Chiefs Of The Russian And Soviet General Stafff

"In the 21st century, there is a tendency to blur the distinction between the state of war and peace. Wars are no longer declared, and once they have begun, they do not proceed according to the pattern we are accustomed to."

"Russia managed to put an end to the advance of the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region."

"Information about Russia's alleged impending invasion of Ukraine is a lie."

"Nuclear weapons are considered as a means of forcing a potential adversary to refuse to unleash aggression against our country."

"Any scientific research in the field of military science is worthless if military theory does not provide the function of foresight."

"At the same time, we should not copy someone else's experience and catch up with the leading countries, but work ahead of the curve and be in leading positions ourselves. And here military science plays an important role."

"Another factor influencing the change in the content of modern methods of warfare is the use of modern military robotic systems and research in the field of artificial intelligence. In addition to flying drones today, tomorrow the battlefield will be filled with walking, crawling, jumping and flying robots. In the near future, it is possible to create fully robotic formations capable of conducting independent combat operations."

"Asymmetric actions have become widespread, making it possible to neutralize the enemy's superiority in armed struggle. These include the use of special operations forces and internal opposition to create a permanently operating front throughout the territory of the opposing state, as well as informational influence, the forms and methods of which are constantly being improved."

"The emphasis of the used methods of confrontation is shifting towards the widespread use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other non-military measures, implemented with the use of the protest potential of the population. All this is complemented by military measures of a covert nature, including the implementation of information warfare measures and the actions of special operations forces. The open use of force, often under the guise of peacekeeping and crisis settlement, is only shifted at some stage, mainly to achieve final success in a conflict."

"Among such actions are the use of special-operations forces and internal opposition to create a permanently operating front through the entire territory of the enemy state, as well as informational actions, devices, and means that are constantly being perfected."

"If it is necessary we will find a quick answer and it will not be the way the United States expects it. It will be an answer that devalues the 'Star Wars' program."

"The longer the war drags on, more and more civilians are getting killed."

"If both sides reduced their long-range missiles by 50%, SDI would be an unacceptable threat to the remaining Soviet rocket forces."

"Think of the 40 years of confrontation. What is it we gained?...The old style has exposed itself: it is fruitless."

"We are not pursuing research to develop ABM space systems. There are studies to improve systems of warning against a missile attack, communications and navigation systems and to develop ground-based ABM defences."

"The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy."

"We ceased to deal seriously with mobile combat. We relegated to oblivion the fundamentals of combat-in-depth tactics and of combined arms maneuvers which had been widespread before the Finnish campaign."

"The problem of destroying enemy rockets in flight has been successfully solved in our country."

"The storming of the Mannerheim Line was regarded as a model of operational and tactical art. Troops were taught to overcome the enemy's protracted defense by a gradual accumulation of forces and a patient "gnawing through" of breaches in the enemy's fortifications in accordance with all the rules of engineering science. Insufficient attention was paid to questions of co-operation among different branches and services of the armed forces under rapidly changing conditions. We had to retrain ourselves under enemy fire, paying a high price for the experience and knowledge without which we could not beat Hitler's army."

"Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess."

"The time when Russia could be kept out of the world's oceans has gone forever. We shall sail all the world's seas; no force on earth can prevent us."

"I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Buereau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Chechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of a banquet - he had got rather drunk - he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky - and so many of his followers."

"Soviet preparations in the Far East, and the more general build-up of the Red Army, were well covered by Japanese intelligence, not least the development, by the end of 1935, of a 170-strong long-range Soviet bomber force able to reach Japan. In turn, the Japanese army produced plans for an invasion of the Soviet Far East and eastern Siberia. The Soviet government saw the challenge it faced in ideological and geopolitical terms. Reports in late 1935 about an Anti-Comintern Pact, which Japan, in fact, was to sign with Germany on 25 November 1936, led Soviet strategists to fear a war on two fronts, as opposed to their previous confidence that they would be able to fight on one front at a time. This fear prefigured their concern in the 1970s and 1980s about conflict with both the USA and China. In January 1936, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the commander of the Red Army (who was to be shot on the night of 12 June 1937), pressed the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the need to confront the danger of simultaneous war with Germany and Japan. Concern about Japanese intentions towards neighbouring Mongolia led the Soviet Union to sign a pact of mutual assistance with Mongolia and to warn Japan against expanding there. Moreover, signing a non-aggression pact with China on 21 August 1937, and supplying Jiang Jieshi with plentiful arms, including 297 planes flown by Soviet pilots, and over 3,000 advisers, were steps taken by Stalin to divert Japan into a new intractable commitment in China. Full-scale war had broken out between Japan and China in July 1937, and Japan captured Beijing, Shanghai and the Chinese capital, Nanjing, that year."

