General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who commanded the defense of Kyiv at the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, considers the battle for the village of Moshchun in Kyiv region to be the most critical moment of that campaign. Syrsky said this in an interview with Radio Bayraktar, UNN reports.
There were many of them (critical moments - ed.), but in my opinion, the most critical moment was when there was fighting for Moshchun. It was at night, when the enemy was preparing to cross at least a battalion, because there was a large amount of equipment, five pontoon-bridge crossings across the Irpin River were set up, and the enemy was preparing to cross the river and move to large-scale combat operations in Moshchun. He already had about a few dozen marines and about 15-20 armored personnel carriers on our side, on the right bank of Moshchun. It was probably the most critical moment when the vehicles started moving towards me, I saw it on the monitor, it was a drone footage, and we saw it through the thermal imager, it was around 10 p.m., so it was dark, the vehicles stood out. When the cars started moving, we fired with everything we had: artillery was firing
He noted that the main task then was to destroy the crossings.
These vehicles left, and when the first enemy vehicle turned right and went along the battle lines of armored vehicles towards Gostomel, I did not even believe it was possible, because we were preparing for the worst case scenario,
The Chief of Staff also added that the enemy did not leave through the crossings, as the Ukrainian military managed to destroy two enemy crossings, with three remaining, but the Russians abandoned their intentions.
Then the situation began to improve in the following days and eventually the enemy abandoned their equipment and fled Moshchun,
Recall
Since the beginning of the day, the total number of combat engagements along the entire frontline has increased to 82. The enemy is actively operating in the Pokrovsk sector and is also heavily shelling the positions of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region.