The Situation in the Ukraine. #23

In Novorussia they are saying, when an Ukrainian get to his mind, become a Russian.

The Guardian released:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/ukraine-needs-russia-nicolai-petro

Very harsh rhetoric.

medo wrote:In Novorussia they are saying, when an Ukrainian get to his mind, become a Russian.

True.

Ukropianism exists only in the mind.

Basurin gave further details of the attack on Yasinovataya, confirming that it was carried out by the 13th and 16th companies of 15th battalion of 58th brigade, supported by tanks and other armored vehicles. It was an attack, clearly, but not serious, as if they were it would need not two companies but two battalions and with proper artillery support, not mortars. I posted last week that 58th Brigade were heavily re-enforced in the Avdeevka/Yasinovataya sector with field hospital in their rear area and heavy artillery assets. It can be pretended that they are only going to make these "spoiling" attacks, but when they deny everything and say it is VSN attacking themselves, and that VSN are going to assault Avdeevka, and it is reported in Kiev media, other media is not a consideration, that this lie is reality, it does not take Einstein to work out what will probably follow. This is extremely rash of Kiev because with two armies toe to toe along the entire front and in a permanent state of readyness, one spark can set everything off and all quickly spiral out of control despite what any plans are.

Neutrality wrote:The Guardian released:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/ukraine-needs-russia-nicolai-petro

Very harsh rhetoric.

Posted it a while back...



Guys, looks like the phrase "Putin-bot" is going out of fashion in MSM comment sections. It is slowly being replaced by "Putriot"

We should all update our ID badges accordingly!!!

sepheronx wrote:When no other entertainment is available, just switch to Ukrainian.

What a joke their media, their people and their country as a whole has become.  I am so ashamed of my ancesteral people.

I am supposedly of Ukrainian decent too, But I don't see the difference between Ukrainians and Russians

PapaDragon wrote:

Neutrality wrote:The Guardian released:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/ukraine-needs-russia-nicolai-petro

Very harsh rhetoric.

Posted it a while back...



Guys, looks like the phrase "Putin-bot" is going out of fashion in MSM comment sections. It is slowly being replaced by "Putriot"

We should all update our ID badges accordingly!!!

I have to say, the whole "Putinbot" fantasy was bloody smart. It literally became a clause for the average reader to dismiss anyone and anything posted that was vaguely Pro-Russian as "Putin's troll army" and therefore sponsored by the Kremlin. The drive to sink this message in as well! From Youtube news outlets (VICE, TYT) to magazines (I was reading a Popular Mechanics magazine recently that had an article on it) all the way up to mainstream media, and boy did it work. Anyone with a slavic name, bad spelling, or a just vaguely on the fence opinion, was branded an employee of Putin's personal troll factory. That, gentlemen, is how you smother free speech on the internet in an instant.

Yesterday I wrote a big report in my blog updating all what happened last week and compiling Khepesh reports.

This morning I added another entry, there was a renewed attack this night against Yasinovataya blockpost,

according to my friend from Chile, who translates militia reports:

enemy attacked again with all kind of weapons, even fired two full packages of Grad rockets. An informant in Kharkov reported two dozen serious wounded, arriving that day, just for that hospital. seems the attacking force, 2 companies or 200 men, suffered at least 10% casualties, wich is reasonable.

Btw, can anyone find the report of the raid of a sabotage group on the water plant last week? I read somewhere that the attacking group, about a platoon, was wiped out, but cannot find it.

https://guerraenucrania.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/parte-de-guerra-10032016/

This attack has gotten a lot of publicity because there were journalists at the scene, but is nothing out of the ordinary, last week Ukros tried a couple at least company sized attacks on the Donetsk-Gorlovka sector.

Yesterday all along the front there were 30 combats. Even if they are just platoon or squad level actions, that's a constant grinder.

For some reason, Novorussian reports systematically minimize the intensity of the fighting. They report 200 shells being fired for those 30 attacks but I am really skeptical Ukrops just fire a couple mortar bombs at each place there is a "ceasefire violation"

Ispan wrote:
Btw, can anyone find the report of the raid of a sabotage group on the water plant last week? I read somewhere that the attacking group, about a platoon, was wiped out, but cannot find it.

