In this new episode of La Loupe, Xavier Yvon paints a portrait of General Valeri Zaloujny with Clément Daniez, and Axel Gyldén, from the World service of L’Express.
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The team: Xavier Yvon (writing and presentation), Mathias Penguilly (editing), Jules Krot (directing)
Credits: YouTube account of Valeri Zaloujny
Music and design: Emmanuel Herschon/Studio Torrent
Image credits: GLEB GARANICH/AFP
Logo: Anne-Laure Chapelain/Benjamin Chazal
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Xavier Yvon : I’m going through the editorial office, I have an appointment at the World service of L’Express, with our journalists Clément Daniez and Axel Gyldén… they’re at the end of this corridor… hello Axel and Clément!
Axel Gylden and Clement Daniez : Hi !
Xavier Yvon : Why didn’t you want us to meet directly at the studio?
Axel Gyldén and Clément Daniez: We’ll go don’t worry, but first we had something to show you in the department’s library… You see it’s there…
Xavier Yvon : And it is full! Here, that’s the shelf where you keep all the staff maps that we often open in La Loupe…
Clement Daniez : Yes, but it’s a book that we wanted you to get out…
You see it’s a big book on the history of war through the centuries… It’s useful to us right now… It’s well done because it lists famous battles and tactics, and their strategists… For example there, the battle of Granique in 334 BC… Did you know that it was on this occasion that Alexander the Great invented the “hammer and anvil” technique to beat the Persian troops of Darius?
Xavier Yvon : Ah no I did not know, what is this tactic?
Axel Gylden : Basically it’s a bypass technique by cavalry, followed by a frontal attack by infantry… You also have a chapter on Caesar’s tricks… Napoleon’s brilliant diversions during the Italian campaign…
Here look at this map, it is the so-called “sickle attack” of Von Manstein, the Nazi strategist who allowed the Germans to bypass the Maginot line and trap the French and British troops in 1940…
Xavier Yvon : Indeed it’s all very interesting, could I borrow it from you?
Clement Daniez : Of course ! There is a chapter which you will not find there for the moment, but which will appear in the next edition, for sure: the one devoted to the battle of Kiev in February-March of last year… the offensive flash of the Russians to take the Ukrainian capital which turned into a fiasco.
Xavier Yvon : And this battle deserves a chapter of its own?
Clement Daniez : Yes, because Putin’s soldiers fell into a trap: the Ukrainians knowingly let them advance towards the capital, to stretch the Russian lines as much as possible… and then attack them from the sides in guerrilla mode with very mobile groups… Surely you remember these images of columns of blocked Russian tanks and trucks, too easy targets… and finally the Russians withdrew from the whole northern part of the country…
Axel Gylden : And the name of the military strategist associated with this battle is that of Valeri Zaluzhny… He is the general who commands all the Ukrainian armed forces… and he is the one who developed this plan and who thus subjected to Putin his most humiliating defeat…
Clement Daniez : Zaloujny is the general who perfectly symbolizes this war: he transformed the Ukrainian army, of Soviet culture, to make it a modern and agile force against the Russian military mass… If Ukraine resists until today Today, it’s thanks to him…
Axel Gylden : In short, he also deserves a good place in this book!
Xavier Yvon : While waiting for this chapter, maybe we can start by making it an episode of La Loupe… will you follow me to the studio?
Axel Gyldén and Clément Daniez: Yes, let’s follow you!
For further
PODCAST. War in Ukraine: will Leopard 2 tanks be a game-changer?
PODCAST. War in Ukraine: can winter work against Russia?
Ukraine: Zalouzhny, the “iron general” behind kyiv’s dazzling counter-offensive
War in Ukraine, a year at the heart of French diplomacy: “Emmanuel, they are in our streets…”
Françoise Thom: “Putin is moving towards total war”