Military Leaders From Russia

"I hate equality. It is the lie of the prophets. No people is equal to another. No man is equal to another. I love the exceptional precisely because they are the exception."

"My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is the truth and what is false, what is history and what myth."

"They cannot understand as yet that we are not fighting a political party but a sect of murderers of all contemporary spiritual culture."

"I hold it as a principle that in Asia the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict upon the enemy. The harder you hit them the longer they will be quiet afterwards. My system is this: To strike hard, and keep on hitting till resistance is completely over; then at once to form ranks, cease slaughter, and be kind and humane to the prostrate enemy."

"I place my trust in the impenetrable spaces, impassable mud, and the mercy of Saint Nicholas Mirlikisky, Protector of Holy Russia."

"The Russian past offers many lessons for the present and not just those the current powers that be want people to draw. Among those unlearned lessons, Sergey Lozenko of Sovershenno Sekretno says, is one that comes from the disasters that followed from Aleksandr Kolchak’s failure to take the nationality question seriously. In a 2,000-word article entitled “Kolchak’s Nationality Question,” the historian says [that] the leaders of the White Movement [had] routinely underestimated the importance of ethnic issues and believed that any problems in that area could be solved by force alone. The result was disaster (sovsekretno.ru/articles/istoriya/natsionalnyy-vopros-kolchaka100624/)."

"I joined the armed forces 25 years ago and still love military service and want to carry on. But these are troubled times, when everything is so confused you can't tell military issues from political ones. So I do not rule out the possibility that I might be forced to it out of necessity. But I don't really want to. If I get carried away in this direction sometimes, it is only out of gloom and desperation, not because I have some overwhelming desire to prove my political mettle."

"Only in the constitutional way. I've had more than my share of war and have come to the conclusion that it doesn't resolve anything. Even the longest wars, lasting a hundred years, still end in peace talks. So why not talk right away and cut out the military fighting stage? There can't be a victor in the kinds of war they are waging now in the former Soviet Union, only throngs of defeated."

"We have received reliable information from the ground in Chechnya that people there are planning the physical annihilation of Gen. Aleksandr Lebed. These are people who do not want the negotiating process in Chechnya to proceed. We do not believe that it is necessarily the Chechens who plan this action. It is not the first time there have been threats like this. It will have no effect on the work before us."

"If Russia and NATO cooperate, who are they going to be against? There used to be two systems, two military blocs. One system collapsed. Its military bloc collapsed. And the other part remains in perfect operating order. That beautiful NATO bloc was first aimed at the Soviet Union, and it would be a pity to abandon it. So, now it is re-aimed at Russia."

"They charged like a bull at the Chechen fence and got their horns stuck. Now they are going crazy out of their own incompetence."

"To win, you've got to plan carefully and then make war with the speed of lightning."

"No commander can know everything. He must rely on deputies, competent in the narrow areas assigned them. His responsibility is to make sure none of them tugs the blanket to one side of the bed. A deputy who answers 'yes, sir' to every stupid thing his commander says can get his boss into serious trouble. He must have the courage to take a stand and be able to defend it."

"In a normal civilized society, you would have to force the army into politics with a stick. They should not be concerned with who is in power today, be it Czar, General Secretary or President. Presidents come and go, but the motherland always remains. We are not in a normal state."

"I never defended the White House. I defended common sense. They tried to push me, a Russian general, to shoot my own people in the capital of my own state. No such force exists that would compel me to do this. I'm not a policeman. My job is to deal with external enemies. Build up a national guard or whatever you want to deal with domestic problems, but leave the armed forces out of it!"

"I am ready to lead any regiment into any battle. Just as long as it is a regiment drawn only of children and grandchildren of the people who run our country."

""We are still a great power. We have rockets. They are rusty, but we still have them. It won't make anyone's life easier if a missile is launched, even if it's a rusty one."

"If they want to expand, let them waste the money. Let us be realistic. Who is Russia going to fight now? We are a poor country. We have nothing left to fight with."

"We are standing on one-sixth of the world, a rich country, with our pants down and hoping someone will help us."

"Human beings are not trash. Human blood is not water to be spilled."

"Let us have troops that would scare any aggressor off. These troops should be backed by the nuclear shield."

"You send in the planes to drop the bombs. Then you gather the journalists and tell them to applaud. We need to study that."

"Russia must be loved, not because you want to. Russia is like gangrene on the leg. If you don't take measures against it, it will infect the whole leg."

"Power must be strong. Patriot will never be a dirty word, whereas democrat has already become one."