I mentioned this in a post some days back as something for people to disregard any rumors about anything happening at the water plant, except the known incidences of it being bombarded. It became conflated, deliberatly I think, with the rumors of 30 VSN casualties in an operation behind enemy lines on the eastern side of Mariupol. Both sides deny anything happened and there is not even under the table rumors, so I think likely both stories are stuffing until proof is shown. But in Donetsk there is a sudden clampdown on enforcing the curfew to try to identify movement of ukrops DRG, who seem to like prowling between Donetsk and Gorlovka. And on Grad, yes, that's what locals and unofficial reports are saying, two full salvoes and also 152mm artillery on VSN rear positions at blockpost, locals say around Yakovlevka, and that serious fighting took place until 0400, and continues now at lower level.

Ispan wrote:
enemy attacked again with all kind of weapons, even fired two full packages of Grad rockets. An informant in Kharkov reported two dozen serious wounded, arriving that day, just for that hospital. seems the attacking force, 2 companies or 200 men, suffered at least 10% casualties, wich is reasonable.

Due to an understandable error in translation, turns out the losses were ours, 30 novorussian casualties admitted to at least one Donetsk hospital.

As sad as this is, the enemy must have suffered a lot more. And Basurin is a liar, the attack was much worse and in much more strength than he is saying . This is the original source

http://www.novorosinform.org/news/id/48904

I don't know why Basurin keeps downplaying the intensity of the fights.

In a related subject, I think Dennis Pushilin is a spineless scumbag who has found a cushy job as envoy to Minsk, safe and away from the front. He knows if the negotiations are over he will be out of job.

I don't know what the militia are waiting for to tell Zakharchenko and Plotnisky to get back to war and Minsk be damned.

Attack was not limited to the blockpost at Yasinovataya, either, there's fighting all across the sector.

Ukrops tried to break through NAF p. from 3 directions using heavy artillery/tanks. N of #Donetsk Via @blog_donbassa

Situation is critical in #Spartak and #Yasinovataya but NAF are resisting, causing many casualties in Ukie ranks.

From the admin of "Samooborona Gorlovki" and residents of Gorlovka, and not appearing on Military maps or any official report. Ukrops firing all around Gorlovka from Golmovskiy in the north to Shirokaya Balka in the south. This is not bombardments as it was last year, but small caliber, but also constant. Also ukrops firing at Krasny Partizan. An assesment, not mine, of what may be happening at Yasinovataya, is that ukrops are attempting to create the conditions for an assault, not now but in the future, directly into central Donetsk along a route between Spartak and Yasinovataya. If they can do that, then it may rapidly close the curtain on DNR no matter what forces are at Telmanovo, Starobeshevo, Torez etc. If Donetsk goes, with total chaos and thousands fleeing the city, it could be difficult to maintain order and a viable state. It is not really rocket science to know that Kiev wants to seperate Donetsk from Lugansk and Donetsk from the other cities in DNR. I mentioned some time ago that Kiev may think it a price worth paying to risk all on massive assault to cut off Donetsk, and then loose Lugansk to Russia as ukrops will not take Lugansk. Without Donetsk, then everything in the South all the way to Novoazovsk is also lost as I doubt any serious attempt will be made to keep a rump DNR in existance and VSN will melt away over the border. I paint a grim picture, but it's only speculation and I do not doubt the abiltity of VSN to make the outskirts of Donetsk a mass grave for ukrops and even the concept of "Ukraine".

If the Ukrops are desperate to get into coffins then let them.

latest report from DPR mentions more than 50 combats and 400 bombardments. That is double of the worst days of last week. Don't know how that compares with last august, but seems is still mostly mortar fire.

