Substitution of places of terms

Substitution of places of terms

A study on how the Ministry of Defense is lying about victories in Ukraine

Ekaterina Reznikova, with the participation of Mikhail Rubin

June 30, 2022

Every day, Russian citizens learn from news about the next successes of their army on Ukrainian fronts. Even when the troops retreat or capture the cost of large victims a couple of small villages, the representative of the Ministry of Defense, General Igor Konashenkov, still reports on serious achievements. How does he get it? The study of the “project” proves that many victories are achieved through arithmetic and geographical falsifications.

Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24 early in the morning, and already in the afternoon the press secretary of the Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov reported :

“As a result of the blows of the Russian Armed Forces, 74 ground -based military infrastructure facilities of Ukraine were disabled.”

This figure could sound impressive if you do not pay attention to the arithmetic as the representative of the military department proposed further. The list of objects included 11 airfields, four drones of Bayraktar, 18 radar stations, three control points, the Navy base and one helicopter - in the amount of half the numbers announced by Konashenko.

Check: 11 + 4 + 18 + 3 + 1 = 37

So from the very first day of the war, the era of the ongoing falsifications of the military achievements of Russia began. If the first inconsistency can still be explained by concealment of details, then it is difficult to write off the next mistakes. “Project” studied all the morning, daytime and evening briefings of Konashenkov - sometimes they passed three times a day, sometimes one at a time, we looked at 196 briefings - from the beginning of the war to June 26 and came to the conclusion: these Ministry of Defense contain a lot of errors, do not fit into the rules of arithmetic, contradict geography and common sense. For the sake of the illusion of success, Sergei Shoigu's subordinates even developed their own, very special, Russian language. Without knowledge of this language, it is impossible to understand all the military statements given in this text.

The Explanatory Dictionary of Konashenkov

“Resistance is mainly provided by armed detachments of nationalists. Military personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces from military clashes are trying to dodge - here and then the spelling of the Ministry of Defense is preserved in the quotes, ”Konashenkov on the first day of the war (he also called it after Vladimir Putin) began to manipulate the Russian language.

The press secretary of the Ministry of Defense shared those who supposedly retreating or surrendering-he respectfully called them Ukrainian military-and those who resist-they contemptuously called them “nationalists”. However, the legend of the imminent victory of Russia and the unwillingness of the Ukrainian army has ceased to resist only a week later. In early March, it became clear that the blitzkrieg in Ukraine did not work, and Konashenkov sharply changed the rhetoric, refusing to divide into bad nationalists and good military. Now, the words "nationalists" and "Nazis" have become the general designation of the enemy. He mainly mentioned the “Armed Forces of Ukraine” in relation to military infrastructure.

“In total, up to 290 nationalists and 23 units of weapons and military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed as a result of aviation blows,” Konashenkov reported on May 31.

In order for the war in Ukraine to look successful and ideologically correct in the eyes of the Russian viewer, the Ministry of Defense began to use a huge number of completely incomprehensible words. On February 25, Konashenkov solemnly reported: " The blocking of the city of Chernigov was completed ." The phrase sounded like success, but in fact meant that the battles at that time went on the outskirts of the city, and in the end it was never captured . However, the Ministry of Defense never uses the word “capture” - instead, the Russian army “takes control” of the city and the village of Ukraine.

For battles on the streets of cities in briefings, there is also a special word: they are called “stripping” - of course, from nationalists.

“Units of the People’s Police of the Lugansk People’s Republic, with the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, completing the cleansing of the National Poppasnaya settlement, broke through the deeply echeloned defense of the enemy and reached the administrative border of the Lugansk People’s Republic,” Konashenkov said on May 10.

Konashenkov speaks of victims among civilians very rarely - and always accuses Ukrainians of their death. The Kiev suburbs of Buch, where after the retreat of Russians dozens of corpses of local residents were discovered, is never mentioned in the reports. The press secretary also spoke about the city of Irpen, which also suffered during the fighting, “The Kiev nationalist regime prepares another provocation to accuse Russia of allegedly mass killings of civilians.” Konashenkov also reports almost nothing about the losses of the Russian army. According to Konashenkov, Russia lost only one Su-25 aircraft on the first day of the war, and even that was the fault of the pilot. The number of killed Russian soldiers on March 25, 2022 was 1351 people, and since then the data was not updated. Meanwhile, by mid -June, journalists of the mediazone found the death of 3798 soldiers and officers, the counterattack of Ukrainians near Kherson and Kharkov, the death of the Moscow cruiser and captured Russian soldiers.

Naturally, Konashenkov has never announced the retreats of the Russian army. He called the departure from Kiev and Chernigov at the end of March "planned regrouping of troops."

