yiv, March 21, 2017 Most intense hostilities take place at Krymske, Novoaydar district and in Avdiivka and its outskirts – Defense Ministry

Kyiv, March 21, 2017.

Overall, the number of ceasefire violations ranged between 50 on Sunday, March 19, and 112 on Friday, March 17.

The situation on the frontline did not change significantly. “Most active hostilities, during the previous week, took place at Krymske, Novoaydar district, in Avdiivka and its outskirts and in the south of the Mariupol sector”, stated Vilyen Pidgornyy, Ministry of Defense spokesperson during a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. The share of enemy indirect fire episodes last week remained unchanged in comparison with the preceding week and amounted to 44%. In contrast, incidents of enemy sniper fire decreased in actual numbers and reached 12, comparing to 22 over the foregoing week.

Luhansk sector

Last week Russia-backed militants engaged Ukrainian Armed Forces in the sector with mortars and cannon artillery. The enemy remains consistent while choosing their target areas week after week: Krymske, Popasna area and Troitske regularly came under enemy fire of low and medium intensity. “However, on March 16 there was an unexpected development in Lobacheve. At 20:30 pro-Russia proxies opened fire with 82 mm mortars that resulted in casualties on the part of Ukrainian defenders. That day, militants treacherously used 122 mm artillery during nighttime against Troitske and Novozvanivka. The same day, the enemy fire wounded a teenager in Valuiske village of Stanytsia Luhanska district”, Mr. Pidgornyy said. On March 13, Russia-equipped militants used mortars  at Krymske three times, having fired more than 210 rounds. On March 14, the enemy has paused mortar attacks in the daytime just so that their sniper groups could advance to the front line and open direct fire against Novozvanivka, Novooleksandrivka and Zhovte. On March 18, Krymske was attacked with heavy weapons five times. Enemy artillery crews fired more than 150 mortar bombs and rounds of different caliber during one artillery and four mortar attacks. Additionally, the enemy opened tank fire. Last week, the daily number of cease-fire violations by the enemy in the sector ranged between 12 (on March 16) and 25 (on March 18).

Donetsk sector

Positions of Ukrainian Armed Forces in this sector were targeted with most intense enemy fire. Russia-backed militants opened short but multiple mortar and artillery fire along the whole front line, being most active in Avdiivka area. The militants engaged Ukrainian positions day and night. In the evening of March 15, the enemy artillery crews opened a severe artillery fire at our rear positions in Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, having fired nearly 80 rounds over an hour and a half. Similar to the previous week the enemy opened tank fire in Avdiivka and adjacent areas and used infantry fighting vehicles in Luhanske, Verhniotoretske and Zaitseve. Last week, the daily fire activity of the enemy ranged between 31 (on March 18) and 52 cease-fire violations (on March 17).

Mariupol sector 

Traditionally, the majority of cease-fire violations took place in the Pavlopil – Shyrokyne area of the front line. However, last week the militants several times used heavy weapons in the northern part of the sector, namely in Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Berezove and Novotroitske. In the morning of March 13, the enemy sniper groups advanced to the front line. In the afternoon, the enemy artillery crews opened indirect fire at Pavlopil. In the early morning of March 14, enemy tank engaged our positions in Maryinka and fired nearly 20 shells in ten minutes. On March 16, the enemy launched a two-hour-long combined attack on Novotroitske, having fired the total of 50 artillery rounds and mortar bombs. “March 17 was marked by the highest intensity of enemy fire.  The enemy artillery opened fire at Krasnohorivka, Maryinka, Hnutove, Vodiane, Lebedynske and Shyrokyne. On March 18, Russia-trained militants used artillery at Vodiane having fired nearly 50 rounds”, added Mr Vilyen Pidgornyy. Last week, the number of cease-fire violations by the enemy ranged between 29 (on March 18) and 46 (on March 17).

According to Mr. Pidgornyy, compared with the foregoing week, the intensity of UAVs use by the militants decreased from almost three a day to the total of 9 episodes of hostile drones flights during the whole last week in the ATO area. The enemy conducted aerial reconnaissance both in the tactical rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and at the very front line near Avdiivka, at Svitlodarsk and Krymske village.

Russia delivered fuel to the occupied territories of Ukraine in 24 railroad tank cars. On Saturday, March 18, eight trucks carrying ammunition for militants crossed the Ukrainian-Russian border near Dmytrivka village, Donetsk region. Besides, on Thursday, March 16, the sixty-second so-called “humanitarian convoy” from Russia delivered unidentified cargo for the needs of militants through Izvaryne and Uspenka checkpoints that are not controlled by the Ukrainian government. Ukrainian military intelligence confirmed the “convoy” consisted of 40 trucks carrying over 500 tons of cargo.  

Casualties

Last week, 7 Ukrainian servicemen were killed in action. Forty soldiers were wounded in action, including  the National Guard of Ukraine officer.

Five civilians were wounded in enemy shellings in the conflict area last week. “This includes one teenager in Valuiske, Luhansk sector, a woman in Luhanske, two women and a man in Avdiivka, Donetsk sector. One of the wounded women in Avdiivka was a volunteer. All wounded civilians received medical assistance in a timely manner”, MOD spokesperson stated.

Damage to civilian infrastructure

Twenty-nine residential buildings were damaged in the indirect fire conducted by the Russian proxies in the Donetsk and Mariupol sectors. Most of them are in Avdiivka. Three non-residential buildings were damaged by the enemy shelling in Avdiivka and Krasnohorivka. Mortar and artillery rounds directly hit a kindergarten in Avdiivka, humanitarian supplies distribution hub in Zaitseve, power line in Hnutove, and railway track sections in the frontline area in the Donetsk sector.

