Crisis in the Ukraine

thunderchief said:

Well, battle for southern cauldron would probably decide outcome of whole war. If Ukrainians manage to relieve those troops, rebel territory would be almost surrounded and cut in half . On the other hand, if cauldron collapse, rebels would secure their backs and gain huge moral boost. Also, they would be able to divert loot of troops now facing cauldron towards main Ukrainian trust .

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Dannhill said:

A report that Poland has sent units to help Ukraine suppress their civil war.
If true, this is a serious escalation of the conflict.

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delft said:

OT
I'm not really interested in silencers but I'm interested in the fact that some Irishman close to his fighters, probably one himself, had a better notion of what was really necessary and practical to achieve a worthwhile tactical advantage than the experts who were asked before.

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Dannhill said:

A report that Poland has sent units to help Ukraine suppress their civil war.
If true, this is a serious escalation of the conflict.

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4 August 2014 Last updated at 12:54 ET
Many Ukraine soldiers cross into Russia amid shelling
More than 300 Ukrainian troops have crossed into Russia during heavy fighting with pro-Russian separatists.
A Ukrainian security spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said the 311 soldiers and border guards "had to cross into Russian territory" at the Gukovo checkpoint in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine is trying to get them back now through diplomatic channels, he said.
Earlier a Russian security official said 438 Ukrainian troops had been given refuge in Russia as "defectors".
The border area is very tense amid Ukrainian allegations that Russian forces have been helping the separatists with rocket barrages.
Russia has announced that it will hold an air force exercise this week near the border. A Russian defence ministry spokesman said 100 aircraft would take part in the operation.
The Russian foreign ministry meanwhile accused Ukrainian forces of deploying tactical missiles and launchers near the city of Donetsk.
In his statement on the Ukrainian troops at the border Mr Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council (SNBO), dismissed Russia's claim that the troops had defected.
He also denied reports that the separatists had captured some Ukrainian National Guard servicemen during the fighting.
Another Ukrainian military spokesman said the group of soldiers had retreated into Russia after running out of ammunition and other supplies during the fighting. He said they belonged to the 72nd motorised brigade.
Recently Kiev has been gaining ground against the rebels and claims to have retaken more than 60 towns in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Preparing for siege
Civilians are preparing for a siege as government forces close in on the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Residents are stockpiling food and supplies and are sleeping in basements, with reports suggesting Luhansk is virtually surrounded and without power.
Meanwhile, more than 100 experts from the Netherlands and Australia have continued searching the crash site of Flight MH17, in a rebel-held area close to the fighting.
More human remains and belongings from the Malaysia Airlines jet shot down last month were flown to the Netherlands on Monday.
Remains of more than 200 victims have been transferred to the Netherlands for identification. Up to 80 bodies are believed to be still at the site.
Western governments and Ukraine accuse Russia of supplying heavy weapons and volunteers to the pro-Russian rebels, who have declared independence from Kiev.
Russia denies supplying such hardware to the rebels, while condemning Kiev's military offensive in the east.
Announcing the air force exercise, the Russian defence ministry said it would involve Sukhoi Su-27 and MiG-31 fighter jets, Mi-24 and Mi-28 helicopters and Russia's newest frontline bomber, the Sukhoi Su-34.
Every time Russia announces a new round of military exercises it is seen as a show of strength in the conflict with Ukraine, a BBC correspondent says.
The spokesman told Interfax news agency that the exercise was the first in a series intended to improve the unity of the air force.
Russia has previously been accused of boosting its troops and weaponry along the border with Ukraine.

