Crisis in the Ukraine

On the contrary, with the flourish of a signature Poroshenko had successfully halted the separatist advance that no Kiev forces were able to do.
And also, he doesn't have any power over the ultra rightists back in Kiev to get them to admit defeat and accept the victory of the separatists. His head will fall first.

There are also reports of Kiev forces violating the ceasefire with large scale armoured column movements, capturing of village held by militia, attacks on other militia held towns and continued artillery fire on Donetsk. These are definitely not signs of a sincere ceasefire. Saker has also reported same.

The current go-to site for updated frequent almost hourly reports on the situation.




Contravention of Geneva Convention
Using clearly marked ambulances to move artillery pieces


Large scale movement of armoured columns into Mariupol



Large armoured columns other places and fighting.


Artillery shelling from Mariupol





Capture of village Telmanovo by large armoured column



Continued shelling of Donetsk


Political officer of Donbass battalion in Mariupol Twitter -
"Even if we broke the truce first this is our Ukraine land and we do what we want to do".

SampanViking said:

I suspect that is just a little alarmist.

I personally believe that Poroshenko will be very reluctant to start the conflict, especially with an Parliamentary election scheduled for next month.

My guess is that he plans to dump the blame for the disastrous war on Yatsenyuk and the rest of the Maidan installed government. He will say that as the new President he was lumbered with a war that they started.
His plan no doubt is to highlight his electoral legitimacy in contrast to their lack of it and to use that and the war blame to achieve a majority for his own party.

Prepare for Maidan Mk3 as the cold shouldered extremists try to re-run their earlier tactics. Interested to see if Yats and Co respond by questioning Poroshenko's legitimacy, most likely on account of accusations of sell out and appeasement.

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Putin's Spetnez exposed his lies to western media!!

Sputnik said:

from Graham Phillips (Eng subs)
[video=youtube;S4TfQmPT8-k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4TfQmPT8-k[/video]

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BTW, Kiev forces are shelling east Mariupol because the separatists broke into it before the truce.

Ukraine: "We are not jihadists!" French DPR fighters rubbish media claims
[video=youtube;_UfmOSCYa0k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UfmOSCYa0k[/video]
Ukraine: 'Bound for Moscow' - wrecked Kiev tank found near Mariupol
[video=youtube;PYD6SxOiOME]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYD6SxOiOME[/video]

spooky report:
[video]http://bcove.me/j1jliotv[/video]
at around 03:00, it purports to show at the Luhansk Airport a truck with Russian Military plate, and with a flag of some Russian Military Unit inside -- fake?

Continued ceasefire violations by Kiev forces. Translation by Google Chrome.

Posted by journalists Lifenews.
"On the outskirts of Donetsk ongoing mortar attacks
Ukrainian military again violated the terms of the ceasefire agreement.
Ukrainian army continues to apply mortar strikes in Donetsk, the correspondent Mikhail Fomichev LifeNews. previous night firing was recorded near the village of Spartacus. also known that in the vicinity of Mariupol also conducted the shelling. "



"On Debalcevo came 32 new tanks. Artemovska in tank units accompanied by thirteen tanks came 15" Shylock "(anti-aircraft self-propelled), seven" Points-U ", six" Grad "one unit" Twister "- reported in the headquarters Gorlovki militia.
According to intelligence militias long column of vehicles from the security forces should Mironovka (village Artemovskiy district) to Debalcevo.

Malaysia sending crash investigators back to the site.

Malaysia sending MH17 crash investigators to Ukraine
The Malaysian government is sending a team of 30 police officers and experts to the MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine on September 8 to investigate the reasons behind the accident, chief of police Khalid Abu Bakar said. Another group made up of 50 people will follow later. Bakar did not specify when the experts could be granted access to the crash site. Around the same time, Malaysia’s Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein will be visiting Ukraine. “The main objective of the trip will be to gain secure access for experts to the crash site. We hope that the Ukrainian government and self-defense forces will allow us to do that,” he said. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Region on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.

Russia is on the attack again and it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone.

SampanViking said:

... I will pour a glass of the good stuff tomorrow and will credit you with it.
...

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did you, SampanViking?

Me loosing an argument on the SDF is of course the least of the problems of this world and personally, as I said before, I like to argue in the pub, so ... I've lost some arguments before Nevertheless, I went backwards through some of the sources you used, and also read Ukrainian unofficial military articles which already started "armchair-generaling" and "second-guessing" on the July-August Campaign. I did it because I like to think about "what the side which lost should've done differently" in any conflict (if I hope I have enough data) -- but I know some people consider this type of thinking ridiculous ... I wonder how it is in this thread, so I'll only briefly mention my "conjecture" or "private investigation" (I could include more links if you insisted):
the Separatists were in "an operational crisis" until about the time when

was ousted (together with groups which wouldn't accept "Central Command and Control" like
)
and after that, they
1) started to prepare counter-offensive (I missed

showing the salient around Uspenka (Успенка -- the southernmost point on this map) created in mid August -- why go "out of the defense line"??) and
2) created battle reserves by calling off units from "more secure" sectors; there's another "factor", which is of the direct Russian involvement at this point, but I intentionally skip this right now. However, the Ukrainian forces basically didn't react to the above, and became predictable in the sense they would slowly push in the directions at which they had been deployed, and that (limited!) reserves they had would only be used locally. I stop my long post at this point, and you may tell me what you think.

I see discussions on any forum not so much as winning but gaining additional viewpoints and deeper understanding of issues that we might not be familiar with.