Abandoned Donbas Battalion fights on

Pro-Ukrainian militants of the so-called 'Donbas battalion' gather at their base at an undisclosed location in the Donesk region on May 22. Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said on May 22 that 14 troops had been killed in two overnight attacks by rebel forces in the separatist east of the country. AFP PHOTO/ GENYA SAVILOV

When the Donbas Battalion stormed Russian separatist-held Ilovaisk on Aug. 18 and raised the Ukrainian flag without a single casualty, the Ukrainian media quickly reported a victory for the country’s anti-terrorism operation against Kremlin-backed insurgents.

 

The Interior Ministry announced that four volunteer battalions along with the regular army were clearing Ilovaisk, a city of 17,000 residents southeast of  Donetsk, of Russian-backed forces, and promised that more back-up from the National Guard was on its way.

 

That version has turned out to be mostly spin that is likely to rebound on its state and media creators.

 

A week later, 10 men from the Donbas Battalion have been lost and more than 20 injured through what could be incompetence of the army command or even deliberate abandonment. Stranded as they struggle to keep control of city, the Donbas volunteers are reinforced by just one company from the army’s 93rd brigade and some fighters from the volunteer Dnipro Battalion. 

 

Both Donbas fighters and three Ukrainian photographers embedded with them are enraged with what they call the lies and prevarications of both government and Ukrainian media, and want to put across their side of the story. 

 

“It’s an absolutely shameful situation,” said Alexander Glyadelov, who was evacuated from Ilovaisk on Aug. 21 with a shrapnel injury.

 

An experienced and respected photographer, Glyadelov has covered many wars, including the Moldovan Transdnistria and Russian Chechen conflicts. Exasperated with the heavily restricted access to the front granted by the Ukrainian government's press service, he joined the Donbas Battalion to see what was really going on. 

 

He found that while volunteers motivated by principle and with a high fighting spirit are stranded in desperate circumstances, government and media claim the situation is under control and reinforcements are on their way. “They are frightened of the truth,” he said. “First, they need to actually provide the help they keep promising. And second, they need to stop lying.” 

 

With the regular army in a disastrously impoverished state, Ukraine is reliant on the goodwill of volunteers to win its war with the Russian-backed ‘people’s republics’ in the east, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.

 

Volunteers are providing the army with everything from food to body armour to medical kits. And volunteers are increasingly doing the actual fighting. Volunteer battalions have been in combat alongside regular troops since May. 

 

These volunteer warriors come from all over Ukraine, and from a few other countries too. They are driven by a variety of motives, and funded from unclear sources. Donbas was one of the first battalions to make itself public, and its commander Semyon Semenchenko has become something of a national hero, appearing on TV wearing his trademark balaclava. Donbas also included the only known American to be fighting on the Ukrainian side: Mark Paslawsky, who took Ukrainian citizenship in order to enlist. 

 

Altogether, four volunteer battalions are officially taking part in the Ilovaisk operation which was planned to reinforce the 93rd mechanised brigade. But Semenchenko says  other than a detachment from the Dniepr battalion, the others have retreated and now refuse to come to their aid.  

 

“I don’t think there is any other army in the world where they would do that,” he said. “It’s a violation of all army codes, statutes and traditions.” 

 

In principle, the volunteer battalions are subordinate to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, while the regular army is under the Defense Ministry.

 

But one problem with the volunteer nature of the battalions is that it is not clear whether people who signed up for a variety of ideals will obey orders if they consider them counter to those ideals. 

 

Semenchenko, speaking from a hospital where he is recovering from serious injuries sustained on Aug. 19 in Ilovaisk, said commanders are reluctant to force battalions to obey orders for that reason.

 

“I don’t want to criticize the other battalions,” he said. “I just want my guys to stop dying because somewhere there is a detachment that could come and overcome the situation, but for some reason does not come.” 

 

Not just volunteer battalions, but also troops under the command of the Defense Ministry are in the area and could come to relieve the Donbas fighters. But Semenchenko believes the Defense Ministry is deliberately ignoring the situation. “I think it is profitable for the defence ministry not to send help, but to achieve a situation where volunteer battalions start blaming each other about who helped who,” he said. 

 

Semenchenko and Glyadelov are not the only ones accusing the army leadership and government of incompetence or worse. Mark Paslawsky, who had enrolled as an infantryman in the Donbas, consistently criticised the way the anti-terrorist operation was run in a Twitter account under the pseudonym Bruce Springnote. He called senior leaders "fat and worthless," and described the Interior Ministry as "ruled by terror" and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov as a "pathological liar." 

Paslawsky was killed on Aug. 19 in Ilovaisk. 

 

On Aug. 21, the Interior Ministry reported that 25 percent of all those from special battalions killed since the anti-terrorist operation began had been killed in Ilovaisk. The same day the national guard press office again announced the arrival of reinforcements which in fact did not arrive. There are no recent figures for how many regular army servicemen have died in Ilovaisk. 

 

Some of the Donbas men died when pro-Russian and Russian forces flying a Ukrainian flag deliberately fired on a vehicle carrying wounded, says Semenchenko. “This is medieval savagery, it bears no relation to honour whatsoever,” he said. “I can’t stand fighting against these people. But I have to, because I have to protect my country.” 

 

With disillusionment and anger at the Ukrainian government and army leadership rising, it is a question how long volunteers like Semenchenko and his men will continue fighting - or rather, just where they think that fight should be taking place. 

 

Glyadelov and his fellow photographers decided to disregard principles of wartime secrets or keeping up national morale in order to speak out about what they are witnessing: that more and more volunteer soldiers, tired of the government’s inability to support them, are talking about finishing the war in the east and then turning their guns on Kyiv. 

