MOSCOW, January 30. /TASS/. Russian proverb ‘every rooster feels like crowing’ which means the eagerness of absolutely all members of a certain group to air their personal opinions on any occasion is fully applicable to the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, a spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday.
He made the comment in connection with a claim made public by Sergei Galushko, a deputy chief of the Ukrainian ministry’s department for information technologies, who alleged that Russian military units were found the second echelon of the east-Ukrainian self-defence forces.
"It’s barely imaginable that there can be any other military department in the world where public statements are made along the formula ‘every rooster feels like crowing’," said Gen Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman.
He recalled that the Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Viktor Muzhenko, told a briefing for foreign military attaches on Thursday Russian army units were not taking part in combat actions with the southeast of the country.
"If one recalls that Muzhenko personally commands the military operations in southeastern Ukraine, his statement is a legal fact that makes null and void all the bellowing from rostrums in NATO and Western capitals about the Russian military incursion in Ukraine," Gen Konashenkov said.
However, it became clear by nighttime on Thursday that a certain Galushko, Gen Muzhenko’s subordinate, knew the subtleties of strategies and tactics much better than his boss and had more information on the specific situation in southeast Ukraine.
"And it turned out that the Russian troops were entrenched in the second echelon of some kind," Gen Konashenkov said.
"Sergei Galushko didn’t explain what he meant in particular but what’s noteworthy is that this strategist is found in the department of information technologies, of all possible places, not in the military intelligence or even in the operative command of the General Staff, which means he is responsible for installing and maintaining computers at the Defence Ministry," he said.
"Such geniuses of military theory can only be described with a phrase attributed to 19th century fictitious satirist Kozma Prutkov: "It’s always so pleasant to dream of dispositions.".