ZVEZDA — broadcast
20261105 233000 UTC
356 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
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[00:00:35] Mariupol, early June 2022,
[00:00:38] the city, liberated from Nazi Ukrainian formations,
[00:00:41] is healing its wounds. From the scorching rays
[00:00:45] of the sun, you can only escape in the shade of trees.
[00:00:48] You cannot refresh yourself in the waters of the Taganrog Bay;
[00:00:51] the beaches are fenced off and swimming is prohibited.
[00:00:55] Currently, the entire coastal strip of Mariupol is at the disposal
[00:00:58] of sappers. They are clearing the beaches of mines and unexploded
[00:01:02] ordnance. First, on the shore, sappers search for explosive
[00:01:06] objects with the help of mine detectors
[00:01:09] and probes. Then a floating transporter with
[00:01:12] a cable trawl is launched into the water. The other
[00:01:16] end of the cable is pulled along the shore by a second vehicle. Soon
[00:01:20] an explosion raises a column of water the height of a ten-story
[00:01:23] building. This was one of the anti-landing mines
[00:01:27] that the Ukrainian Armed Forces generously scattered along the entire coastal
[00:01:31] strip even before the start of the special military operation. A grandmother and her
[00:01:34] four-year-old granddaughter were recently blown up by one
[00:01:38] such mine. Ensuring the safety
[00:01:41] of the civilian population in the liberated territories is the most important
[00:01:45] task of military engineers.
[00:02:19] After the enemy retreated, sappers carry out a complete clearance
[00:02:23] of the area from
[00:02:26] explosive objects. Their task is
[00:03:00] to mine, so additional forces must be brought in, these are the forces of
[00:03:03] the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the Rosgvardiya, plus
[00:03:06] these civilian organizations that are now widely
[00:03:09] used.
[00:03:12] Outside settlements, terrain clearance is often carried out with
[00:03:15] the use of demining machines
[00:03:18] and robotic systems. This
[00:03:21] significantly increases the speed of work.
[00:03:24] Explosive objects, mines, and ammunition are destroyed
[00:03:27] on the spot using demolition charges.
[00:03:32] In settlements, sappers search with the help of
[00:03:35] mine detectors, but they cannot be used everywhere.
[00:03:38] In industrial buildings, cluttered with metal objects, and in
[00:03:42] buildings, they are ineffective. Here,
[00:03:45] a mine-detection dog,
[00:03:48] a probe, and the sapper's experience and intuition come to the rescue. If
[00:03:52] an important object or residential buildings are near
[00:03:56] the discovered ammunition, it is transported to a training ground and detonated there.
[00:04:01] When this is impossible, it is destroyed on the spot, after ensuring
[00:04:05] safety.
[00:04:09] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited huge stockpiles
[00:04:13] of military equipment and ammunition, including
[00:04:16] millions of mines of various types. The Ukrainian Armed Forces
[00:04:19] also receive engineering ammunition manufactured by NATO
[00:04:22] countries. Some samples of these weapons were
[00:04:26] presented at the exhibition of captured equipment in Moscow on Poklonnaya Hill.
[00:04:30] Engineering ammunition that is used
[00:04:33] by the opposing side during the special military
[00:04:36] operation is presented in a very wide range, both
[00:04:40] in terms of manufacturing countries and direct types
[00:04:43] of ammunition. Despite the diversity
[00:04:46] of foreign mines, they did not come as a surprise to
[00:04:49] our sappers, but some of their specimens
[00:04:53] can conceal a great danger.
[00:04:56] DM-31 is an anti-tank anti-bottom magnetic mine
[00:05:00] of cumulative action with a charge mass of 3.9
[00:05:03] kg. After its service life, the mine
[00:05:07] turns off, signaling this by ejecting a bright red
[00:05:10] cylinder on a spring. Such ammunition can be safely
[00:05:14] removed, but the enemy
[00:05:18] is cunning, smart, he modifies
[00:05:21] ammunition so that the mine throws out a flag, signaling
[00:05:25] that it is in a safe state, but in fact the detonator
[00:05:28] continues to work.
