KIEV JUNTA FORCES
RETREAT IN DEFEAT
Unstable political situation
in Kiev:
Poroshenko under threat
of ouster:
Debaltsevo Feb 19 2015
The military dimension:
The Novorussian flag
is today flying over Debaltsevo as the NAF consolidates its positions inside
the city which is now 100% in their possession as the remnants of the defeated Kiev
Junta forces have withdrawn except for stragglers who have left their units and
taken to open country to try to get back to safe ground and avoid being taken
prisoner by the NAF. It is estimated that there are about 1,500 of them and
they will suffer more casualties as the wintry conditions and their lack of
food supplies are inimical to survival chances in open country.
By February 19 it became clear that the Svetlodarsk group of the KJF– even after pulling the reserves from the side of Artyomovsk and holding the bottleneck in the area of Svetlodarsk – could not solve the problems posed by its command and unblock the M-103 road and also capture the adjacent settlements and numerically labelled high points. Despite all of the suffered losses, it ended up being impossible for the Junta to establish full-fledged supplying of the encircled forces, so, on the background of the attempts to unblock the encircled group getting stuck, the obvious processes of degradation of organised defence began inside the pocket itself. The lack of ammunition for heavy weapons, the lack of fuel and lubricants, the decrease of the morale of the defending forces — all of this led to the fact that the NAF finally managed to finish sweeping Chernukhino and captured the majority of Debaltsevo, where yesterday they already put up the flag of Novorossia. The work on sweeping the remaining hubs of resistance and disparate KJF groups continues.
The preconditions for capturing Debaltsevo were already created even before this, especially after the capture of the Debaltsevo-Sortirovochnaya railroad station ( in the eastern part of the city), which allowed the NAF to secure the access by assault and sabotage groups right into the urbanised area from south and south-east. At the same time the decrease of the Junta military capability for resistance led to their forces abandoning the positions to the south and to the south-west of Debaltsevo (in the Olkhovatka stronghold) and to the withdrawal of its units towards Debaltsevo, where they are closer to the way out. The Junta's problem was that it couldn’t organise a full-fledged evacuation of the encircled forces, even the attempts to break through the country roads are fraught with significant losses.
By February 19 it became clear that the Svetlodarsk group of the KJF– even after pulling the reserves from the side of Artyomovsk and holding the bottleneck in the area of Svetlodarsk – could not solve the problems posed by its command and unblock the M-103 road and also capture the adjacent settlements and numerically labelled high points. Despite all of the suffered losses, it ended up being impossible for the Junta to establish full-fledged supplying of the encircled forces, so, on the background of the attempts to unblock the encircled group getting stuck, the obvious processes of degradation of organised defence began inside the pocket itself. The lack of ammunition for heavy weapons, the lack of fuel and lubricants, the decrease of the morale of the defending forces — all of this led to the fact that the NAF finally managed to finish sweeping Chernukhino and captured the majority of Debaltsevo, where yesterday they already put up the flag of Novorossia. The work on sweeping the remaining hubs of resistance and disparate KJF groups continues.
The preconditions for capturing Debaltsevo were already created even before this, especially after the capture of the Debaltsevo-Sortirovochnaya railroad station ( in the eastern part of the city), which allowed the NAF to secure the access by assault and sabotage groups right into the urbanised area from south and south-east. At the same time the decrease of the Junta military capability for resistance led to their forces abandoning the positions to the south and to the south-west of Debaltsevo (in the Olkhovatka stronghold) and to the withdrawal of its units towards Debaltsevo, where they are closer to the way out. The Junta's problem was that it couldn’t organise a full-fledged evacuation of the encircled forces, even the attempts to break through the country roads are fraught with significant losses.