 

“This is a people’s war,” said Glyadelov. “People are fighting, people are equipping those fighters with everything out of their own pockets. The government is only providing weapons and even those not to everyone, and not of the best quality. So when some bosses say you can know this but not that, you can’t tell this to anyone… Go to hell, unless you can do something differently so that [this war] depended on you and not on us.” 

 

The many wounded fighters in hospital in Dnipropetrovsk are particularly incensed at Kyiv’s decision to hold a Soviet-style military parade on Aug. 24 to celebrate Ukrainian Independence Day.

 

Though President Petro Poroshenko said in his parade speech that the military vehicles and armaments on display would be sent straight to the anti-terrorist operation, that may be too late to win back the hearts of those who have lost comrades as they still wait for promised tanks. 

 

“It’s military games, when there is a real war going on,” said one volunteer injured in Ilovaisk before his battalion, the Azov, withdrew. “We still have the same generals and the same secret service, nothing has changed. Yes, there are those who are real patriots and support Ukraine, but there are many more who are corrupt and would sell anything to anyone.”  

 

Some of these volunteer soldiers believe their battalions are deliberately being sent without backup to hotspots like Ilovaisk in order to remove a potential threat to the authorities. Semenchenko describes his men, now armed and seasoned fighters though many had never picked up a gun until a few months ago, as “a restraining factor” on a government many perceive to be betraying the ideals of EuroMaidan. He suggested that after the separatists are defeated, it may be time to take the battle from the fields and towns of east Ukraine to Kyiv’s government buildings.  

   

“If volunteers can manage equipping the army better than the army bosses, that means volunteers can run the country,” he said.  But he added, “I’m not ready to burn my house down just yet. We have to be responsible about these things.”   

Truck Convoy Returns To Russia From Ukraine

The huge convoy of Russian trucks that entered war-torn eastern Ukraine on Friday, sharply escalating tensions, returned to Russia on Saturday after unloading food and medicine in the city of Luhansk, and the Russian government quickly declared its satisfaction with the operation.

Russia’s decision to send the convoy across the border without an escort by the International Red Cross or final clearance from the Ukrainian government in Kiev had drawn harsh criticism.

President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine called it a “flagrant violation of international law.”

Another senior Ukrainian official denounced it as a “direct invasion.”

And Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of NATO, in a statement condemning the convoy’s entry, said it coincided with a “major escalation in Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine.”

The convoy’s swift return suggested that, at least for a moment, the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had scored a public relations victory.

Russian television stations, largely controlled by the government, had carried constant coverage of the convoy crossing the border on Friday, after the Russian Foreign Ministry declared the humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine so grave that it could no longer tolerate what it described as stalling by the Ukrainian government and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had agreed to oversee the convoy.

For weeks, Kiev and its allies, including the United States and major European countries, had raised suspicions about Russia’s plans to deliver humanitarian aid, fearing that the trucks could be used to carry weapons and other supplies to pro-Russian militants who seem to be on the verge of defeat in their fight against the Ukrainian government.

There were also concerns that Russia would use the trucks to slow the Ukrainian government’s military operations in Luhansk, essentially to shield rebels as they regrouped and rearmed.

In Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, a military spokesman, Col. Andriy Lysenko, said the Ukrainian government was also hoping to defuse the situation, but he accused Russia of using some of the aid trucks to take military equipment from Ukrainian factories back to Russia.

However, he offered no evidence to support his assertion.

“The leadership of Ukraine is using all diplomatic and political means to resolve this crisis and will not allow it to develop further,” Colonel Lysenko said at a briefing for reporters.

While witnesses reported seeing more than 260 trucks in the convoy, Colonel Lysenko said that Ukrainian officials had counted 184 crossing the border on Friday and that some of them, having dropped off their cargo, were being used “to take away equipment from Ukrainian enterprises.”

He said, without offering any proof, that the equipment was taken from the Topaz plant, which makes Kolchuga, a type of radar system, and from a factory in Luhansk that produces firearms magazines.

At the briefing in Kiev, the capital, Colonel Lysenko said Russia was continuing to fire artillery and missiles at Ukrainian military positions from the Russian side of the border, repeating an accusation that Ukraine has made consistently in recent weeks.

Russia has denied direct military involvement in the conflict.

By swiftly returning the trucks to Russia, the Kremlin seemed to seize an opportunity to make its detractors in Kiev and the West appear alarmist, and the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the goals all along had been strictly humanitarian.

“We are satisfied that the Russian humanitarian aid for southeast Ukraine was delivered to the destination,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“We were guided in this exclusively by the goal of helping needy civilians.”

The statement added that Russia intended to work with the Red Cross to deliver the assistance.

The hasty unloading of the trucks also seemed to confirm that many of them had been nearly empty.

Journalists who were allowed to look inside some trucks had seen that many were only partly filled.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine’s inspections of an initial group of trucks found that most of them carried foodstuffs, including buckwheat, rice, sugar and water, and that some bore medical supplies.

The Red Cross said on Friday that fighting in eastern Ukraine made it too dangerous for the convoy to cross the border and deliver the aid.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the humanitarian crisis was worsening and that it could no longer wait.

Military experts say that there is no doubt that Russia could invade Ukraine — with tanks not cargo trucks — on extremely short notice and that the West could do little about it.

The loud criticism from Kiev and the West, however, seemed to provide the Kremlin with an easy opportunity to portray its critics as shrill and unreliable, while pushing back on hard-line Russian nationalists who have criticized Putin and his government for not doing more to help pro-Russian militants.

The Obama administration on Friday had also sharply criticized Russia’s unilateral decision to send the convoy across the border, which it said was “in violation of its previous commitments and international law.”

“Russian military vehicles painted to look like civilian trucks forced their way into Ukraine,” said a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Caitlin Hayden.