[00:05:31] It is forbidden to touch drones lying on the ground
[00:05:35] massively used by the enemy without sapper inspection,
[00:05:39] a detonator may be installed on them that triggers by...
[00:06:13] Among the engineering ammunition used by Ukrainian
[00:06:16] formations, many mines prohibited by various
[00:06:19] international protocols and conventions are supplied
[00:06:23] to the Kyiv regime by Western countries, but
[00:06:26] the greatest danger is posed by various improvised
[00:06:30] explosive devices. Any
[00:06:32] standard mine has been studied by us in
[00:06:36] exercises, at training grounds, it is simple for us to
[00:06:40] demine, but... an improvised explosive
[00:06:43] device, a sapper places it with his
[00:06:46] cockroaches, thoughts in his head, and
[00:06:49] it is quite difficult to demine it, and we decide
[00:06:53] on the spot how to do it.
[00:06:55] Retreating nationalists leave all sorts of surprises,
[00:06:59] explosive devices, and booby traps. Radios, household
[00:07:03] items, equipment were mined, it even
[00:07:06] came to the point that
[00:07:10] charges of substances were placed
[00:07:12] under the bodies of killed soldiers. It is especially
[00:07:15] outrageous that they mined children's
[00:07:19] items. Russian sappers have already encountered
[00:07:23] similar explosive objects in Syria, where they were installed
[00:07:27] by militants of various anti-government radical
[00:07:30] groups. In Ukraine, nationalists use their
[00:07:33] experience with cynicism, even surpassing their
[00:07:36] teachers. In explosive devices, the enemy often
[00:07:39] uses a very insidious detonator, the Johnny. The
[00:07:43] board includes a magnetometric sensor,
[00:07:46] an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. This
[00:07:49] indicates that when the sensor is displaced by
[00:07:53] a certain angle and moved in space, the sensor generates
[00:07:57] an impulse to detonate the electric. The
[00:07:59] device with a Johnny should not be approached with metallic
[00:08:02] objects, this will lead to an explosion. In response,
[00:08:06] Russian military engineers created their own detonator. We went
[00:08:10] further, we already have it based on other principles.
[00:09:12] The Abrams advanced, but not for long. It was immobilized by a Russian TM-62 mine.
[00:09:17] The TM-62 mine,
[00:09:21] it was adopted in sixty-two,
[00:09:23] it absolutely doesn't care who drives over it, whether it's a Leopard,
[00:09:26] a Bradley, or an Abrams.
[00:09:29] You can strengthen the protection of the turret,
[00:09:33] the hull, but you can't strengthen the tracks,
[00:09:36] so it takes them off,
[00:09:39] knocks out the road wheels, and simply blows up a Bradley.
[00:09:43] A rocket from an anti-tank system
[00:09:45] hit the repaired tank almost immediately.
[00:09:49] The Abrams was finished off by kamikaze drones.
[00:09:52] An engineering demining vehicle was sent
[00:09:54] to evacuate the tank, but it was not destined to save
[00:09:57] the assembled. First, Russian paratroopers attacked
[00:10:00] the vehicle with FPV drones. The crew lost
[00:10:03] its navigation cameras. Moving blindly, it then
[00:10:07] ran into a mine. Russian engineers
[00:10:11] studied the captured vehicle. The main
[00:10:15] purpose of the M1150 Breacher is to clear paths through minefields.
[00:10:18] For this, it is equipped with a continuous knife mine
[00:10:22] trawl. from the factory
[00:12:12] it is immediately equipped with suppression systems,
[00:12:15] that is, systems for combating radio-controlled means such
[00:12:18] as the Lesochek, which makes
[00:12:22] it more difficult to hit with a drone. The detonation
[00:12:26] of mines with a magnetic detonator even before the engineering vehicle approaches them is initiated by
[00:12:29] an electromagnetic attachment. Cutters
[00:12:32] and rooters on the trawls cut the wired control
[00:12:35] lines of the
[00:12:37] ammunition. For the premature detonation
[00:12:41] of anti-side ammunition with thermal and acoustic
[00:12:44] sensors, another device is responsible. It
[00:12:48] uses the principle of aviation thermal traps.
