Ukraine Troops Withdrawing from key Town of Debaltseve

[Fred Sanders]

Last edited Wed Feb 18, 2015, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: The Guardian

Retreat from contested railway hub connecting Donetsk and Luhansk marks strategic victory for rebels


Ukrainian troops are retreating from the hotspot of Debaltseve after intense fighting in what marks an important strategic victory for pro-Russia forces.

“All units are being withdrawn. The order was given at six this morning by army command,” said Yevgeny Shevchenko, aide to the commander of the Donbass Battalion, on the road between Debaltseve and Artemivsk. He said 6,000 soldiers had been in the city.

Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said more than 80% of his troops in the town had left.

The size of Debaltseve – it was home to about 25,000 people before the war emptied its streets – belies its strategic importance to rebels as the site of a rail junction connecting their strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Dozens of vehicles – tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, troop transport trucks, ambulances and vans – were streaming down the highway leading from Debaltseve to the main Ukrainian lines near Artemivsk on Wednesday."






Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/18/ukraine-debaltseve-troops-withdraw-fighting-rebels-russia

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Indications are that the ceasefire is holding. This was the last flashpoint, glaringly and purposely left out of the Minsk Accords - to see how it would play out.

Have to give some credit to Poroshenko negotiating the withdrawal with Novorossyia forces to avoid an even more humiliating result.

Now what for Poroshenko? And Kiev?

Peace may not get the ink in the mass media, but how relevant are they anymore in the search for truth?

[Cryptoad]

1. Is Comrade Snowden going to be,,,

appointed Supreme Ukraine Commander East?

[Fred Sanders]

2. That would be chocolate lover McCain. Sad to see the ceasefire is holding.....

[Igel]

7. Truly, a Russian definition.

Russia and lickspittles: "The ceasefire is holding. We've ramped up and staged several assaults after it took effect. As a result, we have gained territory.

"The ceasefire was a great success. Lives were saved and all's well, because it helped us--we may be unreliable liars, but we got stuff and we've been positively rewarded."

Human sacrifice is good when it's at the altar of "progressivism." Many justified Stalin at the time, and even in the late '80s I had arguments with people who continued to insist that it was all propaganda. The USSR was the way to go. Some of them were Americans. Some of them were Russians. They preferred dishonesty that made their ideology sustainable. I considered them to be post-hoc supporters of human sacrifice for their religion. The Crusaders were pikers compared to AKers.

One of my dissertation committee members had a grandfather offed by good Communists. His father drank himself to death because what he wrote was unpublishable, and so he was assigned a job as a hack newspaper reporter. The committee member himself was a computer scientist with scores of published papers until he was denounced as studying a bourgeois science--computer science. He was given the opportunity to keep his academic post (with a change of specialty) provided he become a state informant against others. He was an honorable Russian: He stuck to his personal honor and went into exile for a few decades.

He was progressive.

[another_liberal]

3. There was no way a ceasefire could work if the Ukrainians stayed in Debaltseve . . .

Now that such a huge obstacle has been resolved, I am optimistic this frightening and destructive war may come to an uneasy but lasting close.

[bemildred]

4. The fall of Debaltseve, a strategic defeat for Ukraine

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko confirmed Wednesday that loyalist forces were withdrawing from Debaltseve, marking the abandonment of a strategic rail and road junction to pro-Russian separatist forces.

Ukraine has lost a battle, but not the war – that was Poroshenko’s message to his troops Wednesday as the Ukrainian leader ordered a pullout from the strategic eastern city of Debaltseve.

The Ukrainian troop retreat from the railway hub between the separatist capitals of Luhansk and Donetsk was confirmed by FRANCE 24’s Romeo Langlois, reporting from the region.

"For the Ukrainians, it’s a time of retreat. We’re seeing a number of armored vehicles, some of them pockmarked by shell holes, heading toward Artemisk [a town west of Debaltseve]. In the other direction, there are military ambulances on their way to the warzone to try to evacuate the wounded,” said Langlois, reporting from the road between Debaltseve and Artemisk.

http://www.france24.com/en/20150218-ukraine-debaltseve-strategic-defeat-rebel/

[Fred Sanders]

10. Now Poroshenko has to attend to an economy in tatters and growing dissent..from everywhere.

This may not go well for him or his fascist armed supporters. Is he still intending to impose martial law to keep folks from fleeing his failed regime?

Good thing he has all that chocolate to comfort him.

[bemildred]

5. Why Putin May Be the Lesser of All Russian Evils

As fighting continued in Eastern Ukraine on Monday, despite a ceasefire that was supposed to have gone into effect at 12 a.m., the United Kingdom's former top spy said Russia's President Vladimir Putin isn't going anywhere. What's more, the West may not want him to.

Until his retirement in November, Sir John Sawers was head of the UK's secretive MI6, the rough equivalent of the U.S.'s CIA. In the months since his retirement to the private sector and academia, Sawers has made a number of public statements about international security issues, but none as far-ranging on the situation in Ukraine as the speech he delivered at King's College London on Monday.

The bottom line, according to Sawers, is that Russia wants eastern Ukraine more than the West wants to defend it. Moreover, he said, while Putin may not be the Russian leader Western governments had hoped to deal with, he's probably better than anybody waiting in the wings of the Kremlin.

will be prepared to go further than us," Sawers said, discussing the possibility of further Western intervention in Ukraine and/or stronger economic sanctions. "So he would respond with further escalation on the ground – perhaps cyber attacks against us. We have thousands of deaths in Ukraine. We could start to get tens of thousands. Then what?"


http://www.cnbc.com/id/102435309

[JDPriestly]

11. If you look at the map, East Ukraine is just a small portion of Ukraine.

I would like to know more about what is going on in the rest of Ukraine. East Ukraine is sort of like an appendage to the country. It is important to Russia for strategic reasons, and it has economic importance because of the gas, but Ukraine is much larger than that area.

