when Ukraine oversteps something, threatens what weapon he will deploy. And look. The Ukrainian army is occupying Russian soil and nothing has happened. We showed the Western allies that there is no need to fear Putin. It is actually ironic that German tanks – this time in our service – returned to Kursk for the first time since 1943.
It is also important that we again attracted the otherwise declining attention of the world media to Ukraine. At first, the war was an epochal event, but gradually people in the world got used to it, and it started to be said that Ukraine should somehow end it. Gone are the times of calls to help and save our country, as during the Russian massacres in Buča, Irpina or the massive shelling of Kharkiv.
How did the Ukrainians manage such a breakthrough in the Kursk region? Is it really possible that the Russians did not expect such a thing at all?
We are good and capable of defeating the Russians when we move and maneuver. As soon as the front is static, Russian superiority in ammunition, rockets and in general in all weapons is manifested. We managed to defeat them when we extended the front near Kiev, in Kharkiv, during the liberation of Kherson. Now it has also been confirmed in the Kursk region. It gave us a morale boost again, it’s a strong motivation.
And one thing is important. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the Russians called us and asked for an exchange of prisoners themselves. And they agreed to return those from the Azov regiment from Mariupol to us as well. Putin needed to respond to criticism that there were too many captured Russian soldiers at Kursk.
Ihor Lapin | Photo: Ihora Lapina’s Facebook (with permission to use)
As for the weakening of Russian pressure on Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine due to our operation near Kursk, it is not yet clear how this will turn out. But the fact is that they sent sixty thousand soldiers from Russia to Kursk and not to Pokrovsk. We will see what our next strategy is in the Kursk Region. This is really hard to predict.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, you participated in the successful defense of the key Hostomel airport near Kyiv. What memories of those days stick in your mind the most?
How proactive and horizontally organized we were. The task was to stop the Russian columns, and the army decided to decentralize command: no waiting for orders from above. Those who could did what they considered necessary in the given place and time. I simply called the officer of the 72nd brigade that I could see a column of tanks and sent him the coordinates to “sugarcoat” the tanks. They blew it there and we were all shouting “Glory to Ukraine”. Everyone had the right to decide what was best to do at that moment. That’s why we succeeded then.
You later suffered a serious injury at the front…
Two Russian tanks were coming towards us. It’s hard to describe it in detail, it just suddenly hit me and I got it. My colleague dragged me away under fire. It happened in Popasná in Donbass, we still had Bachmut behind us. But I have survived several injuries since 2014, this was not the first.
We interview online via WhatsApp during your stay in the United States. What did you fly there for? Are you negotiating any arms deliveries for Ukraine?
Yes, too. I meet with American politicians, with representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora, with people from the influential analytical institute Atlantic Council. But it’s not just about military aid. It is about long-term contacts and cooperation with the United States, for example in the defense of Ukrainian democracy and the rule of law, because there are unfortunately tendencies in our country to move towards an authoritarian state. We do not want to become another Belarus.
How do the authoritarian tendencies manifest themselves?
Of course, there is a strain to curtail the civil or economic rights of citizens in war. President Volodymyr Zelensky himself recently let it be known that Ukraine is actually ruled by five or six people. But we are a democratic country, we have an elected parliament. The previous prime minister sent his resignation to the speaker of the parliament, the current one is supposed to send it to the president. The variety of TV stations has disappeared, they all broadcast the same thing. Although, of course, in a state of war, some rights must be limited – for example, the right to demonstrate.