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1 July 2014 Last updated at 11:41 ET
Russian ex-police chief Antyufeyev leads Donetsk rebels
A veteran of the pro-Russian separatist rebellion in Moldova, Vladimir Antyufeyev, now claims to be in command of rebel-held Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
On 28 July he announced that his immediate superior, "prime minister" Alexander Borodai, had left for Russia.
In early July Mr Antyufeyev - born in Russia - emerged as "deputy prime minister" of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic". He is known as a staunch defender of Russian state interests in former Soviet republics.
He moved to eastern Ukraine after 20 years as "minister of state security" in Moldova's breakaway Trans-Dniester region. His move suggests that Moscow is trying to exert more influence over the separatists.
State security career
Mr Antyufeyev was born in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk in 1951 and graduated from the Soviet Interior Ministry's police academy in Minsk in 1974. At the time Minsk was the capital of Soviet Belorussia - now Belarus.
In the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, the then Maj Antyufeyev was one of the men in charge of criminal police investigations in Riga, Latvia. He led an elite police unit there, which attempted a crackdown on the Latvian independence movement.
When Latvia gained independence in 1991, the new authorities filed a criminal case against Maj Antyufeyev - and he fled the Baltic republic.
Several months later he resurfaced in breakaway Trans-Dniester, where he fought in the 1992 separatist revolt against Moldovan troops, rallying Cossacks, volunteers and other pro-Russian paramilitaries.
Now a major-general, he became the founder and, for two decades, sole head of the breakaway region's powerful security ministry.
Blacklisted
Some media in Moldova and Russia have compared Mr Antyufeyev to Stalin's notorious secret police chief Lavrenty Beria and accused him of creating an atmosphere of intimidation and intolerance in the region.
Vladimir Antyufeyev was dismissed from his post in early 2012 after Yevgeny Shevchuk won the December 2011 presidential election in Trans-Dniester, defeating Mr Antyufeyev's ally Igor Smirnov.
Later that year, the new authorities launched a criminal investigation against Mr Antyufeyev, accusing him of abuse of power, misappropriating public funds and destroying sensitive evidence. He managed to flee to Moscow and lived there until the start of the Ukraine crisis.
The EU first blacklisted Mr Antyufeyev in 2004 for his role in the Trans-Dniester conflict but later annulled its decision. Now, however, he is included in the EU asset freeze and travel ban imposed on 95 Russian individuals allegedly linked to the eastern Ukraine uprising.

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Russia to hold war games in show of strength near Ukraine
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4:17pm EDT
By Timothy Heritage and Maria Tsvetkova
MOSCOW/DONESTSK Ukraine (Reuters) - Russia announced military exercises near the border with Ukraine on Monday in a show of strength as the Ukrainian army recaptured more territory from pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
The Russian air force said more than 100 aircraft, including fighter jets and bombers, were taking part in the manoeuvres this week in the central and western military districts.
The move could alarm Western powers which have accused Russia of beefing up its troops along its border with Ukraine and arming the rebels in eastern Ukraine, although Moscow denies the accusations.
The manoeuvres include missile-firing practice and will assist "coordination between aviation and anti-missile defence", Interfax news agency quoted an airforce spokesman as saying.
He said Russia's latest bomber, the Su-24, was taking part, as well as Su-27 and MiG-31 fighter jets.
Russia upset the West by staging military exercises near Ukraine in March after the conflict with Ukraine flared. Moscow said in May it had pulled back its forces but NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove said last week it still had more than 12,000 troops and weapons along the frontier.
The crisis has pushed relations between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War, with each side accusing the other of orchestrating events in Ukraine, and the United States and European Union imposing sanctions on Russia.
Russia has a firm grip on the Crimea peninsula, which it annexed in March after Ukraine ousted a pro-Moscow president, but the rebels who wanted Moscow to also annexe east Ukraine have been losing ground in the past few weeks.
UKRAINIAN ARMY ADVANCES
Government forces said they had recaptured an important rail hub in the latest fighting near Donetsk, the biggest of the two large cities the rebels still hold after almost four months of fighting.
"Units taking part in the 'anti-terrorist operation' yesterday took the town of Yasynuvata, which is an important hub of the region's railway system," Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Kiev's military operation in the east, told a briefing.
The separatists had seized the Yasynuvata railway control centre in May as their rebellion spread in eastern Ukraine. It sits just north of Donetsk near a main road leading to Luhansk, another remaining rebel stronghold.
Five government soldiers were killed and 15 wounded over the previous 24 hours, Lysenko said. There were no new casualty figures for the rebels in a conflict the United Nations said had killed more than 1,100 people from mid-April to late July.
Fighting has intensified since the West accused the rebels of shooting down a Malaysian airliner last month, killing all 298 people on board. Russia and the rebels blame the disaster on Kiev's military offensive.
In a sign that not all the fighting is going the Ukrainian army's way, Russian border guards said 438 Ukrainian soldiers had crossed into Russia during the night seeking asylum.
"They were tired of the war and wanted no further part in it," Vasily Malayev, spokesman for the borders guards in the Rostov region of Russia, told Reuters by telephone.
He said they had been treated well, and 180 were being returned to Ukraine later on Monday, but it was not clear what the rest wanted to do.
Lysenko said the soldiers and border guards had crossed into Russia in search of safety after being blocked between the Russian border to the east and pro-Russian rebel positions in the west for more than three weeks.
He gave no numbers but said Kiev was trying to negotiate their return.
The fighting had prevented Dutch and Australian experts reaching the wreckage of the downed airliner in rebel-held territory for several days but they have managed to recover some human remains and belongings in the past few days. The victims included 196 Dutch, 27 Australians and 43 Malaysians.
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Polina Devitt and Tatiana Ustinova in Moscow and by Gabrieal Baczynska and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Germany says halts Rheinmetall defense deal with Russia
5:48am EDT
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Economy Ministry has confirmed it has halted Rheinmetall's (RHMG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) export of combat simulation gear to Russia, going beyond recently imposed EU sanctions which block future defense contracts.Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat (SPD), has blocked the deal which was approved by Germany's previous government, the ministry said.
"I can confirm that in the light of the EU sanctions, permission to export a combat training center has been revoked," a spokesman said.
Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Monday it was in talks with the German government.
Berlin's intention to stop to the deal, flagged in March, has been delivered in writing, the company said. Rheinmetall declined to comment on the details of the contract worth some 100 million euros, nor on whether it might seek compensation from the government.
The company has repeatedly said that sanctions against Russia would not have a major impact on its business because the combat training center, its only major contract with the country, has been largely delivered and paid for.
Germany's Sueddeutsche newspaper said the combat training center, which was to be built in the town of Mulino in the Volga region and was expected to go into service this year, could train 30,000 soldiers a year on high-tech simulators.
Tough new economic sanctions against Russia will hurt Germany's economy but they are necessary for the sake of peace in Europe, Gabriel, who is also German vice chancellor, said in a television interview on Sunday.
In contrast, France is pressing ahead with a 1.2 billion euro (£957.6 million) contract to supply Russia with a Mistral warship.
European Union sanctions that took effect on Friday target Russia's banking, defense and energy sectors because of Moscow's support for pro-Russian separatist rebels battling Kiev's forces in eastern Ukraine.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Tom Kaeckoff; writing by Alexandra Hudson; editing by Jason Neely)

