Remember last week (or the week before) and strange stories about SS 21 missiles being used to try and target chemical plants to cause massive toxic releases?
A story from RT this morning
This is a story about Ukrainian artillery shells falling very close (or indeed inside) a large Chemical plant in Gorlivika; just north east of Donetsk city. The key phrase in the article was a warning that the toxic fall out from the plants destruction could spread to up to 300km. This would of course take it well inside the territory of the Russian Federation.
I suspect that the basic Humanitarian R2P argument is being stiffened by a dose of potential Casus Belli!
A Final note also on the effective end of the Southern Cauldron last week.
In military terms, there can be little doubt that the Ukrainian military have suffered a military disaster with the collapse and liquidation of an entire army group and associated front, one that has not only included significant loss, but the gain to the rebels of a substantial amount of armoured vehicles.
The victory for the militia was only tactical as the more substantive strategic victory was snatched from them by an enemy that realised that it was survivable as long as their was not a major surrender to the Russians or the milita. To achieve this, the trapped forces undertook (are still undertaking) a series of reckless break outs, that made poor military sense, but which were politically expedient.
Kiev has been able to survive this event, for one primary reason, which is an effective media black out on the whole Civil War by the Main Stream Media. Stories may be carried every day on the BBC and other websites, but they are so lacking in detail, out of date and generally inaccurate, that they might as well publish nothing!
Only exceptional items gain any attention and the surrender of the near 450 Ukrainians received little attention and zero analysis. Had a couple of thousand others surrendered in the same way just days, that silence would have been hard to maintain and a major loss of initiative and momentum suffered by the Ukraine and its backers.
The Cauldron story has also confirmed some operational realities about the limitations of the militia. It is clear that the majority of their forces are light infantry with limited mobility and which rely on a small body of mechanised professionals to rapidly reinforce the hotspots as they break out. This clearly gives Kiev the advantage as its forces seem fully mechanised and able to launch multiple simultaneous assaults which either stretch the mechanised militia or force the leadership to make choices as to the fronts they can most afford to lose.
Many of these best troops have been tied up with the Southern Cauldron and we will see if there return to other fronts, plus the infusion of new armour and artillery will be able to significantly change the balance of advantage.
Quick update
News from Tass of more shelling of Russia from across the border (similar news yesterday). The interesting part is that these instances are far further west than previous incidents, based around Matveyev- Kurgan and support the contention that the Southern Cauldron is gone and that the hot border is now nearly as West as Donetsk itself.
It further suggests that the Southern Front line is a now a Westerly front that bulges into militia territory as far as Saur Maglier and with a residual cauldron bubble up by Krasny Luch.