In her statement, Ms. Hayden said that only a small number of vehicles were inspected by Ukrainian customs officials and that there was no way to know the contents of the entire convoy.

The Ukrainian government complained that its customs agents sent to a border crossing to inspect the trucks had been blocked as Russia sent the convoy through. 

The return of the trucks to Russia came as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany arrived in Kiev to visit Ukrainian leaders.

Five Reasons Why This Weekend Might Be The Start Of The Endgame In Ukraine

It's a risky business, attempting to predict the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. But this weekend's Kyiv visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stirred hopes that a resolution to the Ukraine-Russia standoff and the bloody fighting in Donbas may finally be near. We look at five of the key factors in play.

 

1. This Is Germany We're Talking About

 

A number of Western officials have already visited Ukraine since fighting erupted between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists in April. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

 

But none brings as much to the table as Merkel, who oversees the largest economy in Europe, dominates foreign policy debate in the European Union, and -- as a Russian-speaker raised in Communist East Germany -- enjoys a more informed working relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin than many of her EU counterparts. 

 

Merkel's trip, which follows an invitation by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, is an obvious boost for Kyiv after months of flaccid EU interest. But the German leader has already set a tone of compromise. Speaking on August 18 in Riga, Merkel struck a delicate balance between the interests of East and West -- pledging a NATO response to any future Russian aggression in the Baltics or Poland but ruling out a permanent NATO presence in the region. Some media have speculated that she comes to Kyiv with a deal requiring gains and sacrifices on all sides.

 

A report in "The Independent" says the plan would formally hand Crimea to Russia in exchange for a withdrawal of Kremlin support in Donbas and a long-term gas deal that would include compensation for revenues lost in Crimea, including rent for the Black Sea Fleet. The deal would also forbid Moscow from future meddling in Kyiv's EU integration; Kyiv, in turn, would agree not to join NATO. The report's accuracy could not be independently confirmed.

 

2. The History Gods Say Yes. 

 

Merkel's visit coincides with two historically significant dates. August 23 marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union whose notorious secret protocol cleared the way for a Soviet "sphere of influence" and Moscow's forced annexations of the Baltic States and parts of Romania, Poland, and Finland. 

 

A day later, Ukraine commemorates 23 years since its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union -- an anniversary whose traditional military parade holds particular resonance this year. 

 

To be sure, apt coincidences of history are no guarantee of cooperation on the ground. But any deal ending the Kremlin's revanchist campaign in Ukraine would be a fitting historical coda. 

 

3. Poroshenko And Putin Get Face Time. 

 

The last time these two men met was in June, when they joined world leaders in France to mark the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. They spoke briefly -- Merkel, significantly, was in the huddle -- but with little result. But the two men are now due to meet again on August 26 in Minsk, alongside an EU delegation led by foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Putin's two main regional allies, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbaev. 

 

Officials on all sides have outlined agenda issues in the blandest possible terms -- energy, humanitarian needs, and "wider political concerns" -- and there's still no guarantee that Poroshenko and Putin will meet face to face. But Ukrainian officials have hinted that progress is being made, with Poroshenko aide Valeriy Chaliy noting, "a clear diplomatic roadmap is taking shape" that will allow the parties "to talk about a move from war to peace." 

 

4. The Military Tide Appears To Be Turning. 

 

If Ukrainian officials appear upbeat, it may have less to do with diplomacy and more with battlefield success. The Ukrainian army, initially hampered by poor training and equipment, floundered badly in the early weeks of the fighting in April and May. 

 

Pro-Moscow separatists, suspected of receiving healthy shipments of arms and supplies from Russia, quickly seized large swathes of the Donbas, establishing de facto governments manned by Russian-born agents with fighting credentials earned in breakaway regions like Transdniester and Abkhazia.

 

The region's two largest cities, Luhansk and Donetsk, quickly fell under separatist control. Rebels began kidnapping and sometimes killing local residents, and used surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Ukrainian military planes -- and, it is suspected, the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet carrying 298 people, a horrific error that sent a wave of international condemnation crashing down on Putin for his suspected rebel support. 

 

In recent weeks, however, Ukrainian forces have made strategic gains, breaking through rebel corridors cutting off both Luhansk and Donetsk and laying what military spokesman Andriy Lysenko called the "preparatory work" for the cities' liberation. To be sure, the fighting is far from over. Bulletins from the war zones are murky and often contradictory, and many reports continue of Russian tanks and APCs heading into the region, rather than out. Most seriously, the intensified violence has come at a horrific human cost, with the death toll totaling more than 2,080 civilians and combatants. Even if separatist forces beat a hasty retreat, Kyiv will be left facing a shattered, resentful region. 

 

5. Russia Itself Might Want A Way Out

 

For a while, Moscow appeared to be profiting handsomely from its campaign in Ukraine -- particularly in Crimea, where it was able, with breathtaking efficiency, to return a lush southern territory to Russia, where many ribbon-wearing citizens thought it belonged all along.

 

But the war has started to pinch. In addition to suspected culpability in the MH17 shooting, the Kremlin has suffered a series of financial setbacks -- some of them self-induced. EU and U.S. sanctions have targeted, and disgruntled, some of the Kremlin's richest patrons, and Putin's own "patriotic" initiative -- banning Western food supplies -- is already causing a steep rise in prices and spotlighting the woeful state of Russia's agricultural sector. The Russian president, who has staked his political career on pocketbook principles, is eager to avoid domestic discontent. Many observers suggest that the Kremlin has already signaled that it's ready to step back on Ukraine -- and cite as an example the recent withdrawal of Moscow-born separatist leaders like Igor Strelkov, who was believed to be acting as the Kremlin's agent in Donbas.