I think that the West is drawing a line beyond which Putin had better not reach unless he clearly wins the Ukrainian people to his side (and I don't think he will).

[bemildred]

6. Ukrainian forces in retreat

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For Mr Poroshenko, the retreat may have saved the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were all but trapped in the town against a better-equipped army.

But another military defeat, coming as Ukraine approaches the first anniversary of the overthrow of the Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich, may be difficult to stomach for a population weary of a long conflict and could further damage Mr Poroshenko's standing.

Pro-Kiev commanders said some forces had pulled out but there were reports of continued fighting in the town, with retreating Ukrainian forces still coming under attack.

Even before the Ukrainian troops were forced to pull back, last week's peace deal had all but collapsed, with both sides failing to withdraw heavy guns as required after the rebels refused to halt their advance.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/ukrainian-forces-in-retreat.118828253

[bemildred]

8. Why Ukraine Needs Weapons

Just give more war a chance.

MUNICH – It has become something of a mantra among diplomats and other foreign-policy analysts that there is no military solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The only viable path to peace and stability, observers almost unanimously proclaim, is a diplomatic one. But, despite the recent ceasefire agreement announced in Minsk, ongoing violence – reflected in the violent expulsion of Ukrainian forces from the town of Debaltseve – strongly suggests that it is time to consider what is needed to block any Kremlin-imposed military solution.

Three influential American think tanks have already done so, and arrived at the conclusion that the United States should begin supplying Ukraine not only with more non-lethal aid – such as drones, armored Humvees, and medical equipment – but also with “lethal defensive military assistance," in the form of light anti-armor missiles. European governments, however, remain unwilling to reconsider their position on supplying defensive equipment to Ukraine, and have instead reiterated that a diplomatic solution is the only option.

Of course, from Ukraine's perspective, a one-on-one military confrontation with Russia is not a viable option. Last year, when separatist forces in the Donbas region appeared to be crumbling under the weight of Ukraine's counter-offensive, it seemed possible that Ukraine would be able to reassert its sovereignty over the area. But the Kremlin quickly deployed battalion-size tactical groups from the Russian army to support the rebels. Ukraine's relatively weak forces did not stand a chance.

The move exemplifies Russia's commitment to do whatever it takes to prevent a military defeat of the separatist entities that it has incited and forged into fighting units – a determination that has endured, even as the conflict has placed considerable strain on its armed forces. Given this, the prospects for Ukraine to reassert control over the Donbas region militarily are so slim that even trying to do so would be foolish.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ukraine-needs-weapons-by-carl-bildt-2015-02

[bemildred]

9. Austria suffering fallout from Russian sanctions

While the world waits to see whether the Ukraine ceasefire will hold, Austrian businesses look on with dismay at increasingly slim prospects that the economy will pick up this year, writes Alison Langley from Vienna.

After years of enjoying fat profits with Austria's central and eastern European neighbors, business leaders fear that Russia's war with Ukraine could ruin Austria's prosperity. Sanctions, a weakened ruble and low oil prices are all combining to cripple demand.

Austrians are becoming reluctant Europeans, impatient with geo-politics that hinder their nation's growth. They are sitting at the edge of their seat, hoping that the latest ceasefire in Ukraine will hold and that business can get back to usual.

"Everything that happens in central and eastern Europe directly affects Austria much more than, say, Portugal," Stefan Bruckbauer, an analyst for Bank Austria, told DW. Some 70 percent of Austrian exports go to central and eastern Europe.

http://www.dw.de/austria-suffering-fallout-from-russian-sanctions/a-18265877

[JDPriestly]

12. Very true. Thanks for this.

[bemildred]

13. Debaltseve Finally Falls As Months Of Fighting Leaves Eastern Ukraine Looking Apocalyptic

Pictures, but watch out, some are dead people.

After weeks of relentless fighting, the embattled Ukrainian rail hub of Debaltseve fell on Wednesday to Russia-backed separatists, who hoisted a flag in triumph over the town. The Ukrainian president confirmed that he had ordered troops to pull out and the rebels reported taking hundreds of soldiers captive. Associated Press reporters saw several dozen Ukrainian troops retreating with their weapons Wednesday morning from the town in eastern Ukraine, covered in dirt and looking exhausted. Some were driving to the nearby town of Artemivsk in trucks while several others, unshaven and visibly upset, were on foot.

One soldier spoke of heavy government losses, while another said they had not been able to get food or water because of the intense rebel shelling. A third spoke of hunkering down in bunkers for hours, unable to even go to the toilet because of the shelling. They smoked cigarettes in the frigid winter air and gratefully accepted plastic cups of tea given to them by locals. "We're very happy to be here," the hungry soldier told the AP. "We were praying all the time and already said goodbye to our lives a hundred times."

Russian Channel One showed the rebels hoisting their flag over a high-rise building in Debaltseve. Russian state-owned television also showed images of several dozen captured Ukrainian troops being escorted along a village road by the rebels. Semyon Semenchenko, a volunteer battalion commander and a member of the Ukrainian parliament who was highly critical of the government's decision to retreat, said in a statement that 167 injured soldiers have been evacuated from Debaltseve. He mentioned a high death toll and said some bodies had been left behind but did not give specific numbers.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sought to portray the withdrawal as a tactical decision that "laid shame on Russia." He denied reports of large Ukrainian casualties and rebel claims of many soldiers captured, saying troops were leaving Debaltseve with their weapons and ammunition. He said the army had withdrawn 80 percent of its troops from the town by Wednesday morning and two more columns had yet to leave.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/18/ukrainian-city-of-debaltseve-finally-falls-to-russian-backed-separatists_n_6706112.html