"There can be no doubt that if we had been victorious on the Vistula, the revolutionary fires would have reached the entire continent."

"Many desire it. We are a slack people but deeply destructive. Should there be a revolution, only God knows where it will end. I think that a constitutional regime would mean the end of Russia. We need a despot!"

"I am convinced that all that is needed in order to achieve what I want is bravery and self-confidence. I certainly have enough self-confidence...I told myself that I shall either be a general at thirty, or that I shall not be alive by then."

"An atmosphere of extreme tension reigned during this period; it was necessary to act without mercy. I think that it was justified. If Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Rykov and Zinoviev had started up their opposition in wartime, there would have been an extremely difficult struggle; the number of victims would have been colossal. Colossal. The two sides would have been condemned to disaster. They had links that went right up to Hitler. That far. Trotsky had similar links, without doubt. Hitler was an adventurist, as was Trotsky, they had traits in common. And the rightists, Bukharin and Rykov, had links with them. And, of course, many of the military leaders."

"With the emergence of nuclear-missile weaponry, cybernetics, electronics, and computer equipment, any subjective approach to military problems, hare-brained plans, and superficiality can cause irreparable damage."

"Attention must be given to the study of the given operations. Their study with due allowance made for the existing means of warfare will make it possible to reach a number of useful theoretical conclusions for conducting operations in the initial phase of a war."

"Sedov (Trotsky's son) spoke a lot about the necessity of the maximum, the closest possible connections with Tukhachevsky, inasmuch as, in Trotsky's opinion, Tukhachevsky and the military group were to be the decisive force of the counter-revolutionary action. During the conversation it was also revealed that Trotsky entertained fears regarding Tukhachevsky 's Bonapartist tendencies. In the course of one conversation Sedov said that Trotsky in this respect even expressed the fear that if Tukhachevsky successfully accomplished a military coup, it was possible that he would not allow Trotsky into Moscow. . . . Trotsky therefore proposed that during the coup d'etat we should everywhere place our own people, people who would be faithful to Trotskyism and who could be relied upon as regards vigilance."

"[A]ll the non-Stalinist versions concur in the following: the generals did indeed plan a coup d'état... The main part of the coup was to be a palace revolt in the Kremlin, culminating in the assassination of Stalin. A decisive military operation outside the Kremlin, an assault on the headquarters of the G.P.U., was also prepared. Tukhachevsky was the moving spirit of the conspiracy... He was, indeed, the only man among all the military and civilian leaders of that time who showed in many respects a resemblance to the original Bonaparte and could have played the Russian First Consul. The chief political commissar of the army, Gamarnik, who later committed suicide, was initiated into the plot. General Yakir, the commander of Leningrad, was to secure the co-operation of his garrison. Generals Uberovich, commander of the western military district, Kork, commander of the Military Academy in Moscow, Primakow, Budienny's deputy in the command of the cavalry, and a few other generals were also in the plot."

"Tukhachevsky hid Napoleon's baton in his rucksack."

"By seizing the formerly little-known Height 102.0 – the Mamayev Hill - the Red Army fought its way to the fascists' den – Berlin. We are proud to say that our victory in Stalingrad radically changed the whole situation in the Second World War. And this victory meant that our Motherland had withstood one of the most difficult tests in its history."

"Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south."

"Why I should be in Romania in the name of unknown to me goal. There was a time when I led soldiers to battle, thinking I was doing my duty as a Russian patriot. However, I understood that we have been cheated, that people needed peace. The old army and Soviet Union are not compatible, therefore, my military career had to end. With no remorse, I could go back to my favorite occupation, working in the field."

"I did not decide to become an officer to start a military career. I still wanted to be an agronomist and work in some remote corner of Russia after the war. I could not suppose that my country would change, and I would."

"It was my view that the catastrophe. . . . could have been avoided if Vasilevsky had taken the position he should have. He could have taken a different position. . . . but he didn't do that, and as a result, in my view, he had a hand in the destruction of thousands of Red Army fighters in the Kharkov campaign."

"A man who knew his job as he spent a long time commanding a regiment and who earned great respect from everybody."

"The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik."

"According to one account, his chief of staff reported to him on looting and damage. 'Comrade Marshall,' he said, 'the soldiers are not behaving themselves. They break furniture, mirrors and dishes. What are your instructions in this connection?' Vasilevsky, perhaps the most intelligent and cultivated of all Soviet commanders, was apparently silent for a few moments. 'I don't give a fuck,' he said eventually. 'It is now time for our soldiers to issue their own justice.'"