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Ukrainian forces recapture key rail hub from pro-Russia separatists
Five soldiers were killed in the fighting, part of ongoing operation to counter pro-Russian rebels in country's east
August 4, 2014 9:30AM ET
Five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 15 wounded over the past 24 hours in fighting in eastern Ukraine where Kiev forces recaptured an important railway hub from pro-Russian rebels, a security official in Kiev said Monday.

Government troops have now all but encircled the rebels' second-largest stronghold of Luhansk and rebels declared a "state of siege" in Donetsk, the largest city they hold.

"Units taking part in the anti-terrorist operation yesterday took the town of Yasynuvata, which is an important hub of the region's railway system," Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Kiev's military operation in the east, told a briefing.

Separatists seized the Yasynuvata railway control center in May as their rebellion spilled over eastern Ukraine. It sits just north of Donetsk nearby a main road leading to Luhansk.

Lysenko also said a group of Ukrainian soldiers and border guards, who have been blocked between the Russian border to the east and pro-Russian rebel position in the west for more than three weeks, crossed into Russia in the early hours Monday.

"Part of the soldiers (group) went into the Russian territory," he said, adding Kiev was now trying to negotiate their return.

A Russian border security official said more than 400 Ukrainian soldiers crossed into Russia, according to a report from the Interfax news agency. It wasn't immediately clear why the soldiers entered Russia, with both sides giving conflicting accounts.

The Russian official said the soldiers deserted the Kiev government and the Russian side opened a safe corridor, while a Ukrainian military official said the soldiers, without giving a number, were forced into Russian territory by rebel fire after running out of ammunition.

