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5-day Battle in LPR - Huge Losses of Ukrainian Army - OSCE Disengagement

Voice of Donbass - 27.12.16 01:14

On the night from 18 to 19 December, Kiev attempted to advance in the area of ​​Debaltsevo, freed by the DPR and LPR armies in February 2015. The fierce fighting in this sector lasted for 5 days.

Only in the first three days, according to the DPR Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military made in this segment of the front over 10 attempts to break through the defense of the Republic, and every attempt was preceded by heavy artillery bombardments.

While the first attempts to breakthrough looked like the Ukrainian command’s complete loss of control over the situation on the front, by the mid-week the development of the situation made it possible to assume that the continuous attacks of the Ukrainian military were a planned provocation aimed at disrupting the progress in the framework of the Minsk Agreements.

By that time, at the negotiations in Minsk, the Contact Group had been able to reach an agreement on the issue of the prisoner exchange. Such an exchange could have given President Poroshenko an opportunity to demonstrate to the Western curators his willingness to carry out certain conditions of the Minsk-2 and to insist, at the same time, on reviewing its other, political, requirements.

After the fighting had begun, any talk about the exchange of prisoners was out of question. According to the intelligence of the Republics, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had not given the order to attack. On the other hand, the other person authorized to give such an order is the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Turchinov, who, occupying the post of the Acting President of Ukraine in 2014, had taken the decision to start the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in Donbass, and since then, has remained one of the most ardent supporters of its completing by force.

In the mid-week, Turchynov personally visited the front line, and then said that ‘the Ukrainian troops have stopped the separatists in the Svetlodarsk arc area and have even moved forward during the counter-offensive’.

As evidence of the offensive by the «separatists», one of the MPs of the Verkhovnaya Rada posted in his Facebook a video of an alleged battle near Debaltsevo, which was later identified as a video from the exercises of the Russian Federation Army «Caucus-2012».

The commander of the nationalist battalion «Donbass» confirmed Turchynov’s word about moving forward, saying that the Ukrainian units had occupied a village located in the «gray» area, which is a direct violation of the Minsk Agreements.

At the same time, one of the Ukrainian officers said on the air of Ukrainian television that the events of recent days in the Debaltsevo area ​​had been a planned operation and ‘the AFU offensive was intended to improve the position of the troops’. He also called this ’tactical maneuver’ a failure and ‘a waste of human resources’.

The Ukrainian side has suffered substantial losses in this operation. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced 15 men killed and over 30 wounded in 5 days of fighting, while according to the Republics’ authorities, the Ukrainian losses amounted to over 50 men dead and over 100 wounded, which was confirmed by Ukrainian volunteers. Kiev also lost two armored vehicles during its «offensive».

Such high losses are yet another confirmation of the unpreparedness of the operation to break through the defense of the Republics. 

According to the LPR Defense Ministry, during one of the attempts to break through, that occurred in the middle of the week, a Ukrainian unit went on the attack, without waiting for the artillery barrage on their part, and, as a result, came under their own artillery fire, having lost 11 men killed and 8 wounded.

During another attempt to attack, soldiers of the LPR army retreated from their strongholds, allowing the Ukrainian military to occupy them, and then they cut off the latter from the retreat and communication, and these strongholds were shelled from the artillery of the Republics. 

In the Ukrainian social networks, these heights were called a «mini-pocket» on that day. Few of those Ukrainian military who were able to get out of this «mini-pocket», made a video of their stampede.

In the mid-week, it was reported that the wounded Ukrainian soldiers were being taken out by helicopters, i.e. the evacuation of the wounded had not even been considered. A Ukrainian volunteer spoke about the same problem in his address to Poroshenko. The man said that none but volunteers were engaged in rescuing the wounded in their own civil transport, and that the wounded were freezing to death without assistance.

Soldiers of the LPR army reported that the Ukrainian military had gone into battle under the influence of drugs that had been found on their dead bodies. This information was indirectly confirmed by Ukrainian volunteers in a Kharkov hospital, who reported that the wounded from the Svetlodarsk arc were coming in inadequate condition and were immediately sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Earlier in the week, simultaneously with the beginning of the offensive in the Debaltsevo area, Kiev made several attempts to break through in the south of the DPR, which also proved unsuccessful. 

As a result of clashes and attacks on the Ukrainian side, the LPR army lost 7 soldiers killed, 8 wounded and 1 missing. The DPR army losses amounted to one soldier killed and two wounded.

Failing to achieve success in any of the segments of the frontline, the Ukrainian military again began to deliberately shell the localities of the Republic. 

The fire on the residential areas of Debaltsevo was opened from the Ukrainian side for the first time since February 2015.

In Dokuchaevsk, In the south of the DPR, under fire came a kindergarten and a school.

In just the past week, until 00:00 on December 24, when the «regime of silence» was again declared, Kiev had opened fire on the territory of the DPR over 10,000 times. On the last day before the next, ninth truce, the number of attacks on the Ukrainian side exceeded 3,000, including over 100 rounds from artillery, over 1,000 rounds from heavy mortars, 30 rounds from tanks and 16 rounds from MLRS «Grad».

In addition to Debaltsevo in the north, Donetsk in the center and Dokuchaevsk in the south, Kiev shelled another 18 localities, which resulted in over 30 homes destroyed or damaged, two schools, a kindergarten. There were also damaged power lines, leaving about 5,000 residents of localities in the Debaltsevo area, as well as 5 localities in the south of the DPR, without light and heat.

On the territory of the LPR, over the past week, the Ukrainian side launched over 2,000 artillery and mortar shells. 

The OSCE mission also stated in its report a sharp increase in the number of attacks in Donbass. 

‘In Donbass, from 12 to 18 December, the use of heavy weapons has tripled compared to the previous week’.

The OSCE report emphasized that most of the violations of the cease-fire had been observed in the last few days in the area of ​​Debaltsevo, without specifying, as usual, from what side these violations had been observed. 

Over 2016, representatives of the mission have registered over 300,000 violations of the ceasefire, including over 3,000 cases of the use of weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements, as well as 83 civilian deaths and 305 cases of injury of civilians.

At the same time, since the outbreak of the hostilities in the Debaltsevo area, the mission observers practically ceased to appear on the positions, which did not stop them from specifying in their daily reports that the LPR army soldiers had not allowed them into their positions.

The deputy chief of the mission, Alexander Hug said that the OSCE observers had lost the opportunity to document violations on the contact line and did not anymore have reliable information from the area of ​​the hostilities.

Meanwhile, the adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine said that Donbass should be Ukrainized, even if it had to be done by force. 

The head of the military-civilian administration of the Kiev-controled part of the Donetsk region said that Kiev was likely to have to ‘go on the Croatian way’ in order to return Donbass.

On the first day after the announcement of the «regime of silence», the Ukrainian side opened fire on the territory of the DPR 176 times, including 11 rounds from artillery. The next day, the number of attacks increased to 224. In Debaltsevo, there were again damaged houses of civilians.

According to the military authorities of the DPR, in the village occupied by the Ukrainian military during the «offensive», about 40 civilians were forced to flee their homes because of the persecution the «liberators».

Journalist of Novorossia Vision - Irina Burya