"It is up to the state to do it, but there has been nothing but talk and wishful thinking. It's like the tale of the emperor's new clothes. Everyone acted as if the emperor were dressed, until a small boy said he was naked. This is where we stand with reform."

"Chechnya will force the politicians to start serious reform. They can begin by purging the armed forces of windbags and replacing them with a million fighters and half a million support staff."

"We must ask ourselves, does the superiority of the Russian Federation’s armed forces in aviation and heavy weapons guarantee victory over an enemy, for whom our offensive plans are obvious, which is prepared for defense and has high morale? My answer is NO — there is no guarantee."

"Without at least a partial mobilization in the Russian Federation, it will be impossible and highly dangerous to launch a deep strategic offensive against the so-called ‘Ukraine.’ We must prepare for a long and difficult war."

"Putin and his circle have recently embarked on a path that I believe will inevitably lead to a collapse of the system. We don’t know how yet, we don’t know when yet, but we’re sure it will collapse, and sooner rather than later."

"For them, I’m an uncomfortable figure. They don’t know what to do with me: am I a hero or a terrorist? They can’t arrest me and put me in jail because that would be considered an admission to the West. To honor me Neither can they, so I’m caught between the chairs."

"I have always believed that Russian blood should be shed exclusively for Russia, for the interests of the Russian people, and not for the selfish deeds of Russian oligarchs and political adventurers. Therefore, my attitude towards Prigozhin is purely negative."

"Once the indictment is pronounced, I have no place on Earth where I would be recognized as a law-abiding citizen. In the West, I have already been recognized as a terrorist after the verdict of the Hague Tribunal. And in my homeland, apparently, a dubious reputation as an extremist awaits me."

"To my regret, I have to say that my most pessimistic predictions that we will be dragged into a bloody, long, draining and highly dangerous mess for the Russian Federation have come true."

"The war has passed the 21st month, there is no end in sight."

"He's never seen a tank except in a parade, what's wrong with his head? He's really acting not even like an old man, but like a child."

"Our commander in chief is not going to win this war at all."

"For 23 years, the country was led by a lowlife who managed to ‘blow dust in the eyes’ of a significant part of the population. Now he is the last island of legitimacy and stability of the state. But the country will not be able to withstand another six years of this cowardly bum in power."

"I was the one who pulled the trigger of this war."

"The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia. We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time."

"If our unit hadn't crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out."

"29 days of the special operation have passed. No strategic success has been achieved in any direction."

"There were no policemen who supported our side at that time. The only law-enforcement subdivision that has joined our ranks back then was the Berkut. The rest of the law-enforcement agencies remained under control of Ukrainian Ministry of Internal, and kept carrying out the MIA’s orders. Yes, sometimes they were sabotaging these orders, but all in all they were under Ukrainian control. I haven’t seen any support from official governmental representatives in Simferopol. Our troops had to force the deputies into the Oblast Council hall so that these representatives would vote in favor of our initiatives. I know this because I have been at the time commandeering one of such militant teams and I’ve seen it all from the inside. We had absolutely no support from the people, not to mention the army. The Ukrainian army units remained loyal to Kyiv as they were. Furthermore, most of the army remained that way. The only thing that made what we have accomplished in Crimea possible was the presence of Russian army."

"Ukrainian military men said to me why are you sitting like cowards, go out into the field, don’t hide behind civilians. Well sorry! Go out into the field to be killed? I’m not Don Quixote, after all!"

"I am not afraid to say that we are moving toward military defeat."

"There would have been several dozen killed, burned, detained. And that would have been the end of it. But the flywheel of the war, which is continuing to this day, was spun by our unit. We mixed up all the cards on the table."

"Whatever victories our army achieves in this war, we are going to lose it with this kind of approach of the country's leadership."

"The majority of mobilized (and most of the regular) servicemen of the RF Armed Forces have no motivation to sacrifice in the conduct of hostilities against the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since the goals of the war are not only not explained by the authorities, but are not even officially defined at all. At the same time, the disciplinary measures that are at the disposal of the command of the RF Armed Forces “according to the laws of peacetime” are not enough to make military personnel fear them more than death and injury from enemy fire."

"I consider myself more competent in military affairs than the current president, and certainly than the current minister of defense, therefore I could fulfill the duties of the supreme commander in chief as required by the Constitution of the Russian Federation."

"If our forces advance at the speed of a limping invalid this could take a long time."

"When [Russian troops] weakened in heavy fights and bloody assaults reach the borders of [Donbas], they will be met by fresh and well-equipped [Ukrainian] units at frontiers prepared for defence in advance."