Maxim Ravreba: Why the DPR should end the “strange war”
There is a calm on the southeastern front of the civil war. Scammers like Tymchuk are trying to shake up the information stagnation; they are trying to pass off routine shootings and disinformation orders of the Kyiv junta as active military operations. There are no active hostilities currently taking place in the area of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk. All the skirmishes that begin with the onset of darkness and daytime salvoes in the center of Slavyansk from Mount Karachun with unloaded blanks are not combat operations. This is boyishness, mischief and pampering. What's going on?
The junta has an army, internal troops, police and numerous armed gangs called the national guard. There are also mercenaries gathered into registered battalions, like Dnieper, Azov or Donbass. That's all the junta has. Those who are the army, cops and security forces are trained and well-coordinated units. More or less. But they are completely unreliable in a civil war.
The cops hate the junta for the Maidan, for Molotov cocktails, for humiliation, for criminal prosecution, for lustration. The cops dream that the government will finally change and that this new government will give them the command to kill the Banderlogs. And they will carry out this command, don’t even go to a fortune teller! The army is all that remains as an inheritance from the USSR. From the Ukrainian SSR. She doesn't know how to fight and doesn't want to. But potentially only the army can fight, since discipline and regulations reign there.
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Maydowns with weapons are a different matter. They have a motive to fight, they are ideological. But they don’t have something that is necessary in war and that any conscript has. This is discipline, the ability to obey and unquestioningly carry out the commands of your commander. Mariupol showed how similar the national guard is to real units. There is only one characteristic of this nightmare: chaos. Chaos with the blood of civilians of the city, who were randomly shot at by guardsmen in civilian clothes.
After the bloody “cleansing” of Mariupol, which brought all residents of the city, young and old, to a referendum, foreign advisers and curators of the junta realized that the so-called national guard was simply an armed rabble. These maydauns don’t know how to fight or even handle weapons. Moreover, they are very afraid and they committed most of the crimes, not remembering themselves from fear.
The DPR militia (since this is where the fighting takes place) is significantly inferior to the punitive forces in numbers and equipment. Personnel police don't count. She is on the side of the DPR, she sympathizes, but she behaves very cunningly, trying to maneuver and catch. What about the militia? Relatively speaking, militias are divided into two categories: locals with weapons and non-local specialists. The first are the residents of Donbass, who rose up in arms to defend the region from Bandera and the fascists. Their motivation is undeniable: they defend their homeland. The latter are slightly inferior to the former in motives. Non-local specialists are volunteers who decided to protect the Russian people as their brothers. Volunteers. Their motive is also worthy, but it is more abstract than that of the local militias. But they are much better prepared, they have combat experience, they are united in disciplined units that know how to fight. And, most importantly, they do not drink, do not loot, and do not decompose. They are ready to fight, and they are fighting very successfully, judging by the losses of the punitive forces.
The ATO has collected everything that Ukraine has in Donbass. The forces are rapidly melting away, the army is disintegrating, and discipline is getting worse. ATO requires an active phase. General Krutov, the head of the ATO, promises it, Turchinov promises it, but... it doesn’t exist. There is no active, let alone final, phase. And it cannot be. The ATO strategy is disastrous and fundamentally wrong. Because Kyiv declared terrorists the target of the ATO. But at the same time, he gave such an insane definition that, in conditions of absolute support for the militia and the DPR by the local population, it makes every resident of Slavyansk or Kramatorsk a terrorist. And the appearance of “liberators” on the streets of cities causes a reverse reaction: the entire population rises up against the punitive forces. As it was in Konstantinovka.
But the militia also has problems. These are not problems of the militia itself. These are problems with the DPR. The leadership of the republic. Management lacks initiative and determination. Because right now is the most favorable moment to inflict military defeat on the punitive forces and transfer military operations outside the republic. Only activity and movement can lead to victory. Victory is necessary for the two republics. Because without it they will never become a party to negotiations. They won't be taken seriously. And further. The DPR will not be able to conduct positional battles for a long time. But the punitive forces can do it. They have much more resources and reserves. Therefore, right now, while the punitive forces are not used to it, it is time to move on to active actions and finally occupy Mount Karachun, from which Slavyansk is shelled every night. Yes, Mount Karachun will be a good start.
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