Kiev was continuing the pretence that there was no “cauldron”,
but the principal mass of the encircled
forces (up to 2,500-3,000 people in combat ranks) remained still stuck inside
the cauldron. The organisational conclusions already followed from the Junta:
the commander of the ATO forces Popko was removed and replaced with the
previously purged Vorobyov, who, apart from his screw-ups in Ilovaysk, was
notable for his recent media attempts to turn himself into a replacement for
the chief of the General Staff Muzhenko. However, while the latter is being
covered by Poroshenko, Vorobyov is forced to clean up messes that were piled up
by his predecessors. Because overall the fighting of January-February uncovered
the extremely low quality of the work done by the highest command structures of
the KJF, it is unlikely to get any worse for the Junta.
The last drop that led to the collapse were catastrophic
miscalculations by the Kiev General Staff and the sector command, which didn't
provide Logvinovo with adequate defence, the necessity for which could be
easily seen right after the Junta missed a sudden strike on Uglegorsk.
Furthermore, the defence of Logvinovo and the adjacent high points could have been
organised using either the forces that were inside the pocket or by a timely
redeployment of the reinforcements from Svetlodarsk or Artyomovsk to the area
under threat. Due to this catastrophic miscalculation, in 1-2 days after the
loss of Logvinovo and the interception of the communications of the Debaltsevo
group, the Junta had to deploy a much bigger force in an attempt to recapture
the unfortunate village than the force that would be needed to secure the defence
of the village, if it were organised in its proper time. Already after the loss
of Uglegorsk and entering Kalinovka the next step was obvious even for the
military hobbyists. Yet, the leadership of the Kiev General Staff and the ATO
command were criminally inactive (or criminally negligent), which led to the
encirclement and large materiel and personnel losses.
At this stage the military question of Debaltsevo has been effectively solved, the question only remained of how long would the agony last and how large the personnel losses to be suffered by the Junta will be (KIAs, WIAs, and POWs), and also the magnitude of the materiel losses. It is no longer possible now for the Junta to avoid the losses, because one way or another the January NAF offensive actually reached its goal, albeit with a major effort. The concrete result was achieved: the Debaltsevo group of the Junta was defeated. Regardless of how much of the KJF force was able to break out of the encirclement, the NAF captured a major transport hub of Novorossia (which will greatly simplify the NAF logistics and the communictions between Donetsk and Lugansk, previously under daily threat from the KJF) and defeated a large military group of the KJF, which means that a major operational success was achieved.
The political implications:
After the Junta leadership realised that no military way of fixing the situation near Debaltsevo exists, the convulsive attempts to save whatever still can be saved began. Those who got out of the encirclement started to be immediately turned into "heroes", even though just recently they were a part of a different propaganda myth about holding the "Debaltsevo bridgehead", but this myth collapsed shamefully, just like the one of "cyborgs". The "Ukrainian Stalingrad" turned into the next cauldron, which once again dealt a powerful blow to the military and the political leadership of the Junta. Despite all of its alarmist rhetoric, it is not able to augment its military rhetoric with its military successes. The defeat in the battle for the airport and in the battle for Debaltsevo effectively wiped out all of the successes that the Junta had achieved in the defence of the Peski-Avdeyevka bulge and in the area of the Bakhmutka road, where the NAF offensive was temporarily stalled. So it is quite natural that the Junta turned on the "urge for peace" on this background and started to push the EU and Russia towards signing a temporary truce. Currently the Junta needs the temporary respite of the Minsk Agreement in order to put the tragic story of Debaltsevo behind it and hope to stabilise the front in the area of Svetlodarsk, after which the Minsk truce has every chance to be enacted and the military action will be paused at least until April.
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| Gorlovka-Debaltsevo area of operations. KJF(blue), NAF(red). |
At this stage the military question of Debaltsevo has been effectively solved, the question only remained of how long would the agony last and how large the personnel losses to be suffered by the Junta will be (KIAs, WIAs, and POWs), and also the magnitude of the materiel losses. It is no longer possible now for the Junta to avoid the losses, because one way or another the January NAF offensive actually reached its goal, albeit with a major effort. The concrete result was achieved: the Debaltsevo group of the Junta was defeated. Regardless of how much of the KJF force was able to break out of the encirclement, the NAF captured a major transport hub of Novorossia (which will greatly simplify the NAF logistics and the communictions between Donetsk and Lugansk, previously under daily threat from the KJF) and defeated a large military group of the KJF, which means that a major operational success was achieved.