Russia's Defense Ministry couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian military operation in the east, Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky, said troops from the army's 72nd brigade were penned into their position and came under a sustained barrage of fire from separatist forces. Rebel fighters used tanks, mortars, artillery and Grad missile launchers over four hours, Dmitrashkovsky said, and eventually the brigade was forced to divide up into two sections.

Earlier Monday, Interfax reported that Russia's air force began military drills in central and western regions of the country, a move that could spark further fears that Moscow is ready to flex its military muscle in Ukraine.

The drills will start Monday and last through Friday, air force chief Igor Klimov was reported as saying, and will involve more than 100 fighter jets and helicopters.

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have been battling the Kiev government since April, a conflict that has claimed at least 1,129 civilian casualties, according to a United Nations estimate. Ukraine and Western countries have accused Russia of providing the rebels with equipment and expertise, a claim that the Russian government has repeatedly denied.

Kiev has intensified its campaign against the separatists and made steady gains on the ground since a Malaysian airliner was downed over rebel-held territory on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.

Wire services

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Ukraine a pretext': Russian FM accuses NATO of using conflict to justify its existence
Published time: August 04, 2014 17:07
Edited time: August 04, 2014 18:04 Get short URL
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin)Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin)
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The Ukraine crisis is just one pretexts being used by NATO to create tensions with Russia as the alliance seeks a reason to exist, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. As NATO expands, it tries “to drive” all Europeans under its “roof,” he said.

NATO “is looking for a new sense of existence,” Lavrov told Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency in an interview. “Russia turned up. If there was no Ukraine, I assure you, there would be another aspect of Russia’s inner or foreign politics used for speculations.”

Speaking about NATO, Lavrov recalled Russia’s urgent withdrawal of troops from Europe 20 years ago on August 31, saying that while there was no reason to rush, post-Soviet officials hoped to become “partners with the West and Europe.”

“And if there is no Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, and the troops had left, then what is NATO for here? Why bother with all the attributes that belong to the era of the Cold War?" he said.

“These hopes,” however, never came true and NATO keeps expanding, Lavrov said.

Previously Afghanistan “helped” NATO justify its being, but then it became clear that it only “pulls NATO solidarity to the bottom, because it is hopeless to do anything that the alliance was carrying out and the situation with the drugs threat and the drugs industry has worsened appreciably at least, if not for several orders.”

Thus NATO is looking for “a new reason to exist,” Lavrov said. “We have already seen that.”

A soldier from the US Pennsylvania National Guard (R) and a Lithuanian soldier take part in a field training exercise during the first phase Saber Strike 2014, at the Rukla military base, Lithuania, on June 14, 2014. Saber Strike, a NATO exercise that will span multiple locations in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, involves approximately 4,700 personnel from 10 countries (AFP Photo)A soldier from the US Pennsylvania National Guard (R) and a Lithuanian soldier take part in a field training exercise during the first phase Saber Strike 2014, at the Rukla military base, Lithuania, on June 14, 2014. Saber Strike, a NATO exercise that will span multiple locations in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, involves approximately 4,700 personnel from 10 countries (AFP Photo)

“First, even Syria – disagreements with the West over Syria, when the West said that Assad can’t be a partner anymore, while we still adhered to the principle that you can’t just overthrow regimes, negotiations needed,” Lavrov said.

Eventually, he added, Russia was blamed for “everything that was happening in Syria.”

“Then it was Snowden. And there was also very big resentment and [attacks] on Russian policy,” Lavrov said. “After that simply because of the [Sochi] Olympic Games – and there it was not clear why: either because the Olympics did take place or because the West suspected [Russia] spent too much to host it, or somebody thought that it [Russia] was too successful and Russia won. I don’t know, but that prejudicial mood was there long before the Ukrainian events.”

Russia’s FM expressed regret over the alliance’s “continuing attempts” to “drive all Europeans under the NATO roof,” calling it a “short-sighted policy.”

“To my great regret, with all the good intentions that we have been given by Western partners in Europe and in America, after all this Cold War inertia and the inability to cope with the ongoing attempts to drive all Europeans under the NATO roof and so from there, from under the roof, [they] talk to us with the same hard voice,” said.

NATO’s policy, Lavrov said, is based on the desire to assert their will at any price.

“And for those who do not agree, they apply sanctions, in other words, take revenge, I know no other way to call it, but avenge for independence and for the unwillingness to follow the one-sided, unipolar world,” he added.

