Kiev’s Loss of Control on Frontline - Civil Bus Shot at Ukrainian Checkpoint

On December 18, the Ukrainian army launched another attack to break through in the Debaltsevo direction of the Lugansk front.

The attack began after artillery barrage, during which, according to the LPR military authorities, 150 artillery and mortar shells were launched on the positions of the People's Militia.

Also, according to the LPR headquarters, a breakthrough was attempted by a Ukrainian group of 40 soldiers, accompanied by military equipment. The attack was successfully repelled, with the Ukrainian side having lost 10 men killed and about 30 wounded, as well as 2 infantry fighting vehicles destroyed. In the LPR army, 2 soldiers were killed and another two missing.

It was not the first attempt of Kiev to break through the defense of the Republics, but it was different by a number of oddities.

Firstly, the advancing forces were not sufficient to break through. The defense strength in this segment of the front had already been tested by the Ukrainian military in other unsuccessful attacks in the early autumn.

Secondly, according to LPR army soldiers on the positions, the advancing Ukrainian soldiers were coming right across their own minefields, where most of them died in explosions. At the same time, the location of minefields on the contact line is well known to both parties.

The LPR soldiers also reported that, by their behavior, the Ukrainian military were going on the attack in the state of either alcohol or drugs intoxication.

Thirdly, according to the LPR intelligence, the order to advance had been come from the Ukrainian command.

Fourthly, the next day after the failure of the breakthrough attempt, despite heavy losses, the Ukrainian military went on the attack again, this time in several segments of the front. As a result, the chief doctor of a military hospital in Dnepropetrovsk reported about a huge number of the wounded brought to the city, while local volunteers confirmed that there was no longer enough space for the wounded in the wards, corridors, and even cafeterias of hospitals.

The Ukrainian side confirmed the large losses Debaltsevo direction, albeit understated them to 5 men killed and about 10 wounded. Moreover, the editor in chief of the site «Censor», controlled by the Security Council Secretary Turchinov, openly stated in his blog that the cause of the collision had been another attempt of the Ukrainian army to seize a height in the «gray» zone near Debaltsevo.

At the same time, on the second day of the fighting, radicals of the «Right Sector» reported dozens of dead only in their units. The Republics’ sources in the Ukrainian army reported that the morgue in the city of Artyomovsk was under heavy guard, and tented trucks regularly set out of it to an unknown destination.

Throughout the next day, the Ukrainian side ignored appeals to a ceasefire, made by the Joint Center for Coordination and Control (JCCC) and the OSCE mission. When an agreement about it was finally reached, the Ukrainian military regrouped its forces and delivered equipment for a few hours, and then re-opened artillery fire on the positions of the LPR army.

There are several versions of Kiev’s clearly floppy attacks in the Lugansk direction.

Kiev might have attempted another provocation on the eve of the next meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk and the European Union deciding whether to extend sanctions against Russia.

The Kiev authorities also urgently need to divert attention of the Ukrainians from the nationalization and the introduction of an interim administration in the «Privatbank», one of the largest in Ukraine, which is the core of the Ukrainian financial system.

In addition, it is possible that Kiev has already lost whatever control over its army in Donbas.

Several events that took place last week in the other segments of the front speak in favor of the latter assumption.

In the mid-week, at the checkpoint «Mayorsk» in the Gorlovka area, in the northern segment of the Donetsk front, a Ukrainian soldier, without any reason, opened fire from a machine gun on a group of civilians waiting to [ass to the territory of the DPR. As a result, one civilian was shot in his head and died on the spot, an elderly woman had a heart attack, from which she died in the hospital, and two other civilians were wounded.

Immediately after that, the Ukrainian military opened mortar fire on the checkpoint surroundings, allowing the Ukrainian media to report civilian deaths as the effect of the alleged shelling by the DPR.

It should be noted that journalists of the European media were not admitted to the place of the tragedy in Mayorsk by the OSCE representatives, despite the fact that the journalists had accreditation and permission to work both in the DPR, and on the Kiev-controlled territory.

According to unconfirmed yet information from locals, witnesses the shooting of civilians, who had failed to leave the Kiev-controlled territory, were detained.

Two days later, at the same checkpoint, the Ukrainian military let a group of civilians pass to the neutral zone, then drove to their positions an infantry fighting vehicle and opened fire in the direction of the DPR checkpoint. The DPR army soldiers at the checkpoint were able to hide the civilians behind concrete blocks.

Earlier this week, a crew of the Russian channel NTV came under the targeted shelling from the Ukrainian side.

Also at the beginning of past week, in the south of the DPR, the deliberate fire was opened from the Ukrainian positions on a school.

The daily shelling of the localities to the north of Donetsk did not stop either, with the Ukrainian military opening fire last week on residential areas both at night and during the day.

In total, Kiev opened fire on the territory of the DPR over 9,000 times last week. The intensity of the attacks decreased slightly at the beginning of the week, which the military authorities of the Republic linked with the arrival in Donbass the deputy head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine, Alexander Hug.

After his departure, however, the number of daily attacks again exceeded 1,000, reaching nearly 2,000 by the end of the week.

In Donbass also continue to arrive foreign mercenaries and arms.

According to the DPR intelligence, at the beginning of the week, in the units of the «Right Sector», located to the north of Donetsk, arrived from mercenaries Canada and Italy.

The LPR intelligence reported that in Stanitsa Luganskaya, in the area of which the Ukrainian side had already disrupted the withdrawal of troops seven times, arrived 30 English-speaking instructors communicating with the Ukrainian military through an interpreter. According to the intelligence data, they all are active UK servicemen.

At the same time, the British Defense Secretary, Michael Fallon announced the extension of training programs for the Ukrainian military until 2018.

In Brazil, last week, as a result of the police operation carried out in eight cities, were detained radicals of the regiment «Azov», who had recruited local neo-Nazis to travel to Donbass and participate in the punitive operation. According to the DPR intelligence, the nationalist Ukrainian battalions are also recruiting mercenaries in Europe and the United States.

To the north of Lugansk also came a unit of the nationalist battalion «Lugansk-1", soldiers of which wear balaclavas all the time.

In addition, according to the LPR intelligence, the Ukrainian army received Claymore land mines produced in the USA. Due to the lack of Ukrainian specialists on their installation, together with them, in the Lugansk segment of the front arrived a Canadian instructor on mines and explosives.

At the site of one of the attacks, the DPR army soldiers found 12.7mm bullets which are used in the NATO countries army for machine guns Brown-M2 or large-caliber sniper rifles.

According to the DPR intelligence, in Kiev-controlled Mariupol, the largest city in the south of Donbass, from the Middle East arrived a cargo ship carrying 1,500 tons of ammunition for artillery and mortars. The unloading of the vessel was tight guarded by the radicals of the «Azov».

Thus, the Western military, despite the politicians’ denial of direct military assistance to Ukraine, are already supplying lethal weapons to Kiev, allowing it to continue the war against the civilian population of Donbass. In this light, it does no longer sound so incredible when the Secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine, Turchinov states that Ukraine is able to seize Donbass and cleanse its territory during a week.

In addition, Turchinov announced for the spring of 2017 the release in Ukraine of shock drones with special high-explosive фтв thermobaric munitions.

Meanwhile, last week Kiev delivered, along with dozens of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, 4 300mm MLRS «Smerch» to Donetsk and 6 of them, i.e. a battery, to Lugansk.

Residents of Debaltsevo, which had been freed from the Ukrainian army a year and a half ago and was experiencing unceasing battles for two past days, reported that the militia was forming in the town in order to help the defenders of the Republics.

Journalist of Novorossia Vision - Irina Burya

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