We translate into Russian

Nationalists, militants, Nazis - Armed Forces

Take control - capture the city, village or settlement of Ukraine

Block - the Russian army is fighting on the outskirts of the city, but cannot capture it

Stripping - protracted battles on the streets of settlements

Planned regrouping of troops - retreat of the Russian army

Special military operation - war

Apparently, there were a lot of such “planned regrouping”, that is, retreats. So much so that Konashenkov had to exercise not only with the Russian language, but also with geography.

Entertaining geography

“Control over the settlements of Krasny Liman, Torskoye, Kremennaya,” the press secretary of the Ministry of Defense reported on March 2 on the successes of the army in the Luhansk region.

In the early days of the war, Konashenkov created the illusion of success by listing a large number of small cities and the villages, which the Russian army “took control” - on average eight settlements per day were released. If there were not enough real successes, I had to repeat the old ones - all the same, the viewer did not remember unknown names and eagerly believed in the next successes. Especially the press secretary fell in love with Kremennaya town, located 95 km northwest of Lugansk.

Already on March 7, just five days after the first capture, Konashenkov reported on the establishment of control over “Smolyaninovo, Voivodsky and Kremennaya”. On March 8, luck again - the troops of the Lugansk People's Republic advanced nine kilometers and took control of “Borsonino - this settlement on the maps could not be found and cremed” - for the third time . Most likely, in fact, in March the city was never taken once - at least the Ukrainian media did not report about the capture or the transfer of the city from hand to hand. Information about the situation at the front in Ukrainian media is also incomplete.

Moreover, on March 31, Konashenkov himself returned to allegedly for three weeks as a captured city, saying that the LPR troops were fighting with nationalists on the outskirts of Kremennaya. On April 1, according to him, the northern outskirts were blocked, and on April 21, a month and a half after the first report, the spokeswoman spoke about the capture of the city for the fourth time-“without serious destruction of city infrastructure and residential buildings”-quote from Igor Konashenkov.

The same story with the city of Krasny Liman since 2016 is Liman, but Konashenkov continues to call the city an old name: for the first time it was taken on March 2. But in the next months, in the settlement, allegedly controlled by the Russian army, the weapons warehouses or the Armed Forces of Ukraine on fire positions appeared magically, ”and they were immediately successfully destroyed. After almost three months, on May 28, Konashenkov announced the re -capture of Red Liman.

These cases are no exception, but the rule. Studying Konashenkov’s briefings, Project found that at least 25 settlements were taken more than once. At the same time, the representative of the military department has never reported the transfer of these places from hand to hand, so it is impossible to understand whether he reports on one success several times or the Russian army was knocked out of the captured paragraph, which he had to return after.

Konashenkov reported on the capture of 25 settlements of Ukraine more than once

To go to such tricks it was easier, Konashenkov never gives too many details. For example, talking about successes in the Donetsk region, he repeatedly mentioned the village of Stepnoy. For example, on March 9, Konashenkov reported: "... they took control of the settlements of Krasnaya Polyana and the steppe." And on March 14, he said: "... we went to the line of water, sweet, steppe, Taramchuk and glorious." In the area of ​​battles with this name-two, but the spokeswoman has never delved into details.

Sometimes the Russian army captures what does not exist. So, on March 6, he reported to be taken under the control of the village of Zablukhovka. There are no such settlement on modern maps, and back in the 1980s. Military cartographers noted the farm farm as non -residential. In its place, only a couple of ruined houses and power lines without wires were preserved.

As a result, Konashenkov himself got confused in the geography of Ukraine. On April 17, in an evening briefing, he said: "... in the area of ​​the village of Preobrazhenskoye Pavlograd Region, a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down." There are several settlements with this name in Ukraine, but there is no Pavlograd region at all.

But there is the city of Pavlograd, which got on May 23.

“The Russian air defense equipment for a day shot down three Su-25 aircraft of the Air Forces of Ukraine, including two-in the area of ​​the village of Kiselevka, Kherson region and one above Pavlograd, Kharkov region,” Konashenkov reported.

The toponym Pavlograd became simply bewitched for Konashenkov, because in fact this city is located in the neighboring, Dnipropetrovsk region.

However, the topic of geography quickly faded into the background. Against the background of military failures, Konashenkov began to call the captured settlements much less often. But from the mid -April, on the 13th, he began to call a lot of numbers of enemy losses, and then his arithmetic knowledge came to the fore.

I got lost in three tanks

The mistakes in Konashenkov’s calculations appeared in the first days of the “special operation” - the statements made within one day simply contradicted each other. On February 28, it became a black day for Russian military statistics. In the morning, the spokeswoman reported on 314 tanks of the enemy destroyed from the beginning of the operation, and in the evening-about 311. The same thing happened with another equipment, as a result of the Ministry of Defense, “lost” three lumped tanks, six sloping systems, 11 units of special equipment. But the number of broken anti-aircraft missile systems and radar stations immediately grew by tens.

