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via Russia Times
After sustained defensive combat against Ukrainian troops in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk during August, rebels are now reporting of entrapping two large groups of Kiev troops and seizing military hardware in a counteroffensive.Is this spin, pure propaganda, the whole truth or bits and pieces of the truth?
The main headquarters of the DPR army has made a decision to stop operations in small groups and form full-bodied independent military units, the anti-Kiev forces say in a summary of their operations filed on Sunday.
They also say they are blocking a large “punitive force” near Alekseevskoe, Blagodatnoe, Voykovsky, Kuteinikovo, Ulyanovskoe and Uspenka.
Some 5,000 Kiev troops “with military hardware” including some 50 tanks, over 200 armored vehicles and 50 artillery rocket systems (including Grad) are trapped in the area, the DPR claims.
“DNR’s army has surrounded the staff headquarters of the 8th army corps, 28th and 30th mechanized brigades, 95th air mobile brigade of the army of Ukraine, and also punitive battalions ‘Aidar’, ‘Donbass’ and ‘Shakhtersk’,” the document claims.
I have no idea.
While at it, they also surrounded London, Berlin and Washington. Next stop - China.
ReplyDeleteI'd say bits and pieces. My thinking is that they're trying to invent an imminent capture of Ukrainian equipment as cover for the massive material support they're receiving from Russia.
ReplyDeletethats what i was thinking, its a good cover for when a huge corps of tanks and armor just "show up"
DeleteYou do realize that west would just love to show tanks crossing in if there was any proof. So far we only have alegations .
DeleteWhere is that supposedly partially destroyed Ruski column that supposedly crossed into ukraine.
You'd think the US would be easily capable of proving all the russian aggression considering how it has the world's most potent intelligence agencies, NATO aerial surveillance in the area and satellite imagery all across the world.
DeleteYeah you would think they would be capable of prooving it wouldn't you, what with the how many military sattelites they would have targeting Russia and their military bases, I am sure that if anything did happened, there would be sattelite footage of it that hour broadcasting on every major american TV network.
DeleteNot to mention of the Europeans who also have their own spy sattelites, and then there is the more conventional survaillance done by organizations like the NSA, GCSB and all the spy agencies, who are surely keeping a very close eye on russian military equipment around that area. If this sort of stuff was true they would surely have evidence the moment it happened, you can't just hide hundreds of armoured vehicles, tanks, artillery pieces!
It became really impossible to say nowdays.
ReplyDeleteBut russian convoy somehow made through ukraine-controlled territory(according to BBC map) - and that alone makes Ukrainian claim doubtful.
About encirclement it'll become clear very soon, though - too many people claimed to be inside.
True that. War is obviously not going well for Kiev. Given that 'separatists' now even attacked down south near the Novoazovsk makes Kiev's story just that a story.
Deletehttp://militarymaps.info/
Not sure about this specific event, but this video and this picture show a whole different account for Ukranian POWs vs the amount the government admits to.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B_3Tq3u3c0&app=desktop
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10646638_264542997089972_6814569451834852430_n.jpg?oh=36ce7a838cb7539ed9c7c7890e23a550&oe=54691DCB&__gda__=1417328243_3e2fbfa151bf5a9c89597ec7f72caa87
Even if you account for curiosity, that's way more people attending than you'd expect if the rebels were really hated like the ukranian media tells us.
there is no iron circle around Donetsk, there is more likely a checkerboard of strong points Russian troops and equipment can slip past.rai
ReplyDeleteUkrainian troops hold a crossroads or woods one day, the rebels hold them the next, back and forth.
To all the posters above, a lot of what is supposedly happening in the news reports posted by Solomon above seems to be very credible indeed. From what I gather it seems this encirclement of Ukrainian government forces is either a continuation of an earlier series of encirclement operations which occured against Ukr troops or is a second instance of a new and additional encirclement operation which has occured (AGAIN).
ReplyDeleteHere is a website with some more information on this story as well as a few links to youtube videos. I don't know why the MSM is not picking up on this but for sure the Ukr Army seems to have suffered a few serious reversals over the last few weeks.
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-08-17T21:30:00Z&max-results=20&start=3&by-date=false
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/three-more-ukrainian-brigades-destroyed/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=609D3iJKBtQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux29sJ6sNMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-COBLnIVUE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCCwqT0xk04
Wait... ain't that guy in the first video the same one shown here?
Deletehttp://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-motley-volunteers-blend-patriotism-with-bravado-1407960359
His frustrated speech in these recordings sure puts into light a whole lot of things.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi Brunus,
DeleteYeah it is him and from his testimony things clearly are not going as well as the Ukr government is putting out. There are a few more videos on the Vineyard of the Saker which also suggest a similar experience to that which the guy in the first movie has been through.
