Resistance Turning Tide in Eastern Ukraine
Michael Collins
A Short but Important Update from Colonel Cassad – English: The Colonel Cassad blog is an invaluable source of information on what’s really going on in the eastern Ukraine. The resistance militia defending the regions against attacks on civilian centers by the Kiev government seems to have turned a corner based on this information in item number 3) in the full report below. It outlines important advantages gained by the resistance in the battle for Donetsk. The Kiev government’s punitive mission, attacking Donetsk and Lugansk in the latest iteration, verges on failure.
This comes as the United States – European Union puppet government in Kiev faces some major crises. The economy is collapsing and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can’t do much to help. Mark Adominis predicted this in Forbes four months ago.
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Russia has always had the ability to wreck economic havoc on Ukraine, and this should have made the West a lot more cautious about the Eastern Partnership and the general effort to incorporate Ukraine into European institutions. In retrospect the entire effort to sign the association agreement appears to have been a rather reckless gamble which no one knew the stakes of. Mark Adomonis, Forbes, April 15, 2014
The head of the European Central Bank warned of the impact of Ukraine’s economic collapse in early August. International rating agency, Fitch, lowered Ukraine’s assessment to CCC, one step away from default, on August 22. The economic collapse resulted from the choice of Kiev to attack to most economically viable section of the country, the eastern regions, which account for 58% of Ukrainian exports and a large section of the economy.
Considerable troop losses resulted in conscription in the Kiev government’s political base of support. This, in turn, has created a protest movement of mothers who don’t want their sons sacrificed to the incompetent war criminals running the country.
Of note, the corporate media is actually reporting attacks on civilian centers and expressing doubt about some of the allegations of the Kiev gangsters. It is not real reporting, by any means, but it’s a sign that the most outrageous lies won’t be peddled as fact, at least by some journalists.
Amid all of this bad news, U.S. puppet and veritable agent, President Petro Poroshenko, dissolved parliament and called for new elections. How will people in the eastern regions of Ukraine vote when Poroshenko’s troops are firing artillery rounds at citizens?
A Short but Important Update from Colonel Cassad – English Full Report
1. About Strelkov: The news are ahead of the event. He got an offer to move in and become a military adviser in the Krasnodon HQ, but he did not yet agree to this. Someone apparently has seen it fit to leak the info to the press. What were the goals of this leak, good or bad, is yet unclear.
2. The Panic in Mariupol: As I wrote before, the threat on the outskirts of the city was multiplied by the confusion in the area, so when one of the Junta armored columns retreating from Novoazovsk was mistaken for militia, this led to the hysteria of “DPR tanks are just about to roll into Mariupol!”. Hence the traffic jams of civilians and junta soldiers at the highway to Berdaynsk, people thought Mariupol would be taken today and in a panic rushed out of the city. Interestingly, when it came to running, the nationalist guard units easily outpaced the civilians, leaving just one punitive battalion and the remnants of police forces to defend Mariupol. This story is very significant in the sense that it clearly shows how panic sweeps the entire management system – from the lowest neo-Nazi of the “Azov” battalion to the Gauleiter (chief overseer – ger.) of Mariupol. In reality, advance militia groups are fighting on the outskirts of Mariupol, and Junta is reporting that they are about to create a reliable line of defense and stop militia forces from entering Mariupol (Novoazovsk is already written off, apparently).
3. South-west of Donetsk there is a gaping hole in the junta frontline, with nothing available to close it. Most of the supply routes of the southern junta battlegroup are intercepted by the militia, or under fire and thus impassable. Junta’s situation is rapidly deteriorating and can potentially develop into more than just another encirclement with heavy losses – but a full-blown disaster with the collapse of the entire southern front of Junta forces in Donbass. In the next few days the militiamen are expecting enemy reserves from the rest of Ukraine, which are now hastily redeployed to reverse the effects of militia breakthroughs. Given that the forces of militia are not so large, heavy defensive battles against shock mechanized battlegroups trying to break the encirclement are likely. As you can understand, there is no possibility of a continued assault on Donetsk anymore.
Taking this into account, the defeat of the junta to the south of Donetsk will have implications for other areas – the militia forces are moving towards Debalcevo and thinking about attacking Artemovsk and Konstantinovka. But as the main forces are occupied in other areas, any action there is mainly just to pin junta forces in place.
4. There is also this unverified information. In the Rostov region, there were a series of bizarre murders on the M4 highway. Unknown criminals lay out a strip with nails across the asphalt, and then shoot the drivers that come out to see what was the matter. They do not take the cars, or personal belongings of those killed. There were 3 or 4 such cases. There is a suspicion that there may some Ukrainian Neo-Nazis at work. We are checking the information.
Overall, we are seeing the war in the Donbass completely change direction, in real time. But the victory is not yet assured, and in the coming days, the junta will do everything possible to turn this difficult situation in their favor.