 

In his uncharacteristically muted speech in Crimea last week, Putin asserted Russia's historic right to the territory but appeared to indicate the imperialist wish list would end there. To be sure, current hopes of detente could be early or off the mark. But a deal legitimizing Moscow's claim on Crimea would allow Putin to come home looking like a winner -- even as he loses Ukraine.

PHOTOS - Ukraine gets new evidence of Russian soldiers fighting on its turf

Ukraine received new evidence of Russian soldiers fighting on its territory when the army captured two armored personnel carriers on Aug. 20, which carried many valuable – and incriminating – documents. 

 A field manual for the Russian army shared by journalist Roman Bochkala.

 

The vehicles were seized near the village of  Lutuhine, located 18 kilometers from Luhansk. The men carried IDs showing that they are paratroopers of the Pskov division’s airborne brigade No. 74268.

Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman of the National Security and Defense Council said at a briefing on Aug. 21 that it was a “full range of documents – from drivers licenses to military documentation.”

 

“There was a personal notebook of Lieutenant Popov, the platoon commander of the guard, among the belongings,” Lysenko said.

The machine gun marked with the name of Private Surnachov.

 

The Russian defense ministry slammed the allegations as false.

 

“This is the 1001th  piece of so-called evidence in the entire range of daily exposures of Russian presence on the territory of Ukraine,” Russian Major-General Igor Konashenko told RIA-Novosti,  the Russian state news agency.

 

“Probably the next ‘indisputable fact’ will be a Kalashnikov captured in a ‘fierce fight’ or an F-1 grenade with detailed personal diaries of allegedly Russian soldiers,” he added.

A passport of Nikolay Krygin, resident of Russia’s Pskov region.

 

But Roman Bochkala, a journalist of Ukrainian Inter TV channel, showed the footage with papers and a photo of the machine gun marked with the name of Private Surnachov, the passport of Nikolay Krygin, a resident of Russia’s Pskov region,  and a journal spelling out names of other soldiers who are probably taking part in hostilities in Ukraine.

 

There were also drill regulations for paratroopers, combat regulations of the Russian army, and several Russian credit cards captured, according to the photos published by Bochkala.

Russian credit cards found in captured APCs.

 

When the fight finished on Aug. 20, the battlefield had blue berets of paratroopers scattered all around, Bochkala wrote based on his talks to the Ukrainian soldiers who captured the vehicles.

 

Bochkala also published an anonymous message he received through Facebook, allegedly from the wife of one of the servicemen of Pskov airborne brigade. “Our husbands have been recently sent to Ukraine, allegedly for military exercises. They didn’t know where they were supposed to be sent. There have been neither phone calls, nor any ‘hellos’ since then. We are sitting and crying,” the message said.

Drill regulations for paratroopers.

 

“What kind of exercises could there possibly be abroad?” Bochkala said. He said the evidence will be shown to foreign ambassadors and representatives of international organizations.

 

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Minsk on Aug. 26 along with the leaders of European Union and presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan.

One of two Russian APCs captured by Ukrainian soldiers near Luhansk.

Dmitry Tymchuk’s Military Blog: Summary – August 19, 2014

Brothers and sisters!

 

The bad news:

 

1. Unfortunately, we can confirm the fact that the column of Russian military equipment broke through to Luhansk today to back up the local militants. Some of the equipment arrived from Russia earlier, while other vehicles entered Donbas today from the territory of the Russian Federation.

According to our data, a few dozen units of military equipment broke through into the neighborhood of Luhansk, up to 40 of them are heavy armored vehicles. Part of this column entered the city.
How the column of vehicles could have broken through the blockade line, considering the fact that Luhansk is being blocked by a circle of checkpoints and fortified strongpoints of ATO forces–we currently cannot say.

2. LNR [Luhansk People's Republic] terrorists argue that the shooting of the refugee convoy yesterday near Luhansk–was not them. This claim was made by I. [Ihor] Plotnitskiy, one of the insurgents’ leaders.

This statement could possibly confuse a casual observer who might erroneously think that this sinful deed that was committed, that such a terrible crime could be attributable to the ATO forces who shelled the convoy by mistake. If it were not for one “but.” The leader of the terrorists began swearing that the insurgents do not get thrown weapons from Russia, he said, “all military equipment is battle loot and was captured in battle.”

And here everything falls into place. It’s hard to assume that the insurgents could seize dozens of tanks and MLRS [Multiple Launch Rocket Systems] from the Ukrainian army, and it’s even less understandable where Ukrainian troops would get weapons and equipment available only in the Russian army, such as armored KamAZ trucks, the newest armored BTR-82 vehicles, Kord machine guns, AK [Kalashnikov] Series 100 automatic rifles, etc. etc.–this list is endless.

This lie about the weapons also proves the lie about the [fact of] the shelling of the convoy. But this little warlord, stuck deep in his lies, didn’t even use his brains when feeding his lies to the public.

The good news:

1. Our troops continue to liberate the land of the Donbas from pro-Russian and Russian filth. The cleanup of Ilovaysk is finishing, step by step Donetsk and Luhansk are being liberated. Combat is underway in the raion [district] settlements of Horlivka, Yasynuvata, Zhdanivka.

Moscow is seeking in any way to save its minions, already throwing them equipment and weapons without much secrecy. But only a maniac like Putin can continue to believe that the game is not over, and hope for some prospects for such criminal projects as the DNR and LNR [Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics]. Tragically, this maniacal Kremlin is paid for with the blood of our guys, but in no way cancels the impending victory.

2. The Ministry of the Interior reported that it fired nearly 3,700 law enforcement officers in the Donetsk and Luhansk region throughout the duration of the ATO. Dozens of criminal cases were filed against local police officers who changed their oath.

It is a process, the value of which can hardly be overestimated. Because what would be the point of the ATO, if yesterday’s terrorist accomplices controlled the city of Donbas again today, waiting for the “whistle” from Russia to start all over again?