Donetsk, 22:30:

"Combats in the outskirts of Avdeevka and near Yasinovataya don't cease even for a minute. With every hour there are new details on how the Donbass militia fights to death with the ukros in this area"

My friend from Chile copied this comment before it was censored:

From a militiaman on a tank company: During these days, we had 30 (other sources say 32) dead on our side at Yasinovataya that were buried today. Broadly speaking the ukranians took the road at Yasinovataya. Now the Gorlovka-Donetsk road is closed and under enemy shelling. Yasinovatayahas caused many casualties in our side and among the ukranians. We simply can't talk about it because it is forbidden. People are demoralized and patience is running out. We have a lot of tanks and stupidly we aren't allowed to join the fight. Blyat! this is unbearable.

In Russian:

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2652578.html


Video:

Link to assesment, all in Russian,but I just want to repeat a few important aspects from it. First that it says that UNHCR say the situation is close to dangerous point and that it is unacceptable, this of course for the frontline residents of DNR. Secondly about re-organisation of ATO forces, and it mentions about what I already wrote about how 58th brigade is heavily re-enforced. It was joined by 16th mechanised battalion, Pravy Sektor battalion and an extra tank and artillery battalion. And it is not just 58th brigade that is re-enforced. The article says that re-enforcing at such level could cause command and control problems. And I will add that if you re-enforce and change the structure of major formation, then it should be withdrawn from the front and training excercises carried out so everybody knows what they are doing, but with ukrops, no. I note that the article was published before the news yesterday about ukrops firing on themselves, and due to command and control problems, well well. What happened was that a reccon group from 56th brigade, now at the front alongside 58th, was fired at, with dead and injured, by 58th brigade. The article then mentions about casualties, saying that while ukrops are usualy very quiet about casualties, they are admitting to them, so I think they suffer badly. But also the article says that despite the news blackout and censorship, VSN are also seen to take casualties in increasing number. The article mentions that while no major indicators of impending ukrops offensive are seen, I would dispute that, it does admit that ukrops brigades at the front are now so heavily re-enforced that they could launch offensive from standing start at any time and be self sufficient for a while before reserve forces moved forward. Last night was quiet, but today it all kicked off again. http://vz.ru/world/2016/3/10/798541.html

Edit: There is a little doubt as to exactly what ukrops formations are in the Avdeevka/Yasinovataya sector and some sources also put 54th, 57th brigades there as well as "Chernigov-2" and "Kirovogrod" units. I think if all these were present then they will all be standing shoulder to shoulder in some linear formations used before modern warfare. I would estimate two brigades at the front and one immediately behind them, not a division+ if all these forces are added together.

Summary of what Khepesh just posted and of this week

During the rest of February the fight continued, increased in intensity in early March, there was a three day lull during the "Four of Normandy" meeting, and there has been major fighting in Yasinovataya for the past two days, involving at least two batallions attempting to cut off Gorlovka from Donetsk.

Plus combats and shellings, mortar fire, with occasional artillery, all across the front, doubling in intensity from the time before the lull (yesterday there were 50 combats and 400 shellings)

For the low intensity warfare, casualties were high, both sides admit, Novorussian lost 30 dead in two day just at Yasinovataya , and in a single day 30 wounded were admitted to just one civilian hospital so at the very least about 50 casualties a day and Ukranian losses 100 daily, they are attacking fortified positions without artillery support, so it is a meat grinder for them. As bad as that might sound it is just the daily average for this war, counting quiet periods and major operations. This ain't nothing yet, neither side is using artillery nor tanks save sparingly.

On our side, I just found at Cassad a story about a Novorussian military field hospital, were is said that just in one and a half years of war they treated 12,000 (twelve thousand) wounded. So given the usual proportions of dead to wounded that amounts to another 4,000 killed, and that without counting wounded treated at civilian hospitals, the majority until military hospitals could be organized.

So that is partial confirmation of my estimates that Novorussian military losses are between 1/3 or 1/4 of Ukranians and the aggregate estimates about the death toll, 50,000 dead and counting.

Summing it up, since second Minsk it all has been mostly routine local platoon and company attacks, but this week the Ukranians are trying reinforced battallion sized attacks, but these Kampfgruppen are having control and command problems due to the packing of forces in narrow frontages.