generalspeaking

The Ignominious Retreat

"Luhansk. We are retreating. Long Convoys of tanks, APCs and (trucks) full of rundown and exhausted soldiers are going past. Black from soot and dusty faces. Dried blood on their bulletproof vests. The men have endured a battle with a battalion of new Russian T-90 tanks."
Yuri Kasyanov, Ukrainian activist: Facebook

"(Separatists have) been provoked by regular Ukrainian forces that encircle large towns and shoot point-blank at residential areas. This is what, unfortunately, in a lot of countries including Europe, they prefer not to notice."
Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Being able to change borders in Europe without consequences, and attacking other countries with troops, is in my view a far greater danger than having to accept certain disadvantages for the economy."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel

"Our military confidently pinned back the bands of Russian mercenaries, destroyed saboteurs and special forces."
"Precisely because of this the Kremlin was forced to turn to a full-scale invasion with regular troops. Today we are dealing with divisions and regiments. Tomorrow it could be whole corps."
"[A] great war [has broken out with Russia, a conflict] the likes of which Europe has not seen since the Second World War."
Valeriy Geletey, Ukraine Defence Minister

Ukrainian forces, so short a time after having good reason to believe they had finally achieved an upper hand in their struggle against the ethnic-Russian Ukrainian rebels, are now demoralized in the realization that they had no option but to retreat in the face of superior Russian military training, weapons and troop strength supporting the once-desperate rebels who called upon the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin to come to their rescue.

With no option left to them after a fierce battle resulting from, as President Petro Poroshenko put it, Moscow's "direct and open aggression", Ukrainian forces retreated from the Luhansk airport which they were so close to retaking from the rebels, but lost again as a result of the assault launched by separatists backed by a Russian army tank column. Russian state television broadcast tanks firing while conflict raged on around the heavily damaged airport building. And the Russian public believes this justified?

Yet another humiliating retreat for the Ukrainian military, with the stealth invasion of regular Russian forces, even while blandly sanctimonious denials are issued by the Russians, at the same time they blast the Ukrainian authorities for endangering the lives of Ukrainian ethnic Russians by their military's response to violent geographic sabotage on Ukrainian soil. According to Vladimir Putin, innocently looking on from the outside, the Ukrainian army is guilty of indiscriminate firing in civilian areas.

Even while Ukraine, Russia and the separatists held their meeting in Minsk, Belarus for ceasefire talks, Vladimir Putin spoke of the meeting as "the beginning of a very important process", where he anticipated that Ukraine was finally prepared to discuss the demands of the separatists. The separatist talk representative, Andrei Purgin, claimed they sought not independence but government autonomy and freedom to use Russian as the official language. Government autonomy, on the other hand can be viewed as independence.

But he was likely speaking to Moscow's unwillingness to push Europe and NATO too hard on the issue with the subterfuge of 'autonomy', not 'independence', though the goal is clearly to be recognized as no longer part of Ukraine, but of the Russian Federation. Avoidance of additional western sanctions is clearly the goal of an already-recession-bound Russia. No doubt slightly prodded by Chancellor Merkel's admission that Germany is prepared for the weight of any economic fallout from new measures taken against Russia.

Even that threat hasn't completely chastened Vladimir Putin who reportedly informed European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that Russian forces had the capability of sweeping directly into Kyiv in short order, if he were to give the order. As it is Russian reinforcements on the side of the rebels have succeeded in overturning all the gains that Ukrainian troops had made in trapping rebels in areas around Luhansk and Donetsk. Now, the situation has been reversed; where the separatists were facing a crushing defeat, it is now the Ukrainian military that has been crushed.

With, for the time being, no end in sight. The rebel forces have taken on an international character, not only the presence of Russians among them, but with with Spaniards, French and Serbians as well. One van was seen in Hrabske carrying rebel fighters, the vehicle draped with a flag of Russia's Republic of Chechnya.  Hrabske was occupied by government troops, and now it has been returned to rebel hands.

Labels: Aggression, Civil War, Conflict, Russia, Secession, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, September 03, 2014