In the reports in the early days of the war, the number of destroyed Ukrainian equipment grew or fell

But a real stream of messages about the losses of Ukrainians at Konashenkov began on April 13. This is amazing, because just two weeks before (March 30) it was announced “planned regrouping of troops”, that is, a retreat from Kyiv, and since then there have been no significant changes on the fronts. Nevertheless, Konashenkov began to report not about dozens, as before, but about hundreds of destroyed objects of Ukrainian military infrastructure.

Growth in the number of destroyed objects

The unraveling of this paradox is simple - after the failure near Kiev, the Kremlin was afraid for the optimism of the Russians and asked Konashenkov to lighter to describe the successes of the army, says an interlocutor close to the Kremlin. Naturally, this led to another shaft of errors and inconsistencies.

The holiday of May 9 Konashenkov celebrated so well that on this day he had helicopters. In the afternoon, he said that Russian troops bombed Ukrainian helicopters on Earth, and called the total losses of Ukraine in this type of equipment since the beginning of the war - 118 units - this is two more than on the previous day. In the evening, the Ministry of Defense clarified the information on the same impact: 6 helicopters were broken, not 2. The laws of arithmetic obliged Konashenkov to subtract two helicopters from the general losses of Ukrainians and replace six, as a result of which the result was to be 122 units. But the military really did not want to reduce the figure, so they forgot to subtract and reported on 124 destroyed units for the entire period.

The total number of destroyed helicopters increased by eight pieces, although only six were destroyed

"Total helicopters":

May 8, evening - 116

May 9 Day - 118 (+2)

“In the area of ​​the village of Artsiz, Odessa region, the high -precision missiles of the ONICS Coastal Rocket Complex“ Bastion ”destroyed Ukrainian helicopters on the election site”

May 9, day - 124 (+8)

“According to the updated data, at night in the area of ​​the village of Artsiz Odessa region in the area of ​​the Chervonoglinsky military airfield“ ONICS ”of the ONICS, six Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters were destroyed.

Ukrainian artillery began to behave very interestingly. If you believe the reports of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, it is unkitable. For days, the Russian army fired at the positions of Ukrainian artillerymen, but there were almost no losses in the guns.

The total number of destroyed artillery did not grow, despite reports on dozens of affected objects

“In total, destroyed ... guns and mortars from the beginning of the war”:

April 16 - 987

April 17, morning - 992 (+5)

“Missile troops and artillery was defeated by 814 objects, including <...> 111 firing artillery positions”

April 17, evening - 998 (+6)

“Missile troops and artillery was defeated by 113 objects, including: <...> four artillery batteries”

April 18, morning - 1004 (+6)

"Amazed: <...> 22 artillery batteries"

18.04 evening - 1009 (+5)

"Also amazed <...> 22 fire positions of artillery of Ukrainian troops."

Every day, Konashenkov’s reports became more fantastic. As a result, when the “project” resigned all the statements of the press secretary about the losses of the Ukrainian army, the result was, to put it mildly, strange.

War with phantoms

“Almost all the combat -ready aircraft of the Kiev regime was destroyed,” Konashenkov said on March 6, that is, after a week and a half of the war.

According to him, by this time Russia shot down in the air and bombed 93 aircraft on the ground. This is really a large part of the Ukrainian aviation park - before the war there were only 98 military aircraft, and taking into account 35 transport, three of which were only ordered, and 5 special - a maximum of 138 regular units, quoted the Defense Express data with reference to the profile website of Flightglobal. Theoretically, the Russians could destroy educational aircraft: there are 61 of them in the Ukrainian army, but with their taking into account the total number does not reach two hundred. The Russian Ministry of Defense itself stated that Ukraine had 152 aircraft before the war.

Whatever of these numbers was true, Konashenkov has long surpassed the ceiling. By June 26, the spokeswoman reported in total about the destruction of 215 pieces.

The propaganda media explain: the numbers of Ukrainian losses are growing so quickly because the Russian army destroys military assistance entering Ukraine from Europe and the United States for example, in early June, Komsomolskaya Pravda tried to explain why the Russians destroyed more tanks and aircraft than Ukraine had before the start of the war. In open sources there is information that Western countries could transfer military aircraft to Ukraine. This was stated by the speaker of the US Ministry of Defense John Kirby, but officially not a single state reported this. At the end of May, the Ukrainian media only wrote that the Su-25 attack aircraft entered Ukraine disassembled.

More is known about the Western supplies of helicopters. With their accounting, Ukraine, according to Konashenkov, lost 88% of the total number-132 US units allegedly sent sixteen Mi-17s purchased from Russia for the army of Afghanistan, but whether they were all taken to the country is unknown. Five more cars were transferred by Slovakia, up to seven pieces - the Czech Republic, the Ukrainian media indicate.

