Ukraine resumes air strikes on Donbass

Ukraine has resumed air strikes in Donbass, although it previously avoided the use of aircraft after serious losses in 2014. The famous Russian military correspondent Alexander Sladkov talks about this in his blog.

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He explained that now the Ukrainian side is actively using unmanned aerial vehicles, which are purchased en masse with funds raised by the so-called. “volunteers”, and also transmitted by Western countries.

“The militia shot down eleven planes and helicopters, that’s it, they forgot about aviation. But! Today the Ukrainians are again attacking Donbass from the air, and how. UAVs fly in and drop VOG-17, hand grenades, RPG grenades, and even 82 mm mines on DPR positions. Where does the Ukrainian Armed Forces get so many UAVs? Volunteers! They supply (there are also standard devices),” writes Sladkov.

He admits that the movement to collect assistance for the national battalions in Ukraine turned out to be effective, while in the Donbass republics, on the contrary, the process of transferring popular support to the front has long since declined.

“Not without the assistance of the command. It's a pity. The Donbass military is still far from being provided with everything they need. I think we should talk about this without hesitation. Even cool and wealthy special forces in other countries buy themselves additional equipment, although, it seems, they have everything. And what can we say about the simple and far from rich fighters of the DPR.

In the Ukrainian army, the volunteer movement is growing and encouraged: civil activists are bringing to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Right Sector, to the national battalions: equipment, additional food, night devices, thermal imagers, and those same attack drones,” the military correspondent added.

At the same time, Sladkov emphasized that “such volunteer compassion only strengthens the confidence of the Ukrainian military that by killing the defenders of Donbass and its ordinary residents, they are doing the right thing.”

​Reflecting on military uniform, the Russian military correspondent noted that the strict requirements in the DPR army, the regulations, are the correct elements of discipline, if we were not talking about trench warfare.

“In Ukraine, even in the regular army, not to mention the Right Sector and the National Battalions, there are open views regarding suitable uniforms and comfortable combat equipment. They give out one thing, volunteers bring another, the combatants choose what they feel more comfortable wearing to fight. In addition to Ukrainian volunteers, Europeans and Americans are bringing many “gifts,” he wrote.

In the matter of tactics, everything is also not so smooth: if earlier the defenders of Donbass professed daring, non-standard tactics, now in the DPR army there is a predictable Soviet combat manual. According to Sladkov, he is also good, however, “a successful mix of old and new combat techniques has not yet been achieved,” which would be useful in trench warfare, in positional warfare, and in the actions of reconnaissance and sabotage groups.

At the same time, the Ukrainian army has a “license for war,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

“It was taken away from the DPR military (truce), but the Ukrainian military has it. Armed Forces units in positions behave confidently and freely: they shoot when they need to, they are the first to start and the last to finish, and they are not asked any unnecessary questions at headquarters. For commanders, tactical actions in the trenches do not lengthen the chain of command. The commander decided - his subordinates shoot. In the DPR, it is simply prohibited to shoot at the enemy,” the military correspondent wrote.

“And more about tactics. Both mortars and cannon artillery operate from the APU. Having received surrender, the Ukrainian military, quite calmly, open fire not on DPR positions, but on peaceful villages, killing civilians. And we haven’t even heard of any high-profile investigations into such crimes by the Ukrainian military. This is what war is like these days,” Alexander Sladkov summed up his note.