To this, [I] can only add that such a process should have been aggressively launched against the local authorities as well. Since it was already begun, it recently somehow started clearly to abate.

3. The Deputy Chairman of the European Parliament R. [Ryszard] Czarnecki said that the Ukrainian authorities should not agree to negotiations with terrorists in the Donbas, as they are not a worthy partner for dialogue, and should make every effort to drive them out of the country.

These are, in my understanding, the words of a man, not a boy. Kyiv announced that it would welcome a peaceful dialogue, if such were possible (remember the sad experience of the “ceasefire” of June 20-30th?). But since [we] cannot come to an agreement amicably, we will have to postpone the ceremonies. It is wonderful that the European Parliament, earlier blinded by an unconvincing pacifism, began to understand this fact.

Meanwhile, a terrorist is nevertheless a terrorist, [even] in Africa. And this statement by the representative of the European Parliament can be considered an unofficial recognition of the DNR and LNR [Donetsk- and Luhansk People's Republics] as terrorist organizations, albeit by individual MEPs [Members of European Parliament]. Well, it’s up to an official recognition [now], which Ukraine is so yearning for.

Ukraine says its troops make breakthrough in rebel stronghold

Ukrainian forces have raised their national flag over a police station in the city of Luhansk which was for months under rebel control, Kiev said on Sunday, in what could be a breakthrough in Ukraine's efforts to crush pro-Moscow separatists.

 

Ukrainian officials allege though that the rebels are fighting a desperate rearguard action to hold on to Luhansk -- which is their supply route into neighboring Russia -- and say the flow of weapons and fighters from Russia has accelerated.

 

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia were preparing to meet for talks on the conflict in Berlin on Sunday, though it seemed likely that the diplomacy could be overshadowed by fast-moving developments on the battlefield.

 

Russia denies helping the rebels and accuses Kiev, backed by the West, of triggering a humanitarian crisis through indiscriminate use of force against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who reject the Ukrainian government's rule.

 

Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said government forces fought separatists in a neighborhood of Luhansk city on Saturday and took control of the Zhovtneviy neighborhood police station.

 

"They raised the state flag over it," Lysenko told a news briefing.

 

Separatist officials in Luhansk could not be reached by telephone, and a separatist spokeswoman in Donetsk, the other rebel strong-hold in eastern Ukraine, said she did not know what had happened in Luhansk.

 

If confirmed, the taking of the police station is significant because the city of Luhansk has for several months been a rebel redoubt where Kiev's writ has not run.

 

Ukrainian troops have been closing in on the city from the outskirts, but had not previously been able to get forces inside the city limits. The separatists still control sections of the border linking Luhansk region to Russia.

 

The four-month-old conflict in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east has reached a critical phase, with Kiev and Western governments watching nervously to see if Russia will intervene in support of the increasingly besieged rebels.

 

The rebels have responded to the reverses with defiant rhetoric, and the fighting continues.

 

Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian warplane. The pilot ejected and was located and recovered after a search, a military spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, told Reuters.

 

On Saturday, Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said rebels were in the process of receiving some 150 armored vehicles, including 30 tanks, and 1,200 fighters trained in Russia. He said they planned to launch a major counter-offensive.

"They are joining at the most crucial moment," he said in a video recorded on Friday.

 

The assertion that the fighters were trained in Russia is awkward for Moscow, which has repeatedly denied allegations from Kiev and its Western allies that it is providing material support to separatist fighters.

CRITICAL PHASE

 

In a sign of concern at the latest rebel comments, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko agreed in a phone call on Saturday that deliveries of weapons to separatists in Ukraine must stop and a ceasefire must be achieved, a German government spokesman said.

 

The Ukraine crisis has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War and set off a round of trade restrictions that are hurting struggling economies in both Russia and Europe.

 

Adding to the tensions, Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads for days over a convoy of 280 Russian trucks carrying water, food and medicine.

 

It was despatched by Moscow bound for eastern Ukraine but has been parked up for several days in Russia near the border.

 

Kiev has said the convoy could be a Trojan Horse for Russia to get weapons to the rebels, a notion that Moscow has dismissed as absurd. It said the aid is desperately needed by civilians left without water and power and under constant bombardment from the Ukrainian advance.

 

After days of wrangling between Kiev and Moscow, there were signs of movement on Sunday.

 

Sixteen trucks separated from the main convoy and drove into a Russian bus depot near a border crossing into Ukraine, a Reuters cameraman said from the scene.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in Geneva that Russian and Ukrainian border guards and customs officials had agreed that the cargo could be inspected.

REBEL ROUT?

 

Ukrainian officials have painted a picture of a separatist force that is on the run and starting to panic - though rebel fighters Reuters reporters have spoken to in Donetsk say they are determined to stand firm.

 

The Ukrainian National Guard said its forces had seized a rebel field commander from Luhansk region as well as 13 others suspected of “terrorist activity”.

 

“The terrorists are putting on ordinary clothes, taking only their passport with them and are trying to pass themselves off as ordinary peaceful citizens on public transport to try to get through the Ukrainian checkpoints,” the National Guard said.

 

In the past week, three senior rebel leaders have been removed from their posts, pointing to mounting disagreement over how to turn the tide of the fighting back in their favor.

The fighting has taken a heavy human toll.

 

The United Nations said this month that an estimated 2,086 people, including civilians and combatants, had been killed in the conflict. That figure nearly doubled since the end of July, when Ukrainian forces stepped up their offensive and fighting started in urban areas.

 

In Donetsk which like Luhansk is now ringed by Kiev's forces, artillery fire has struck apartment buildings, killing and wounding residents, according to Reuters reporters. Officials in Kiev deny they are firing heavy weapons at residential areas.