[00:12:51] Pyrotechnic acoustic cartridges with high combustion temperature
[00:12:55] are fired in front of the moving vehicle, they also
[00:12:58] emit sound pressure
[00:13:02] in a certain range, infrared sound
[00:13:04] sensors react to temperature and sounds and the mine
[00:13:08] detonates far before the BMR passes.
[00:13:11] The crew of the vehicle consists of two people, three more sappers
[00:13:14] can be accommodated in the troop compartment. The soldiers
[00:13:18] in the BMR, if necessary, can stay on board
[00:13:21] the Vepr for several days.
[00:13:25] A toilet, air conditioning and ventilation systems, a supply
[00:13:28] of food and water, a device for heating food allow
[00:13:32] the crew to live autonomously in the vehicle for up to five
[00:13:34] days.
[00:13:36] For self-defense, the vehicle is equipped with a heavy machine gun
[00:13:40] and smoke grenade launchers. The designers
[00:13:43] paid special attention to the anti-mine protection
[00:13:46] of the crew, sappers, and internal components
[00:13:49] of the vehicle.
[00:13:53] The hull of the T90 tank.
[00:14:56] The main working body of the machine is a trawler. It
[00:15:00] destroys or activates mine detonators. The complex
[00:15:04] was used in the Donetsk People's Republic after the liberation of the city
[00:15:07] of Avdeevka. There, in particular, it carried out the demining of anti-tank minefields,
[00:15:11] proving itself to be effective. For the demining of anti-personnel minefields
[00:15:14] in the liberated territories, military
[00:15:17] engineers use the Uran-6 robotic
[00:15:20] complex. It has already been used in the North Caucasus
[00:15:23] and in Syria.
[00:15:25] At the beginning of the SVO, to overcome
[00:15:28] minefields with armored vehicles, UR-77
[00:15:31] demining systems were used. They
[00:15:33] cleared a passage 6 wide
[00:15:37] and 100 m long, but now the depth of anti-tank
[00:15:41] mine barriers can be more than 300
[00:15:44] m. Making a passage is
[00:15:48] ineffective because if we make
[00:15:52] a 100-meter passage, it won't do anything because they still won't let such a vehicle
[00:15:56] near. There's a hunt for the UR-77,
[00:15:59] it's effective. If they see it, they try, they don't
[00:16:03] spare shells, they try to destroy it.
[00:16:38] We carried out
[00:16:39] the fire,
[00:16:44] the task was completed, we immediately started to drive away
[00:16:47] from there. As soon as we left the firing point,
[00:16:51] the Ukrainian forces fired a cluster
[00:16:54] munition right at that square, at the point from where we
[00:16:57] fired at them. After driving 100 m from the firing point, they
[00:17:01] started shelling us with mortars.
[00:17:05] The first shell fell.
[00:17:38] without losses of personnel, without losses
[00:17:41] of armored vehicles. We completed the task, the enemy's
[00:17:45] stronghold was destroyed, the advance of our troops was
[00:17:48] opened. The driver-mechanic of the Ur-77 with
[00:17:52] the call sign Tsygan, has several destroyed enemy
[00:17:55] fortifications.
[00:17:58] The new application area of the installations proved their effectiveness.
[00:18:01] Crews of such vehicles help save tens and hundreds
[00:18:05] of lives of assault troops advancing on the breakthrough.
[00:18:37] knowing that it is the first target for the
[00:18:41] enemy, they still solve
[00:18:43] the tasks.
[00:18:46] The crews of the Ur-77 and the crews of the Ur-83
[00:18:49] were jokingly called urologists by their colleagues, they
[00:18:53] successfully treat the enemy, though not with medical, but
[00:18:57] with their purely engineering
[00:18:58] methods.