The political implications:
After the Junta leadership realised that no military way of fixing the situation near Debaltsevo exists, the convulsive attempts to save whatever still can be saved began. Those who got out of the encirclement started to be immediately turned into "heroes", even though just recently they were a part of a different propaganda myth about holding the "Debaltsevo bridgehead", but this myth collapsed shamefully, just like the one of "cyborgs". The "Ukrainian Stalingrad" turned into the next cauldron, which once again dealt a powerful blow to the military and the political leadership of the Junta. Despite all of its alarmist rhetoric, it is not able to augment its military rhetoric with its military successes. The defeat in the battle for the airport and in the battle for Debaltsevo effectively wiped out all of the successes that the Junta had achieved in the defence of the Peski-Avdeyevka bulge and in the area of the Bakhmutka road, where the NAF offensive was temporarily stalled. So it is quite natural that the Junta turned on the "urge for peace" on this background and started to push the EU and Russia towards signing a temporary truce. Currently the Junta needs the temporary respite of the Minsk Agreement in order to put the tragic story of Debaltsevo behind it and hope to stabilise the front in the area of Svetlodarsk, after which the Minsk truce has every chance to be enacted and the military action will be paused at least until April.
It is remarkable, but the junta could have negotiated the
withdrawal of its forces out of Debaltsevo during the Minsk negotiations and
subsequently present a military retreat as a sacrifice to the political
compromise (arguing that Europe demanded it) and avoid the military disgrace.
However, Kiev, being pushed in from behind by Washington and by the supporters
of escalating the hybrid war in Ukraine, was suicidally stubborn in the
Debaltsevo question, due to which the Debaltsevo question remained outside of the
scope of any of the Minsk agreements. This allowed the NAF to bring the
situation to its logical conclusion, delivering a quite catastrophic defeat to
the Junta in the process.
Currently, Porky Pie Poroshenko, under pressure from the Ukronazis and rising popular unrest, is ready to seriously discuss the questions of deploying peacekeepers inside the buffer zone (which includes the obviously unacceptable idea for Russia of deploying them on the border of Russia with the DPR and the LPR), which is supposed to secure a more effective separation of the two fighting sides. But here the problem is that given the lack of common ground for a durable political compromise, the peacekeepers are more likely to simply reinforce the existing front line as a future state border. This is not at all in the interests of Kiev and the USA, and even less in the interests of the DPR and the LPR, but the logic of the European attempt of freezing the conflict (which gets certain understanding in Russia, which is itself interested in reducing the intensity of this conflict) doesn't rule out such a radical form of freezing the situation. From the point of view of the "territorial integrity" of Ukraine, the appearance of peacekeepers will imply that Kiev has recognised that it is no longer able to resolve the situation on its own and that its claims to Donbass are effectively supported only by the help of international organisations and by previous guarantees from the USA and the EU.
After the question of Debaltsevo has been put off the table, Porky Pie Poroshenko will likely try to use the truce to rearm his Army, so despite the public rhetoric about the "peace process", the systemic work on pushing the possibility of weapons from the USA and its satellites into Ukraine continues in parallel. The new head of the Pentagon, unlike the previous one, is an open supporter of providing the military aid to the Junta and he has perfect relations with the Republican hawks, which includes the head of the Senate defence committee, warmonger John McCain.