A Ukraine City Under Siege, ‘Just Terrified of the Bombing’ - by ANDREW E. KRAMER

Every night, as darkness falls over Luhansk, the focus now of intense humanitarian concern and geopolitical intrigue, a cat-and-mouse artillery duel begins.

 

In a neighborhood of high-rise apartments, residents can readily identify the hollow pops of mortars as they echo among the buildings. After that, rebel fighters can be seen hastily dismantling the weapons and hauling them away.

 

An hour or so later, the Ukrainian military’s response comes: the whistle and boom of incoming artillery shells, fired from guns outside the city, in a fruitless attempt at silencing the rebel gunners.

Ukraine and Russia are now jousting over Moscow’s intent to send a 260-truck convoy of aid to Luhansk to relieve what President Vladimir V. Putin called in a speech on Thursday a “major humanitarian catastrophe” here.

 

But to people standing in the bread and water lines that snake through the streets, life here is tough but far from catastrophic. In the predawn, the city comes alive with pedestrians carrying plastic water bottles, headed for the working fountains and grocery stores, on the assumption that fewer shells land early in the morning. One grocery had noodles, gum, sugar, eggs and vodka.

 

The only relief most people here seek is from the shelling, which goes on night and day.

 

“I have everything I need but peace,” Valentina Simonyenko, a retiree standing in line for water from a spring, said Thursday. Later, she said, she would buy bread. “Look around, everybody is just terrified of the bombing.”

 

Luhansk is indeed a grim place, besieged and partly abandoned, with no electricity or running water, where hospitals are packed and the streets are patrolled by twitchy gunmen looking for spies.

 

But the shelling remains the greatest danger and the most trying aspect of daily life. The separatist government reported Thursday that 40 people had been killed in the shelling in the previous 24 hours.

On the main boulevard, rebels tear about in trucks mounted with Grad rocket launchers, moving from one site to another inside the city, to avoid the inevitable return fire.

 

The Ukrainian forces are in the countryside all about, dug into positions in the open steppe. In their trenches and armored vehicles, they are all but impervious to even the most intensive rebel shelling.

“If one side shoots from one place, then their opponent will shoot back at that place,” Dr. Gennady M. Buniyev, the director of a trauma ward here, said, choosing his words carefully and insisting on his neutrality in the conflict, as the windows of his office shook from outgoing rounds.

 

The mortar crew operating inside the city in areas controlled by the Luhansk People’s Republic, a separatist group, was firing from just outside the walls of the hospital grounds.

 

In response this week, two rockets fired from Ukrainian-held territory smashed into the hospital yard, landing near a maternity ward and a storage shed for oxygen bottles. Fortunately, the oxygen did not ignite.

“If it blew up, the whole hospital would have gone with it,” Dr. Buniyev said.

 

In the afternoon on a main street, where heat shimmered off the pavement and artillery boomed all about, the only vehicle in sight was a taxi creeping along with a driver so nervous he later simply abandoned his passengers on a side road, leaving them to walk to a hotel that lacked electricity and water and any other guests.

 

Dr. Buniyev’s clinic was treating 16 people for shrapnel wounds, including one man with a gaping head wound and four patients with brain trauma from blast waves.

 

A bucket brigade carried water to the hospital; nurses boiled water on a wood fire in the yard.

 

Vladimir Demidenko, a surgeon, said trying to shoo away the mortar crew would be pointless. “They wouldn’t listen to us,” he said. “If we went to complain to them, they would kill us.”

 

The shelling has gone on for so long now, and the destruction is so widespread, that it is hard to know where the latest rounds landed in some neighborhoods, where blown-out glass, sheared tree limbs and craters are general.

 

Polina Ivanova, a resident of one ravaged area, was sympathetic to the rebel mortar crew. “Look how many civilians are dying,” she said. “They are trying to protect us, and they have nowhere else to fire from. We are surrounded.”

 

She stood on a stoop in the predawn with Ekaterina Vladimirova, a neighbor who had a different opinion. “Both sides don’t care about us,” Ms. Vladimirova said. “For them, it’s a game. One shoots that way, the other shoots this way, and simple people suffer.”

 

Oleg Romanov, 29, said he huddled in terror with his wife and 1-year-old son in an apartment while “it booms all night long, and plaster falls from the ceiling.” He then rises at 4 a.m. to take his place in a line for water, and make the rounds of stores to hunt for groceries.

 

“The rebels fire Grads and leave, and then, of course, the answer comes back to that spot,” he said. “The rebels are long gone by then, but people are still around.”

 

Officials with the Luhansk People’s Republic could not be found to comment on the tactic of firing from residential neighborhoods, inviting return fire to them. At the headquarters building, a teenager with a Kalashnikov standing behind sandbags said the press office was not open Thursday morning.

Luhansk, a sprawling, dusty industrial city where the now-idle locomotive factory was a main employer, had a prewar population of about a half-million. It is impossible to say how many people have left; estimates range from a third to two-thirds. But many homes remain occupied. One woman said that 7 out of 10 houses on her street were still full.

 

At the water lines, a community forms, and gossip turns to whether Russia has recognized the Luhansk People’s Republic as an independent state, which it has not, and to whether the Ukrainians have broken into the city with ground forces, which was unclear on Thursday. Either of these developments might signal an end to their woes. Talk turns as well to looting, which is widespread.

“There is no fire department and no police, and besides, how would we call them, because no phones work,” said Oksana Mamedova, speaking on a street strewn with uncollected, rotting pears.

“Life is scary,” she said. “It’s scary to go to the store, and it’s scary to stay in the house.”

 

 

A version of this article appears in print on August 15, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Ukraine City Under Siege, ‘Just Terrified of the Bombing’.