[00:19:37] To share accumulated experience and select the most successful product samples for
[00:19:41] industrial production, special training camps are held
[00:19:45] in the engineering troops. They take place at the 187th
[00:19:48] training center for engineering troops. At these
[00:19:51] training camps, each head of engineering units, with their
[00:19:54] teams, showed what they use today
[00:19:58] in their areas, in their groups, from
[00:20:02] existing standard engineering weapons, and from
[00:20:06] what our Kulibins
[00:20:08] have made today. Stands displayed means of detonation,
[00:20:12] unmanned aerial vehicles, ground
[00:20:15] robotic platforms, imitation means, and much
[00:20:19] more. On the sites, the capabilities of
[00:20:22] the equipment were demonstrated, since all the weapons samples demonstrated at the training camps
[00:20:25] are often made from improvised materials
[00:20:29] by volunteers, and the servicemen themselves, they
[00:20:33] have a good indicator in terms of price-quality criteria. This is
[00:20:36] an engineer. The mortar allows the installation of
[00:20:40] anti-personnel fragmentation mines at
[00:20:42] distances from 100 m to 1300
[00:20:46] m, fragmentation mines are installed with
[00:21:20] they stopped, they developed a robotic
[00:21:23] mining installation. Based on this mortar, we
[00:21:27] also developed a mining system. It mines
[00:21:30] in a salvo,
[00:21:33] in one salvo it installs 10 mines, two of which
[00:21:36] are smoke, and here we have more variations for
[00:21:40] ammunition, here besides the usual expulsion charge, we
[00:21:43] also have two reactive options, that is,
[00:21:47] an active reactive charge.
[00:21:50] from PG-7 and from PG-9, here the mining range
[00:21:53] is up to 2,800
[00:21:56] m. After using the expulsion and
[00:21:59] reactive charges, the grenades themselves remain in the mining system,
[00:22:02] but for a good owner, even a rusty nail will come in handy,
[00:22:06] especially a cumulative grenade, and engineers, as is well known,
[00:22:09] are resourceful people. The warhead went to the FPV drone, which means
[00:22:13] waste-free production. Well, and they also made not only cumulative
[00:22:17] ammunition, but also
[00:22:20] cumulative-fragmentation, that is, to defeat both equipment and personnel
[00:22:24] nearby. Sappers of the volunteer corps also use
[00:22:27] unusual means of combat against the enemy.
[00:22:31] They combined the latest UAV technology and one of the most
[00:22:35] ancient anti-cavalry obstacles, spikes,
[00:22:38] known in Russia as "garlic." To combat the enemy's wheeled
[00:22:41] vehicles, we actively use spikes,
[00:22:45] we scatter them using UAVs, using these
[00:22:48] cassettes. This option.
[00:24:20] is very dangerous, and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, sapper,
[00:24:23] reserve colonel Vitaly Kondratov knows this firsthand.
[00:24:27] The infantry follows us hidden behind armor,
[00:24:30] infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and so on, the sapper on the road is completely
[00:24:33] exposed, he only has a bulletproof vest, and he is the number one target
[00:24:37] in this regard, so they are inconspicuous and they
[00:24:41] perform a huge responsible job, risking themselves
[00:24:44] to save the lives of others. Unfortunately, the special
[00:24:48] military operation, the engineering troops.
[00:24:50] did not go without losses, sappers are always at the forefront of the attack,
[00:24:54] this is of course a very painful topic for us, but it
[00:24:57] should not be forgotten under any circumstances, it must remain in memory, I think
[00:25:01] it will remain forever, I always say, I have two
[00:25:05] families, my native family is my wife and children, and
[00:25:08] my second family is my
[00:25:11] regiment,
[00:25:14] and when you lose your comrade-in-arms,
[00:25:18] not just a comrade-in-arms, a member
[00:25:20] of your family,
[00:25:23] this cannot be compensated
[00:25:26] by anything, the most painful thing that can happen
[00:25:30] is the loss of your subordinates, who
[00:25:33] honorably and with dignity perform
[00:25:36] tasks, and after that, when you are
[00:25:39] reported to, well, sometimes you want to cry, because
[00:25:43] well, these are our children, these are our sons, when a person
[00:25:47] you knew well dies and you knew
[00:25:50] life, human life is, of course, priceless, behind him is a whole
[00:25:54] world, each of your subordinates, especially when he has gone
[00:25:57] through this whole path with you, at some
[00:26:01] point you lose. Of course, this is very
[00:26:04] strongly
[00:26:08] motivates, I would even say.