Currently, Porky Pie Poroshenko, under pressure from the Ukronazis and rising popular unrest, is ready to seriously discuss the questions of deploying peacekeepers inside the buffer zone (which includes the obviously unacceptable idea for Russia of deploying them on the border of Russia with the DPR and the LPR), which is supposed to secure a more effective separation of the two fighting sides. But here the problem is that given the lack of common ground for a durable political compromise, the peacekeepers are more likely to simply reinforce the existing front line as a future state border. This is not at all in the interests of Kiev and the USA, and even less in the interests of the DPR and the LPR, but the logic of the European attempt of freezing the conflict (which gets certain understanding in Russia, which is itself interested in reducing the intensity of this conflict) doesn't rule out such a radical form of freezing the situation. From the point of view of the "territorial integrity" of Ukraine, the appearance of peacekeepers will imply that Kiev has recognised that it is no longer able to resolve the situation on its own and that its claims to Donbass are effectively supported only by the help of international organisations and by previous guarantees from the USA and the EU.
After the question of Debaltsevo has been put off the table, Porky Pie Poroshenko will likely try to use the truce to rearm his Army, so despite the public rhetoric about the "peace process", the systemic work on pushing the possibility of weapons from the USA and its satellites into Ukraine continues in parallel. The new head of the Pentagon, unlike the previous one, is an open supporter of providing the military aid to the Junta and he has perfect relations with the Republican hawks, which includes the head of the Senate defence committee, warmonger John McCain.
Because the USA don't believe
that the truce will last sufficiently long and that a political compromise will
be found, they continue to work on extending the scope of the hybrid war
against Russia. The primary task of the Junta is to legalise the foreign
military aid and to include more modern weapons into it, including weapons of
American origin. Meanwhile the Junta will have to solve the tasks of preventing
its economy from crashing (the collapse of the social sphere is inevitable, but
it is not worth expecting the economic collapse — the economy will be supported
by implementing the cannibalistic inhuman demands of the IMF), because given subsequent
worsening of the economic situation the social tensions will increase (the
problem of empty wallets and huge communal bills will start enlightening the
brains of the general public much faster than the flow of coffins from
Donbass).
The Junta will
attempt to reach the end of the truce with a rearmed army with replenished
personnel, which they will try to bring up to 100-120 thousands (in Donbass).
Another problem will be to compensate the current losses of armoured vehicles,
which will be especially difficult to do given those few relatively modern examples
that were lost in the winter campaign — they will be replaced by the restored
vehicles from long-term storage warehouses and also by various military junk from
Eastern Europe. All of this will require new purchases of weapons and materiel
from the Junta leadership, as well as further deployment of military industry
and rear support services so that it will attain relatively long-term
capabilities for conducting a hybrid war.
The Junta has pretty much no chances of a military victory —the offensive and counter-offensive efforts by the Junta ended up being impotent despite its overall numerical superiority. So, in the nearest perspective the Junta will focus on strategic defence, counting that military and political, economic, or other pressure from the USA and its EU/NATO satellites on Russia will force the Kremlin to give up its positions in Ukraine, a forlorn hope indeed now that the Novorussians have inflicted such a reverse on the Junta and Washington’s schemes.
The Junta has pretty much no chances of a military victory —the offensive and counter-offensive efforts by the Junta ended up being impotent despite its overall numerical superiority. So, in the nearest perspective the Junta will focus on strategic defence, counting that military and political, economic, or other pressure from the USA and its EU/NATO satellites on Russia will force the Kremlin to give up its positions in Ukraine, a forlorn hope indeed now that the Novorussians have inflicted such a reverse on the Junta and Washington’s schemes.
Within the confines of this
logic, Kiev will most likely violate the cease-fire when they think they have
the opportunity and the military action will resume so that the war, which is
so convenient for the USA, they hope, can be continued. But, this calculation
ignores the hostility of the electorates in the EU/NATO countries which are
growing their support for new parties of both left and right and threatening
the overthrow of the entire Neo-liberal project and the Brussels Dictatorship
which is currently the source of the bankrupt Junta’s finances.