If this is even half true then the loss of three brigades (which supposedly happened earlier this month) could number anything from 10 to 15 thousand troops plus armour and weaponry. I find that a little shocking when one considers the information coming out from the BBC, CNN, NYTimes and others. And now it seems that a few more units, either brigade or battalion sized, have been encircled again and yet nothing's coming out of the MSM, why?
Can't say I'm very surprized by the turn of events. Some might discount them as spin, but the truth is, it's Western media networks that do most of the spinning, taking at face value all the BS that comes out of Kiev.
ReplyDeleteLast week, everybody was talking about imminent surrender and capture of Donetsk and Lugansk, which was so surreal it made me smile, despite the tragic nature of events on the ground.
So here's my take on it, based on info I'm hearing:
On August 19th, Kiev started yet another "offensive" which failed as much as the previous ones. Engagements on the ground actually have shown that Ukie infantry is outmanoeuvered and outperformed by Seppos. Also, the rebel artillery has proven to be more precise and more professionnal than the Ukie conscripts, whose morale is rapidly sinking. All that pro-Kiev are left to do, is to direct large scale, indiscriminate shelling at city centers, hoping to get some of the rebels, but mostly failing due to their incompetence, leaving civil casualties instead.
The whole Ukie strategy was based on the wrong assumption that they could pull another "Slaviansk" which is a deeply flawed thinking, as i pointed out in a previous post. Besides, they failed to cut off Donetsk water supply and the Russian "aid" convoy that has now arrived in Lugansk actually means that the Ukies offensive against those cities is going to fail miserably.
The rebels seem to have now started their own counter-offensive, which they had been announcing for 3 weeks. Guess the fact that improvement of the situation in Donetsk and Lugansk allows them to pull some forces from these areas and use them elsewhere. the objective is not so much to encircle Pro-Kiev forces but to take control of the border area with Russia, in order to facilitate movement of material and men over that border. If they reach that goal, their next move might be to go for Mariupol and Slaviansk.
I predict a very hard to swallow reality check for all those who have been saying that the rebels are about to get crushed. In fact, there's gonna be a lot of disbelief and head shaking in a lot of places, given the fact that Kiev has sent most of its forces in the Donbass, leaving the 'hinterland' mostly troops empty ... The region of Kharkov, Zaporojie or Dniepropetrovsk is largely unguarded and this vacuum might prove a real strategic blunder for Kiev, if rebels are able to exploit it by infiltrating various sized armed groups into those areas, cutting of supply roads, attacking army convoys and bascially wrecking havoc behind ennemy lines. Wouldnt be surprised if they pulled that of, in one form or the other, as some recent news (not mentioned in Western media) have shown.
Meanwhile, the minister of the Economy has resigned. He probably knows what's around the corner and doesnt want to serve as a scapegoat: winter is coming soon (and no Russian gas supplies in sight, while coal used for heating - which used to come mostly from Donbass - will also not be delivered due to stand-still of production or deliveries). Lots of ukrainian have started bying electrical heating devices which is going to put a lot of strain on electricity production in Ukraine, with most probably electricity blackouts in the winter if there's no Russian gas coming.
Politically, things are f*ed up as well, with the Right Sektor trying to weigh in heavily on the government. Word on the street is, that Porochenko is so fed up with the Parouby and Jarosh, that ‘Aidar’, ‘Donbass’ and ‘Shakhtersk’battalions are being sent deliberatly into battles that will bleed them out ... wouldnt be surprized if that was true as well.
All in all, the outlook for Kiev is very bleak, contrary to what the the pro-Kiev supporters have been saying for months (just for the record, I'm neither pro- nor anti- anybody in this fight, just observing what's going on). We've been hearing loads of BS, but the shit is about to hit the fan. More "bad" news coming over days to come, at least til august 26.
I don`t think any of us here are decidedly pro-anything when it comes to the current world stage, except maybe pro-truth. And in this regard, we`ve been let down by everything that sought to represent us. From fairy tales to flat out lies and accusations without any shred of solid proof, it becomes quite obvious we CAN`T take sides with those we want to side with because their behaviour is so erractic and pathetic allying with them would be agaisnt everything we believe is right.
ReplyDeleteFrom Sol`s beloved Marine Corps to the West we belong to, everything is being ripped to shreds and amost no one wants to face reality.
It looks like those bars are missing some stars :-P
ReplyDeletedefinitely bears resemblance to Confederacy flags, however it's not missing any stars, as this is just the battle flag of the "Federal State of Novarossija", as Seppos call it.
DeleteBased mostly on the naval jack of the Russian navy, with possibly deliberate reference to battle flag to the Army of Tennessee ;-)