Filenews 4 March 2022
By Sebastien Roblin
The Ukrainian army's East Operational Group published on its Facebook page plans to invade Ukraine that it is said to have seized from Russia's 810 Marine Brigade.
The documents, which bear a stamp dated January 18, 2022, specify call signs and radio frequencies for military operations during the period 20 February - 6 March, and include maps detailing the plan to seize Melitopolis. The landing ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet did indeed sail from the port on 20 February, but the combat operations began on 24 February.
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Melitopolis, with a population of about 150,000, was captured in a short time by Russian troops advancing from the Crimean peninsula, making any amphibious landing operation unnecessary. However, fighting continues in the city, and residents actively resist the Russian occupation.
The East Operational Group of the Ukrainian army states in its post:
"Thanks to the successful actions of a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Russian occupiers lose not only their equipment and manpower, but in their panic they leave behind secret documents.
On the first page of the seized documents, the Command of the Mortar Artillery of the 1st Tactical Battalion of the 810 Marine Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet is mentioned as the addressee. This is an extraordinary formation on the ground comprising companies from a combat battalion with additional means of fire support.
A note in black ink indicates that the documents were approved on January 18, 2022, although the stamp is too dim in the image to be verified.
Source: Ukrainian army
Another document, however, bears a note dated January 26, 2022 in the middle of the page to the right side.
The next page defines call insignia and radio frequencies for communication between command staffs as well as company and platoon subunits of the battalion for the period 20 February - 6 March. These would be changed daily to prevent enemies from accessing signal information.
Source: Ukrainian army
Of course, the daily change of call badges for a period of two weeks does not necessarily confirm that, when the documents were sealed, military operations had already been planned for the same period of time. Nor does the final date of 6 March necessarily mean that any military operations would be completed by then - it may simply be the planning to be implemented at the time in question.
However, a map of Melitopolis attached to the documents seems less ambiguous. Regular symbols indicating the deployment of military forces and amphibious landing operations are listed on the map.
Source: Ukrainian army
Elena Roshchina of Ukrainian Pravda points out that the tactical symbols indicate that the battalion was to disembark from the Alligator Orsk class tank landing ship near the village of Stepanovka-1 and join the 177 Marine Regiment, a unit normally owned by the Russian Caspian Fleet, which was moved to the Black Sea a month or more - before the start of the war.
Both the regular symbols and the text seem to refer to "Air Assault" or "Assault Companies". This could suggest that the 1st Battalion Tactical Group (an adhoc field unit) is built around the 542nd Naval Infantry Attack Battalion of the 810th Brigade. Unlike the brigade's other two infantry battalions, the 542nd relies on helicopters rather than amphibious armoured vehicles to deploy soldiers.
The authenticity of documents made public on Facebook cannot be confirmed. Supposedly, they could have been fabricated by Ukrainians to bolster their argument that Vladimir Putin was systematically lying when he said he did not intend to invade Ukraine.
However, the documents contain mostly trite details and do not look like the "solid" proof that one would construct - forging documents - to blame Putin. After all, the proof that Putin was lying about his intentions is the bombings themselves.
On the other hand, if the documents were "planted" by the Russians to mislead, as some argue, we do not see how they helped in the operation to capture Melitopolis, in the early days of the war in Ukraine.
Therefore, although the version of forgery cannot be rejected, it is quite possible that the seized Russian documents are exactly what they look like.
In this case, they reinforce the assessments of analysts who monitored Russia's military deployment and have been saying - for a long time - that the plan for the Russian invasion of Ukraine had been devised - at least as a possibility - months before its implementation and that Putin's angry assurances to world leaders - including Biden and Macron - that he was not thinking of attacking his neighbour, it was nothing but a shameless lie.
Source: Forbes