UKRAINE - NSC NEWS & ANALYSIS CENTER BRIEFING at 17:30 AUGUST 12, 2014

Military action in the conflict zone

The combined forces of the Azov, Dnipro, Donbas and Shakhtarsk special volunteer battalions freed the towns of Pervomaisk, Kamyshevakha and Kalinovo. On these territories, groups of RF Special Forces were exposed and destroyed, along with some 30 terrorists. In addition to this, Ukrainian Armed Forces units liberated the town of Ugledar and raised the national flag on the central building, Andriy Lysenko, spokesperson for the National Security Council’s News & Analysis Center, reported at the Center’s evening briefing, August 12, 2014.

At an ATO blockade between Horlivka and Yasynuvata, a car with three terrorists in it was destroyed. The men were carrying a huge number of weapons and explosives.

In the city of Shchastia, Aidar volunteer fighters arrested the Mayor of Artemivsk and another person, both of whom had cooperated with the terrorists. At the moment, they are providing testimony.

During the day, ATO forces exchanged fire with terrorists 5 times in the areas around Nyzhnia Vilkhova, Nyzhnioteple, Zemliane, Verhunskiy Rozyizd, and Stepanivka.

A successful military operation by ATO forces left terrorists in the area around Horlivka cut off from DNR. ATO forces are preparing for a further offensive in a number of directions simultaneously. Fighting went on in the areas around Donetsk, Luhansk, Horlivka and Ilovaisk. At the same time, joint air and artillery efforts neutralized one grouping of terrorists who were intended to reinforce the defense of militants around Shakhtarsk, Torez and Snizhne.

Meanwhile, the offensive by ATO forces has increased pressure on the terrorists in eastern Ukraine, leading to more conflict among the terrorists themselves as they begin to feel the lack of weapons, ammunition, supplies and means of communication. For instance, OPLOT militants in Donetsk Oblast, who are under the command of a field commander called “Tor,” shot at a convoy of trucks with wounded fighters from the Narodovyzvolniy Rukh [People’s Liberation Movement], run by a leader called “Grek.”

The border area

The situation on the Ukrainian-Russian border remains tense. Today, starting at 11:15, border guards and terrorists near the village of Pobyeda in Donetsk Oblast exchanged fire for nearly an hour. The militants used firearms to attack the border patrol, which was guarding the state border. The patrol opened fire in response and repelled the attack.

Population centers in the conflict zone

The territory under the control of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) is now under the decree of V. Bolotov, which prohibits exiting and crossing the border with Russia for all those age 16 to 60 because mobilization has been declared on the “republic’s territory. Predictions are that a similar ukase will be announced shortly by the leaders of DNR as well.

The terrorists continue to shoot at populated areas. In Makiyivka, Donetsk Oblast, the filtration station that supplies potable water to most of the districts of the city was damaged. In the suburb of Zeleniy in Makiyivka, terrorists have been broadly abducting people and holding them in the basement of the former Organized Crime Department. At the moment, they are holding 34 individuals and are asking UAH 3,000 [US $225] for the release of each of them.

The militants also continue to booby-trap infrastructure. Near the town of Nyzhnia Krynka under Makiyivka City Hall, militants mined a bridge and say they will blow it up if ATO forces start moving across it.

Because of the extensive damage to water supply systems because of the conflict, the terrorists in Luhansk could find themselves facing the real threat of a rise in various kinds of infections. The city still has no power which means people cannot keep food in their refrigerators. This also risks widespread digestive disorders, such as dysentery, viral hepatitis, and so on, during the hot weather—plus the added risk that the pathogens will be taken to other parts of the country. Another factor in the spread of epidemics is the extensive period that waste has been collecting in the city.

Today, IDPs from population centers currently in the conflict zone will receive humanitarian assistance. They will be given it by National Guard servicemen at the refugee center in Mariupol People will get foodstuff and other basic items. Ukraine’s servicemen have been sharing their food and things that they have been receiving from volunteers and local residents for a long time now.

The crime situation is worsening in those places where the militants are in charge. Many cases of marauding by terrorists have been reported, as these men are illegally verifying documents, surrounding designated districts, or announcing that they will shoot if people don’t allow them to search their apartments or check their personal documents and property on the streets of the city. While inspecting the property of civilians, they confiscate valuables. A large part of the militants believe that the leadership of DNR has betrayed them and left them on their own. Another fact is that they haven’t been given money to live on. As a result, desertions are on the rise and insubordination during combat.

Saboteur teams continue to operate on the territories liberated, shooting at ATO forces roadblocks from civilian cars. There is potential for attempted sabotage of infrastructure.

International support

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Linas Linkiavicius has stated that the international community can no longer trust Russia, which has announced the shipment of 280 trucks with “humanitarian” aid. Linkiavicius says that Ukraine’s current troubles are all the result of the terrorists so any aid provided should be exclusively on that basis acceptable to Ukraine.

Linkiavicius also noted that people clearly needed humanitarian assistance and that they were living without electricity, water and basic goods, but this had to be agreed with the Government of Ukraine and that it had to be an international mission involving the Red Cross. The diplomat added that the European community could not trust any statements coming out of Russia and reminded people that armored vehicles were painted over to the colors of “peacekeeping” contingents and were waiting to cross the border. According to Linkiavicius, everything that happens in Ukraine needs to be with the knowledge and approval of the Ukrainian government: if Ukraine has not given the go-ahead, then any move could be seen as aggression, as an aggressive act.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, 16,000 basic hygiene kits have been handed out as charitable assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the ATO zone. This assistance will come from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) according to a previous agreement. The Fund will deliver these kits to the State Emergency Service as the coordinator of the Interagency Coordination Office, which will then distribute it to its regional offices.