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BREAKING: Ukrainian troops begin special operation in Slavyansk - reports
1
May, 2014
The
Ukrainian army has reportedly begun a special operation against
pro-autonomy activists in the eastern town of Slavyansk. The city is
now blocked by the Ukrainian military, with 20 helicopters used to
crack down on self-defense forces.
Two
helicopters were reportedly shot down by self-defense forces, with
one pilot dead and another one captured, RIA Novosti news agency
reported.
The
Slavyansk self-defense leader also said that helicopters are shooting
down at the city with missiles, but that there have been no reports
of damage, Interfax reported.
Slavyansk
self-defense forces told RIA Novosti that the Ukrainian military has
attacked several positions.
“The
attack is targeting a few checkpoints at the same time. A few armored
vehicles and airborne combat vehicles arrived and airborne troops
descended from the helicopters and attacked the checkpoints. Some
forces were dropped off around the train station, where we didn’t
have anyone,” RIA
Novosti quoted the press secretary of the Slavyansk self-defense
units as saying.
Early Friday morning, a city siren – which is designed to warn local residents of a Ukrainian military attack – went off and shots were heard. A few minutes later, the siren stopped and everything calmed down, according to reports.
A
few of the activists were injured during the attack, Interfax cited
the city’s self-defense unit as saying.
A
commander at one of the checkpoints told RIA Novosti that the
Ukrainian army has taken control of one of the roadblocks on the
outskirts of Slavyansk, as well as the city’s TV broadcasting
center. The Ukrainian army is putting up artillery around the
captured TV station in Slavyansk, a city administration spokesman
said, as cited by RIA Novosti.
A
police station was reportedly seized, while the city center remains
quiet, RT’s Paula Slier reported from Ukraine. Several armored
vehicles have been seen outside Slavyansk, she added.
Thick
smoke was spotted on the outskirts of the city, where the roadblocks
are located.
A
video posted on YouTube reportedly shows the start of the special
operation in Slavyansk:
CNN
Scale of violence grows in
Ukraine -Cnn News Latest
Ukraine
brings back conscription amid unrest in country's east
Ukraine's
acting President Aleksandr Turchinov has announced he is reinstating
a military draft to help deal with the “deteriorating” situation
in the country's east and south
RT,
1
May, 2014
.
The
draft will call on all males between 18 and 25 years of age, who are
not eligible for an exemption.
Turchinov's
office said in a statement on Thursday that the decision was
made "given
the deteriorating situation in the east and the south...the rising
force of armed pro-Russian units and the taking of public
administration buildings...which threaten territorial integrity.”
The
military draft will be carried out in May-July, but no details were
given as to where the new conscripts will be deployed.
Last
year, Ukraine announced plans to stop the draft in 2014 and begin the
transfer to a professional army. However, Turchinov said he decided
to change the existing law due to “threats
of encroachment on Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
On
Wednesday, Turchinov said the government in Kiev cannot
control the
situation in the east of the country and that Ukraine’s army is on
full alert due to the “threat
of a Russian invasion.”
“I
am going back to the real threat that Russia would unleash a
continental war against Ukraine. Our armed forces have been put on
full alert,” Turchinov
told a council of Ukrainian regional heads in Kiev on Wednesday.
Meanwhile,
May Day celebrations in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine turned
violent as
pro-autonomy activists seized the local prosecutor’s office. Police
responded with tear gas and stun grenades but later relinquished
their weapons.
The
storming of the Donetsk Region Prosecutor’s Office began when
several dozen shield-holding protesters pelted rocks and petrol bombs
at the building while chanting, “Fascists!” as
they tried to break in.
Twenty-six
people sustained injuries, including gunshot wounds, as a result of
the storm and clashes, RIA Novosti reported, citing Donetsk
officials. Two of them were hospitalized. The Interior Ministry said
that one National Guard soldier was wounded.
Yet another totally crazy idea
from Banderastan
1
May, 2014
Every
passing day bring it share of utterly nonsensical news out of the
rump-Ukraine aka "Banderastan". Today is not
exception, see for yourself this
headlines from the BBC's website:
Ukraine
reinstates conscription as crisis deepens
Sure enough, for the zombified TV watchers this might sound like something meaningful. But is it? Let's recall where the current Ukrainian military comes form by remembering what the Ukraine's military was at the moment this Soviet Republic became independent.