[00:26:09] скажу.
[00:26:13] Despite the losses during the supply of troops, sappers
[00:26:16] show mass heroism and courage. For this, the twenty-eighth
[00:26:20] pontoon-bridge brigade, the thirty-second and
[00:26:23] fortieth engineer-sapper regiments were awarded
[00:26:26] the honorary titles of Guards. The first
[00:26:30] Guards Engineer-Sapper Brigade in...
[00:27:32] they go into this purposefully, well, that
[00:27:36] is worth a lot. Fear is inherent
[00:27:39] in everyone, normal, adequate
[00:27:43] person. This is
[00:27:46] a natural instinct, an instinct of self-preservation,
[00:27:49] but all our
[00:27:52] state awards, orders, and medals are called the Order
[00:27:55] of Courage, the Medal for Valour, now the Medal for
[00:27:59] Bravery. A person is strong
[00:28:03] who can be above this, above
[00:28:05] fear. The fear of a sapper, like any soldier, is normal, but
[00:28:09] fear is different, there is fear that suppresses the actions
[00:28:13] of a sapper. He bends over a mine, his hands
[00:28:16] shake, his teeth chatter, he is simply afraid, and he can blow up
[00:28:20] himself and his comrades, and there is
[00:28:23] fear that gathers a person, sharpens all
[00:28:26] his senses, this is our nature, here, well, a brave
[00:28:30] person simply overcomes fear, he still
[00:28:33] does
[00:28:40] what he has to do, completes the task, and everyone is scared, but sometimes something else helps to complete the task, even, it would seem, in the most hopeless situations,
[00:28:44] you can call it fate, destiny, the help
[00:28:47] of a guardian angel, or even something more? I
[00:28:51] believe, of course, there is a guardian angel in the
[00:28:55] engineering troops for every serviceman, who
[00:28:58] protects them and creates conditions for them to...
[00:29:02] perform some tasks, someone is watching
[00:29:05] from above, maybe relatives, loved ones who are no longer with us,
[00:29:08] maybe some kind of
[00:29:11] guardian angel, who was simply given to me by a miracle,
[00:29:15] uh, protects
[00:29:18] me in every way, the head of the armed forces came very often, we had such a case,
[00:29:21] we changed location by 150 m, we moved a little to the side,
[00:29:25] where we were standing, three artillery shells flew in, so it was like
[00:29:29] we looked at each other. two minutes later
[00:29:33] there was a ferry crossing and a missile
[00:29:35] danger, I give the command to move the ferry away from the shore, as soon as
[00:29:39] the ferry moves away, two missiles fly into
[00:29:43] the place where it was standing, the driver drove up to us,
[00:29:47] got out of the car, and an FPV drone hit that car, everyone
[00:29:50] was unharmed, not even a scratch,
[00:29:53] everything is fine, such moments, well,
[00:29:57] you think, what could it be, well,
[00:30:01] only a guardian angel? What do miracles say, that the war is
[00:30:04] righteous, that the Lord himself protects it, that the Mother of God
[00:30:08] helps, there are countless such miracles, in fact, every unit
[00:30:11] knows them. The overwhelming majority of participants
[00:30:15] in the special operation, when asked about faith in God, answer with the well-known
[00:30:19] aphorism. There are no atheists
[00:30:21] in the trenches. In difficult times, faith supports
[00:30:24] everyone. Motor riflemen and paratroopers, tankers and
[00:30:28] artillerymen, signalmen and sappers, from soldier
[00:30:31] to general. And it doesn't matter what his religion is,
[00:30:34] Orthodox or Muslim, Catholic or
[00:30:37] Buddhist, all of them are united by a common
[00:30:41] goal: I respect any faith, God is
[00:30:44] different, we are all the same, in essence, we are all
[00:30:48] brothers, especially here in the SVO,
[00:30:51] what is a military collective, a military
[00:30:54] collective,
[00:30:55] this is...