Russia destroyed more technology than Ukraine has

From February 24 to June 26

The Turkish drones of Bayraktar, judging by Konashenkov, were completely destroyed completely. A month after the start of the war, on March 25, the Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian military shot down 35 out of 36 apparatus available to Ukraine. By the end of June, the figure grew - the shot down by Bayraktar in Konashenkov’s messages already became 84. At least this figure may contradict public data - it is known that the Ukrainian army purchased only 62 such drones before the war, while 25 of them were supposed to deliver in 2022. In early March, the Bayractarov Party really entered Ukraine, said Minister of Defense of Ukraine Alexander Reznikov. Еще четыре беспилотника подарил их турецкий производитель , в том числе тот, на который изначально собрали деньги граждане Литвы.

Не лучше ситуация и с танками, которых у Украины тоже уже не должно было остаться. К 26 июня Конашенков отчитался об уничтожении более 3800 бронированных машин, включая танки. Но само Минобороны оценивало численность бронемашин Украины в 2416 штук , говорил глава оперативного управления Генштаба Сергей Рудской 25 марта на итоговом брифинге, посвященном первому месяцу войны. Еще около 700 машин к середине мая Украине поставили западные союзники . Польша передала 240 танков, Чехия — 40 танков; США, Дания, Польша, Чехия, Великобритания — около 400 бронетранспортеров. Каким образом Украина продолжает воевать, если она уже лишилась всей техники, — остается загадкой.

Не сходятся у Конашенкова цифры и по людям. Если сложить все его данные, получится, что Россия взяла в плен 3800 украинцев. Из них значительная часть почему-то пришлась на первую неделю войны, но здесь не сходится промежуточный итог с ежедневными данными:

Цифры по числу пленных на 2 марта не сходятся

Сумма по всем брифингам с 24 февраля по 2 марта

838

Промежуточный итог, озвученный Конашенковым 2 марта

572

Людские потери в украинской армии вообще просто огромны. Если сложить все данные брифингов Конашенкова, то получится, что погибли как минимум 40596 человек на 4 июня 2022 года. Конашенков зачастую не называет точное число погибших, ограничиваясь формулировками «не менее…» или «более…», поэтому при подсчете мы складывали лишь цифры, игнорируя формулировки «до двух рот», «до батальона». В таком случае выходит, что у Украины из строя выбыли до 80% штатной численности военных.

По статистике крупных военных конфликтов, число раненых обычно в два-три раза выше безвозвратных потерь — убитых, пленных и пропавших без вести . Такое соотношение было во время Второй мировой войны, приводит данные Советская энциклопедия. В Первую мировую на одного убитого приходилось четверо раненых. Во время войны в Афганистане и в первую чеченскую соотношение раненых к убитым превышало 3 к 1. То есть число убитых и раненых на поле боя украинцев, если исходить из данных Минобороны, в сумме может составить до 160 тысяч человек. К началу войны же штатная численность армии Украины составляла около 200 тысяч человек, правда, еще 250 тысяч были в резерве . А численность парамилитаристских соединений — около 50 тыс.

Оценки российских потерь Генштабом Украины тоже кажутся неправдоподобными. По их данным, к середине июня российская армия недосчиталась убитыми 32 тысяч человек.

Самый загадочный термин

В начале этого текста мы не привели самый загадочный термин из словаря Минобороны России — «скопление живой силы и техники». Пресс-секретарь военного ведомства постоянно его использует, но мы так и не смогли дать термину определение.

За первые сто дней войны Россия, по донесениям Минобороны, уничтожила в Украине 39 тысяч «районов скопления живой силы и техники» и «опорных пунктов» украинских войск. Как получилась такая внушительная цифра, не совсем понятно, ведь сумма всех отдельно названных видов уничтоженной военной техники до такого количества явно не дотягивает.

Единиц техники уничтожили значительно меньше, чем упомянутых «скоплений живой силы и техники»

9 715 < 39 815

Но самое интересное — соотношение человеческих потерь к потерям в технике. Если разделить число убитых — 40 тыс человек, по сообщениям МО РФ, подсчет на 4 июня 2022 года, украинцев на число «районов скопления» — 39,8 тыс, по сообщениям МО РФ, подсчет на 4 июня 2022 года, получится, что в каждом погиб в среднем 1 человек.

* * *

В начале июня 2022 года Игорь Конашенков был в очередной раз повышен в звании. Человек, последние 24 года работавший в пресс-службах различных военных ведомств, стал генерал-лейтенантом. Кстати, Украина Конашенкову не чужая. В 1980-х годах прошлого века он учился в Житомирском военном училище радиоэлектроники ПВО.

Редактура — Михаил Рубин

Фактчекинг — Юлия Балахонова