I have long destroyed my old archives and I simply did not want to scout the Internet for hours to find out what the Ukraine had inherited from the USSR. I knew that the Ukies had inherited what was called the "2nd strategic echelon" which translates into "not the newest weapons systems, but a lot of them". And today, I suddenly came across an interesting article in the Russian press which gave me exactly what I wanted: a description of what the armed forces of the independent Ukraine began with. As it turns out, the Ukraine had:
700,000 servicemen
14 motorized rifle divisions.
4 tank divisions
3 artillery divisions
8 artillery brigades
4 Spetsnaz brigades
2 airborne brigade
7 attack helicopters regiments
3 air armies (about 1100 combat aircraft)
1 independent Air Defense Army
Not bad eh?
Today there are all sorts of figures thrown around about how big the Ukrainian military is, anywhere from several tens of thousands to a few hundred. It really all depends on what you count and how you count. We should stay clear from this kind of bean count and simply state the Ukrainian military is both unwilling and/or unable to crush a rebellion composed only of a few hundred armed men backed by a few thousand unarmed civilians (I am talking about the folks actually manning barricades and occupying buildings, not about sympathizers). In other words, the pro-Russian insurgency in the eastern Ukraine could be defeated with just one battalion of airborne troops. And yet, the regime cannot even muster that much.
Why?
There are two reasons. The first one is that there is a stream of consistent and mutually corroborating reports on the Runet (Russian Internet) which says that the pro-Russian insurgents and the Ukrainian servicemen simply do not want to shoot at each other, even when given the order to do so. Furthermore, they appear to be in regular contact with each other and there is an informal understanding that neither side will fire at the other.
The other reason is, of course, 22 years of "democracy". Keep in mind that only 9 years of democracy almost destroyed Russia which by 1998-9 was pretty close to a total collapse. Several factors contributed to avoid this outcome, first and foremost the nomination of Putin, but Russia came very, very close to simply disappearing as a unitary state. If democracy could do that to a giant like Russia in only 8-9 years, one can only imagine what it could do to a much smaller and weaker Ukraine over 22 years.
Keep in mind that if the military was simply neglected and abandoned, then the rest of the economy pro-actively pillaged by the oligarchs. Think Berezovsky, think Khodorkovsky, then multiply them by 10 or 20 and increase their period of malfeasance from 9 years to 22 years and it is outright amazing that there still is a little something left of the Ukrainian economy in 2014. True, most of that is located in the East and was kept on life support by Russian money. Still, I have to say that while I am most definitely not an admirer of the Soviet system, the fact that it took so long to truly obliterate the Ukraine is a testimony to the resilience and what I would call a "capital of momentum" left by the Soviet Union to its successor states. Even Russia survived the absolute horror of the 1990s only thanks to all the "momentum" it inherited from the USSR.
No wonder that so many people today are becoming nostalgic of the Soviet era - by a strange self-protection mechanism the human being remembers the good much better than the bad (anybody who has gone through bootcamp will attest to that). And it is undeniable that compared to the empty promises, and actual horrors, of democracy the Soviet system was much, much better.
What is clear now is that the Ukraine has eventually wasted all of what it had been given by the Soviet Union. There is no more momentum left. The Ukraine is at a full stop, and it is rapidly disintegrating.
So what about this idea of return to a conscript military?
It is, to put it mildly, of truly breathtaking stupidity. There is no other way of putting it.
First, and this might sound paradoxical, the Ukraine simply does not need a military at all, if only because it cannot afford one. In fact, a country is MUCH safer not having a military than having a useless one because the latter can always be used to justify an attack whereas a country without a military is extremely hard to attack, at least in political terms.
Then, it takes decades and huge sums of money to (re-)built a military. The Ukraine simply cannot afford that at all, so why bother?
Also, the military is not the correct tool to use to put down insurgents, not the Russian speakers in the East, not the Banderists in the West. That is a mission for Internal Troops which have a totally different training and equipment than the regular military. In other words, what the Ukraine needs first and foremost today are forces like the Berkut which the junta has destroyed.
