Бридлав про Донбасс, в числе прочегоQ: General, a year ago in this room you spoke about the Russians putting 1,000 pieces of military hardware, including tanks, armed personnel carriers, artillery pieces, into Ukraine. A year later, are you seeing more Russian activity in Ukraine or less? Are they putting more weaponry in? Or are they taking some out?
GEN. BREEDLOVE: So, since that time, the number went above 1,000, well above 1,000. And to your latter part of the question, there is still Russian activity in the Donbass. They are still supporting the -- the separatists there. Command and control and fire support and UAVs, communications, over watch with surface-to-air missile defenses, et cetera, et cetera.
So the Russians are still very much involved in the Donbass.
- год назад вы говорили, что русские нагнали в Украину тыщу танков и миномётов. А сейчас как вы видите, рашистской активности там больше или меньше? Они ещё больше оружия тащут или что-то забрали?
- О, с тех пор там гораздо больше тыщи, гораздо. Что касается активности, она присутствует. Они до сих пор поддерживают этих... сепаратистов. Командование, контроль, огневая поддержка, беспилотники, коммуникации, прикрывание ракетами земля-воздух (? не уверена), и т.д. и т.п.
Q: Okay. Would you say that the -- the Russian activity has increased in the Donbass in the past year?
GEN. BREEDLOVE: Okay. So, no, I do not. In fact, I think that, in general, possibly, the Russian activity in the Donbass has decreased a little bit. What you saw for some time was a period of relatively calmer -- we should never use the word "calm", but more calm activity along the line of contact.
Now, what I would tell you is, in the last couple of weeks, this has changed, and the activity along the line of contact has very much increased.
I just spoke to the ambassador this morning, right before testimony. What is being reported -- these are not my numbers, but what is being reported from some fairly reliable reporting -- is that, over the last 24 hours, there were about 71 instances along the LOC -- skirmishes, firefights, sniper activity, artillery activity, et cetera.
And over the past week, it's been over 450 -- in the last seven days. So what this is indicative of is the activity along the LOC is picking up, and what is concerning to those watching is that there are areas that have been very calm for some time -- for instance, vicinity Luhansk -- and that has actually picked up.
As you know, the lines are actually separated by a river there, so you have to be pretty dedicated to engage the enemy across that area. And so there are concerns that the activity is becoming more broad. There are concerns that the activity is picking up.
And probably more concerning is part of this activity, according to the reporting, is now involving heavier weapons that are formerly thought to be out of the fighting area.
- а вы считаете, что их активность усилилась за этот год?
- нет, я б сказал, если на целый год смотреть, то немного снизилась, но вот в последнее время!
Много стреляют. И активность как-то расползается шире. И особенно вызывает беспокойство, что идут обстрелы из оружия, которое должно быть отведено.
Q: The Russians have broken multiple agreements -- the Minsk agreements, which you're describing, should -- can you trust that the Russians will maintain some sort of ceasefire in Syria? Can you trust the Russians -- their government or their officers?
GEN. BREEDLOVE: So, I would take you back to what I said about -- opening remarks, that any real, sincere effort at a ceasefire could only be a welcome thing if we can get a ceasefire for the Syrian people.
But what we will watch is what happens, because the actions and what actually happens on the ground will be much more important than the words of any agreement.
- русские
постоянно врут нарушили много договоров - вы вообще верите русским?
- [ушёл от прямого ответа] Дела важнее слов, что уж там.
Q: Will -- will the -- the U.S. or NATO SOF, at some point, get into the field of battle and advise and assist the way it does in Afghanistan, the way it's expanding right now in Iraq, the way it does on a limited basis inside Syria?
GEN. BREEDLOVE: If your question is specifically as it relates to Ukraine, so --
Q: And offsetting Russian aggression.
GEN. BREEDLOVE: Right. So what we have, I think, determined not to do is be in a tit-for-tat approach to this business. We are taking affirmative actions to train our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
And if I could just take this moment to launch on, I think, some very good news there, I've been to Yavoryiv and seen the training that we were doing there, and the training of the national guard forces went extremely well. And now, as you know, we've finished that tranche of training and we began ministry of defense training at Yavoriv.
Additionally, as you are asking about, more forward, we are training special operations forces of Ukraine. We just, literally, finished the first batch, and we're starting the second batch.
And the report this morning I received was the first series of training went exceptionally well. In fact, our SOF were pretty happy about what they were learning from these men who had been on the front with the Russians, and the Russian tactics, and what they learned from Russian actions in the Donbass.
And so not only are we training them, but we're learning from them as we go along. And so the point would be that I think that we are not trying to do tit-for-tat or trying to vie or match these things.
We are taking an affirmative approach to building capacity in our partner, Ukraine.
- вы собираетесь вообще задействовать американский или натовский спецназ на поле боя, советовать, помогать как-то - по типу как вы действуете в Афганистане, Ираке, и частично в Сирии?
- это вы про Украину?
- да, чтобы отразить рашистскую агрессию
- Так-с. Ну, это, хм, в общем. Мы решили не действовать типа зуб-за-зуб в этом случае. Мы тренируем наших украинских братьев и сестёр.
Я был в Yavoryiv, там всё круто. Потренировали нацгвардию, переходим к тренировкам армии. Насчёт тренировки спецназа - мы ещё к этому не подошли.
Но наш лично спецназ безумно щастлив, потому что он сам на самом деле тренируется там, мы так много узнаём от служивших солдат про рашистские тактики!