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Activists seek probe into Ukraine’s use of child soldiers in Donbass
Published time: August 04, 2014 13:10 Get short URL
Woman holds poster "Volyn Mothers Oppose War" during protest "Mothers and Wives for Rotation of Soldiers in War Zone" near the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada whose members discuss Presidential Executive Order On Partial Mobilization. (RIA Novosti)Woman holds poster "Volyn Mothers Oppose War" during protest "Mothers and Wives for Rotation of Soldiers in War Zone" near the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada whose members discuss Presidential Executive Order On Partial Mobilization. (RIA Novosti)
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Russia’s Public Chamber has asked Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to launch an international probe into allegations Ukrainian National Guard units used child soldiers in the restive regions in the East and southeast of the country.

“We are writing to Sergey Lavrov because we are convinced international law mandates Ukrainian conscripts aged under-19 must be given the right to leave the war zone. These servicemen and their parents must know about this fact,” the deputy head of the Russian Peace Foundation Yelena Sutormina said in an interview with the Izvestia daily.

“One years’ difference might seem a purely bureaucratic detail, but not today, when life and death depend on it.In reality Ukrainian mothers have a carte blanche for saving their sons,” Sutormina said.

The move was prompted by Kiev authorities confirming on July 28 the death of an 18-year old army conscript who fought against federalist forces in the Donetsk Region.

Russian activists said in their letter they had about 17 and even 16-year old boys taking part in military operations in Ukraine. “It is unthinkable that cynical politicians and instigators are literally hiding behind the backs of young lads,” the Public Chamber’s letter reads.

The First Optional Protocol of the UN Convention the Rights of the Child forbids any military command to use such persons in direct hostilities.

The head of the Soldiers’ Mothers of St Petersburg NGO, Ella Polyakova, supported the Public Chamber’s motion noting that the use of child soldiers in combat was a blatant violation of UN conventions.

Aleksey Kochetkov of the Public Diplomacy foundation said the Russian Foreign Ministry must draw the international community’s attention to all the facts of a forced military draft that are reportedly taking place in Ukraine.

“The conscripts and their relatives must receive explanations on that matter. This would help the relatives of the children who are being drafted into the National Guard to address the European Court of Human Rights,” the activist said.

He added that under current conditions any investigation into the Kiev authorities’ crimes would benefit the Ukrainian nation.

In early May this year Ukraine's acting President Aleksandr Turchinov ordered a military draft for all males between 18 and 25 years of age who are not eligible for an exemption. Turchinov’s move came at a time the Kiev regime stepped up military operations against the federalist forces in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions who were refusing to comply with the official nationalist policies of Kiev.

The initiative has caused several mass anti-draft rallies in various Ukrainian cities.

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Equation said:

TerraN Empire is very knowledgeable on these kinds of stuff either by studying them or experience don't under estimate him.

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delft said:

I'm not really interested in silencers but I'm interested in the fact that some Irishman close to his fighters, probably one himself, had a better notion of what was really necessary and practical to achieve a worthwhile tactical advantage than the experts who were asked before.

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thunderchief said:

Well, I doubt that. There are all kind of rumors floating around, and such large troop movements are almost impossible to hide in modern times.

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SampanViking said:

Is the domino effect?

With more units in the Southern Cauldron negotiating to follow the almost 500 that have surrendered to Russia in the last two days, comes news via Tass, that over 700 Ukrainian troops in the Southern Intestine near Shakhtersk have surrendered.

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Incredible if true as happening very fast. Not yet verified.

BBC coverage of this mornings surrender nothing short of farcical.

If however both cauldron and intestine suffer mass collapse simultaneously, it could mark beginning of chain reaction throughout the punitive force and even beyond!

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Russian war games get under way, unnerving Ukraine

Experts say that Russia's military buildup near Ukraine's borders is not a pending invasion but a bid to rattle Ukraine forces. Among Ukrainians, evidence of war-weariness appears to be growing.

By Fred Weir, Correspondent AUGUST 4, 2014

MOSCOW — Russia's military has launched a week of war games near Ukraine's border, including almost 100 bombers and strike fighters. Combined with a reported buildup of Russian troops in border regions near the rebel cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, the overwhelming display of Russian military might has revived fears that Moscow may be planning to invade eastern Ukraine.