Then consider the economy. How wise is it to pull out of the economy a large segment of young men precisely when they could be the most dynamic and productive? And for how long to do pull them out? It takes 4-6 months to train a solider. Then, a typical term of service would be no less than 6-12 months depending on your system. In other words, at the very least a young conscript would leave home and be pulled out of the market and the economy for a full year. Without a well-oiled system and legal framework this can be catastrophic.
Besides, what does a large, under-paid, under-fed, and under-trained force become? Slave labor for the generals. They can be used to make roads and build mansions, but as a combat force their value is zero.
Furthermore, what does a conscription look like in a country which is breaking apart? It looks like a free distribution of firearms.
Last but not least - Turchinov and Iatseniuk are kidding themselves: a bigger Ukrainian army by no means implies a less pro-Russian one. What is the point of creating a conscript army if all it does is increase the numbers of servicemen changing sides and helping the Russian-speakers? Did I mention that the biggest population centers are, of course, also in the East?
To put it bluntly: to propose to return to a conscript army for the Ukraine is nothing short of absolute and total lunacy. I can only wonder which crazies in the West gave Turchinov and Iatseniuk this crazy idea. McCain? Hillary? Kerry?
The good news is that this kind of lunacy shows that the leaders of the junta in power have completely lost any sense of reality and that every single measure they officially announce with great pomp and earnestness only makes their situation worse.
If this insanity continues at the same pace the end of Banderastan might be very near.
The Saker
Kiev Admits it isn't in Control as Donetsk Announces Independence Referendum
The
provisional government in Kiev has finally admitted what we've been
saying for weeks: They aren't able to control their police and armed
forces.
1
May, 2014
After
several weeks of talking tough, and after attempting twice to use the
military to crush the separatist uprising in the East (and failing
twice), the provisional government in Kiev has changed their tone.
Now they're in damage control mode.
Today
Ukraine’s acting President Aleksandr Turchinov admitted what we've
been saying for weeks: that Kiev cannot bring the eastern regions
under control because they don't have their armed forces under
control.
"I
will be frank: Today, security forces are unable to quickly take the
situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control,"
Turchynov said. "The security bodies ... are unable to carry out
their duties of protecting citizens. They are helpless in those
matters." "Moreover, some of those units are either helping
or cooperating with terrorist organizations," he said.
Can't
get much clearer than that.
Of
course they try to spin as much as they can by referring to the
separatists as terrorists, but when the police and military are
siding with the rebels, that can't be glossed over with a few
unsubstantiated slurs.
Turchynov
then went on to announce that they were essentially giving up on the
East and would now be focusing on keeping the rebellion from
spreading.
"That
is why I am stressing our task is to stop the spread of the terrorist
threat, first of all in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions,"
Turchynov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Oh,
yeah, and they'll be ramping up the fear mongering about a possible
Russian invasion (yes, he actually announced that in advance.).
“I
am going back to the real threat that Russia would unleash a
continental war against Ukraine. Our armed forces have been put on
full alert,”
Soooo...
you're going to put the armed forces that you just admitted aren't
obeying you "on full alert". Keep us posted on how that
works out captain.
Just
for laughs Turchynov decided to add in a sprinkle of ironic moral
hindsight: “as we know from the experience of Maidan, the use of
force is inefficient. That’s the situation we faced in the eastern
regions.” He says this is AFTER he order the military to crush the
rebellion. Twice.
So
what's next? Well it appears that this will be decided by the people
of Donetsk in less than two weeks. The separatists have announced
that a referendum will be held in Donetsk region on May 11. Citizens
will have to answer the question: "Do you support the act of the
proclamation of independence of the Donetsk State People's
Republic?".
This
date was obviously chosen to cut in before the national elections
that the coup appointed government in Kiev is attempting to organize
for May 25th.
“We
have no plans to take part in our neighbor’s election,” said
Denis Pushilin, a leader of the People’s Republic of Donetsk.
Related:
Russia warns that it will Intervene in Eastern Ukraine - Washington
Promises to 'Support' Kiev
Moving
quickly here is a smart move for the rebels. Elections, have the
effect of solidifying the perceived legitimacy of a new regime.
Beating Kiev to the punch may have serious implications that extend
far beyond the east.
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