The Ukraine ceasefire is continuing to mostly hold, but Ukrainian officials are claiming an increase in in the death toll in the loss of Debaltseve, with another 14 soldiers killed and 173 others wounded.
Debaltseve was held by the military but surrounded by the rebels at the time the ceasefire started, with firing back and forth leading the military to cede the town to the rebels yesterday.
With that town settled, new shelling has been reported by both sides, with shelling near the rebel capital of Donetsk and also the key port city of Mariupol, which is still under government control.
The EU is sending armored cars to monitor the ceasefire, though the monitoring seems mostly irrelevant. Each side is seeing some violations on the frontier, and whether the truce holds will largely depend on their willingness to look the other way on those violations in favor of the general calm, at least compared to last week.
The separatists still can't control Mariupol?
Now that they can reassign forces that were assigned to the Debaltcevo "cauldron", that situation may change. They've always had the issue with Mariupol that committing forces there would put them in danger of being encircled or cut off from resupply.
It is really not right question. Mariupol is majority ethnic Russian. Vast majority. And area surrounding Mariupol even more so. Azov brigades committed crimes in Mariupol — and the artillery that killed many in the city must have come from them — and blame Russians. Yet, who are the victims? Russian. They can take it, and they can hold it. But it will be now more akin to poking Kiev regime in the eye, rather then having a good military aim. Also, Mariupol has become a sort of Western cause, as if Russia really cares for the land connetion to Crimea. It controls the sea passage from Russia to Crimea, and it is good enough until they build a bridge, gas infrastructure, etc. For the resistance movement by far more important was Debeltsevo. In any future escalation, connection to Kharkov is by far more important — as it is largely Russian, and will have a real impact on equally Russian Dnyepropetrovsk. This is were the detested Kolomoyski has been ensconced as "governor" by junta. I have no special knowledge of situation in those regions, but would be shocked if some form of secret organizing is not taking place, and some plans readied to be realized if time is right. Those two regions are very important for the resistance — and have no doubt that people there are not sitting with their arms crossed.
Thanks for the info.
There were supposed to be about 5,000 Kiev regime troops in Debaltseve. About a battalion escaped from looking at the film supplied by the regime. That leaves about 4,000 unaccounted for. I hope they have been taken prison but the rebels have reported about 3,500 regime dead. Either way, this was a major defeat for the Kiev regime.
As for Mariupol, the Kiev regime seems to have continued an assault it started while the rebels were dealing with the Debaltseve pocket and that is dangerous now that the pocket has been liquidated.
If there were 8000 soldiers in the town, 4000 were withdrawn and 3500 killed, then there must now be 10000 soldiers there. Have I understood this bloggers maths correctly?
Nice try!
Except the challenge, Putin — Go for the gold
With 8,000 troops surrounded and near starvation for weeks, surely their death total for the escape will exceed a thousand. Most regrettable, as the rebels offered to let them walk free if they but left their weapons behind. But their candy king dictator wanted to save face and for the cost of a rifle many had to die.
Again I must congratulate Putin for being about the most astute statesmen on earth, as he engineered this massive blow to Western imperialism. And as the 8,000 troops that were just defeated were a larger force then the rebels would face if they went for a surprise attack on Kiev, the Nation’s capital, Putin may decide that it’s high time he went for the gold.
8000? Seems it was about 800. And they broke out easily when they wanted to, so there was no danger of starving. You really should read Mr Ditz's articles! You're several days out of date!
I think that not going too far has been really the genius of Russia. They could have had the sorry Ukrainian armed forces taken care off in 48 hours (NATO estimate). But it would be a real mistake. Right now, the Chocolate Factory King cannot convince Ukrainians that they need to fight "Russia". And the blatant excess of verbal diarrhea calling the resistance "terrorists" did not help. Russia is reserved and helpful. It is not at all arguing that those regions will secede — quite the contrary, Russia would like to see Ukraine as a normal neighbor. Minsk-2 agreement leads to that end. What has happened is what should have been obvious: Ukraine is really the country with Russian majority, where a large number declared themselves Ukrainian after independence from Soviet Union. Only really small number of people speak "real" Ukrainian, the dialect from the country's west, that was part of Polish-Lithuanian federation. It is a rather beautiful mix of Polish and Russian. But this ferocity with which junta tried to demonize ethnic Russians — created a huge backlash. Many people who for years were quite happy to be Ukrainians, suddenly are being disgusted — and are remembering that they are Russians too If all these newly awakened Russians realize that they were fooled by European dream just so that a minority from Lvov will have their Galician heritage forced at gunpoint on the rest of the country — the awakening of their history and identity may be what is happening right now. Russia did well by remembering that these are all brothers. Now the fools are well supported by equal neocon fools, and they deserve each other — so the process will just have to slowly proceed and take its natural course. If large scale annihilation is planned to scare ethnic Russians into fleeing — Russia will have to act. I see no gains by neocons. World by now knows what is at stake in Ukraine. If no progress is made on Minsk-2 as Kiev will block every effort — there will be another conflict. And it will not be any prettier for the regime. By the way — there are hundreds Ukrainian soldiers that are treated in hospitals in resistance areas — and their number is not clear, as many do not want to go back.
No doubt because the "rebel"-held enclave is looking more and more like a second Kosovo, the German media are talking about an EU police force. That would give Putin a face-saving way of withdrawing his mercenaries if he wanted to take it but given his fondness for Israeli tactics, he probably won't.