But Russian experts say the exercise is a tactic designed to discombobulate Ukrainian forces in the war of nerves between Moscow and Kiev. And experts in both regions say that nerves may indeed be fraying in Ukraine, which has seen increasing signs of war-weariness – including a reported defection of 400 Ukrainian troops over the weekend.

Russian experts respond that August is typically a month of major military drills in Russia, and that the reported buildup of Russian troops that Kiev and NATO are complaining about this time – numbering around 15,000 – are actually far fewer than the 40,000 massed in the same area the last time there was a big invasion scare in March.

"It is true that military exercises present a very good cover for invasion preparations. You can concentrate forces, assess the potential battlefield, and put men and equipment into position," says Alexander Golts, military expert with the independent online journal Yezhednevny Zhurnal.


"After the annexation of Crimea, we cannot be completely certain that Russian leaders are acting on a rational calculus. Nevertheless, the situation does not look terribly abnormal. There are no obvious signs that Russia is preparing to use direct military force in Ukraine," he adds.

Crumbling morale?

Russian experts point to incidents like the flight of more than 400 Ukrainian troops and border guards to Russia Sunday night, after running out of food and ammunition, to suggest that morale is crumbling among ill-trained and poorly supplied Ukrainian forces who've been fighting Russian-backed insurgents in increasingly ferocious battles for months now. The Russian media has covered the story extensively.

But Ukrainian experts say that the plight of the 79th Airborne Brigade, whose survivors fled across the Russian border, was an anomaly. The troops had been trapped between rebel-held territory and the Russian border, were taking fire from both directions, and had not been resupplied for many days.

"It's a defeat for Ukrainian forces, and it happened because we are not yet able to seal the Russian border," says Victor Nebozhenko, director of Ukrainian Barometer, an independent Kiev-based think tank. "This is not indicative of the general trend of things" in Ukraine's military operation in rebel-held territories, he says.

The increasingly desperate situation of the 79th brigade led some of the soldiers' wives and mothers in the unit's home town of Mykolaiv to protest against Kiev's failure to help their men last week, as reported by the Daily Beast's Anna Nemtsova.

The Russian media, and Western outlets that take their cue from it, are reporting growing antiwar and anti-conscription sentiment around Ukraine. They have also claimed that some Ukrainian military units, which have not been paid for weeks, have refused to fight.

Ukrainian experts say there are some serious problems, and they are difficult to conceal in the age of social media. "There are some military units that are highly motivated, there are others that are not so much," says Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the independent Kiev Center for Political Studies. "But in the case of the 79th brigade, it seems that they were actually ordered to escape to Russia after they ran out of options."

Ria Novosti reported that the troops have sought refugee status, but the Ukrainian government denies that.

War weariness

Mr. Pogrebinsky says it's difficult to assess the overall morale of Ukrainian forces fighting in the east. "But, on the whole, the mood in the country seems more pro-war than anti-war right now," he adds.

Vadim Karasyov, director of the independent Institute of Global Strategies in Kiev, says a certain battle fatigue is becoming evident in Ukrainian society.

"The first wave of military euphoria is dying down. The military solution doesn't seem to be appearing," he says. "We do not have a strong leadership that can guarantee extended mobilization, such as the Russians had through two wars in Chechnya – and even they lost the first one. The economy is not geared for war, the state is near bankruptcy, and people are confused about how it's all going to end."

Most Russian experts say they believe that Moscow is likely to continue on its present course of stoking the fires of rebellion in east Ukraine, while avoiding direct intervention and waiting for the accumulating economic and political strains of war to force Kiev to the bargaining table.

Mr. Golts says that the optimism expressed in Kiev that the war will end soon with the liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk is probably unfounded.

"The Ukrainian operation is rapidly starting to look like a classic counterinsurgency war, where the rebels can blend in with the civilian population and strike from behind," he says. "Such wars usually turn out to be unwinnable, and the rebels prevail just by continuing to exist. Think of Vietnam, our Afghanistan, your Afghanistan, or Iraq. Even the most modern, well-prepared armies find it difficult to sustain operations all the way to victory. And Ukraine's Army is far from the most capable one to try it."

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