ALERT: Vadim Sujarevski, colonel of the Ukrainian army: “The war is closer than many European countries believe” | International
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Colonel Vadim Sujarevski, born in Berehove 41 years ago, is European history. For Ukraine he is a hero: the medals he has received attest to this. But his relevance transcends his country. The name of Sukharevski, current deputy commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the East, appears in the annals of the war not because of the current Russian invasion, which began in 2022, but because of a decision he made on April 13, 2014 in Sloviansk. This city in the province of Donetsk, in the Donbas region, remains under Ukrainian control today, largely thanks to him. The war in Donbas began a day earlier, on April 12, 2014. Russian soldiers under the command of Colonel Igor Girkin occupied the administrative centers of Sloviansk to support the Donetsk separatists. Sujarevski, a lieutenant at the time, had orders not to fire, to avoid an escalation. On April 13, his men threatened by an imminent ambush, he disobeyed and ordered his soldiers to attack the Russian and separatist forces. And he was the first to pull the trigger on Russians in Ukraine. Thus began the battle for Sloviansk, the first of the war in Donbas. On June 18, 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Vadim Sukharevsky the decoration that distinguishes him as a Hero of Ukraine. Office of the President of Ukraine Twelve years later, Sloviansk is still part of free Ukraine, although Russian troops are barely 16 kilometers from the town. Only 25% of Donetsk province is unoccupied; and the other province of the Donbas region, Lugansk, is entirely under Russian control. The Kremlin and Washington demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from what it retains in Donetsk as a condition for sealing peace. “What the United States is doing is political prostitution,” says Sujarevski, referring to the affinity between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. “The White House is the result of psychological warfare and Russian disinformation,” adds this veteran officer in an interview with EL PAÍS. His baptism of fire occurred precisely in a war promoted by the United States, the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sujarevski was a 19-year-old private soldier when he was part of the Ukrainian detachment assigned to the Western coalition led by Washington. In nine months he saw nine companions die. That stage, he explains, determined the decisions he would make in the future: “Until today.” Specifically, Sujarevski places the most important experience of his military career on April 6, 2004, in the battle in which the coalition captured key positions in Kut, which was under the control of the fundamentalist militias of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The commander ordered them to leave the municipality even though they had managed to push the enemy back. For the current colonel, that was a lesson in the importance of having modern commands, who understand the importance of delegating to subcommands and making decisions more agilely, not vertically but horizontally. That is, adapt to the military theory of NATO and abandon the rigid Soviet system. The White House is the result of Russian psychological warfare and disinformation. “In the first phase of the invasion [2022-2024] The replacement of former generals and colonels who did not allow progress was good and effective, but now I think it is something negative, because they are changes according to political interests that harm the army,” says Sukharevski, alluding to the constant replacements of commanders in the Ukrainian Armed Forces decided from the office of the president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He does not want to add anything more when asked if one of those affected is himself. In 2024 he was appointed deputy commander in chief. of the General Staff and, even more importantly, commander of the Unmanned Forces, that is, of all the Ukrainian drone power. He lasted in both positions for only one year and, without expressing it in words, his face shows that the decision still hurts him. Between Iraq and the war in Ukraine “there are not so many political differences,” maintains Sujarevski; illegitimate and a threat, and with Saddam Hussein they did the same. The main objective of both wars is territory and geopolitical benefits for those who started them. And in both wars the maximum suffering is that of civilians, Ukrainians and Iraqis,” he summarizes. The start of the war, on February 24, 2022, did not surprise Sukharevski. At that time he was commander of the 35th Marine Brigade and they had prepared for an invasion that Sukharevski’s main supporter, Valeri Zaluzhni, then commander in chief of the Ukrainian army, took for granted. His mission was to participate in the defense of the coast of Odessa province: “On February 24, a member of my team asked me what was going to happen. I replied that perhaps we had two weeks to live, until the bullets and artillery ran out. “On February 24, 2022, I thought that perhaps we had two weeks to live, until the bullets and artillery ran outDrones instead of soldiersMore than four years have passed and Ukraine is still fighting. In the Black Sea, where Sukharevsky began this war, is where the defending army has achieved one of its greatest victories: pushing back the Russian fleet with its drones nautical and ensure export routes for merchant ships that leave the ports of Odessa. It has been precisely Ukraine’s early commitment to innovating in drones, Sujarevski emphasizes, that has allowed its Armed Forces to continue standing up to the enemy. “Without our current power in drones we should have between three and five times more soldiers,” Sujarevski calculates from statistics and military theory. Without drones, in a conventional war, Ukraine would have fallen long ago because, in this war of war. attrition, recruitment is one of its weak points. Ukraine does not have as many human resources as Russia. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov revealed last January that more than two million Ukrainian men of draft age live in hiding to avoid joining the ranks. Fedorov also pointed out that official figures indicate that at least 200,000 soldiers have deserted, the equivalent of more than 20% of the Ukrainian troops. “We have enormous problems with the military. mobilization,” admits Sujarevski. The solution, according to him, would be to establish limits on the period of military service: “Everyone should know how long they will be in the war. It is a huge problem for our soldiers, especially for those who started fighting voluntarily at the beginning and continue fighting today; Psychologically it is hard. When we tell our people how long they will fight, recruitment will improve,” he proposes. We have enormous problems with mobilization; when we tell our people how long they will fight, recruitment will improve. Sukharevski has been fighting Russia for 12 years and believes that the Russian army “is good at learning and multiplying the results of learning.” The best example is how Russia has been mimicking the technology and tactics in Ukrainian drone combat, to evolve to surpass its rival. In what Ukraine continues to be superior, the most The most advanced part of the world, according to this colonel, is in the development of radio-electronic weapons that interferes with the connection of drones with their pilots. “What I am clear about is that Europe is late,” says Sujarevski in reference to this military evolution: “Europe and the United States must prepare for upcoming wars because they have problems with the production of artillery, ammunition, airplanes, anti-aircraft defenses, and training of soldiers. Many European countries are not aware that the world has changed, they do not understand that the war is closer than they think.” A good end to the war would be for Ukraine to recover the lost territories in the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhia, according to Sukharevski. He does not include Donbas because he sees it as difficult for Russia to give up what it has conquered there. But the same logic could be applied to Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In any case, to achieve that objective, this Ukrainian hero concedes, his country It should receive much more international aid than it has obtained until now, which has only served to resist. And above all, he affirms, a “total unity of Europe and the world” is necessary: “The European Union tells us that it is united, but the truth is that there are many problems with Russia’s friends, with Hungary and Slovakia, because the force of Russian psychological warfare and disinformation is a great disadvantage for us,” laments the military man.
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Source: This article was originally published in another language by Internacional en EL PAÍS and has been translated and adapted for our global English-speaking audience. Read the original article here.