A ceasefire regime officially came into operation in the east of Ukraine on February 15th. It was agreed due to the results of the 17-hour talks between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France. It is interesting that, along with the exhausting diplomatic marathon in Minsk, the sides tried to reach a tactical advantage on the battlefield, and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko constantly kept in touch with his General Staff. First of all, the point is the strategically important town of Debaltsevo, where a several-thousand group of the Ukrainian army is entrapped, according to some sources.
Debaltsevo is important because it is a railway interlink between Donetsk and Lugansk. Debaltsevo will enable the militias to move toward Artemovsk. Representatives of the militia state that 6-8 thousand soldiers of the governmental forces are entrapped. They have delivered an ultimatum to the Ukrainian army: the besieged military group should lay down its arms and leave the town.
The Ukrainian military command rejects this option, stating that there is no Debaltsevo entrapment, even though Kiev admits that the situation in Debaltsevo is difficult. While existence of the entrapment is rejected, Ukraine can continue insisting that Debaltsevo stays under its control. Obviously, each side will insist on its version to the bitter end to demand a corresponding passing of the front line, according to the Minsk agreements.
If the entrapment is closed, as the militias say, the Ukrainian soldiers who are left without supplies will have to surrender the town sooner or later. It will be equivalent to Ilovaysk, one of the most unpleasant pages in the modern military history of Ukraine, when 2 thousand Ukrainian soldiers were besieged by the enemy. If the group of 6-8 thousand soldiers surrenders (according to some German sources, it is 1/3 of the whole Ukrainian army), the political consequences will be heavy, if not fatal, for the military command of the country and Supreme Commander Poroshenko. Thus, Kiev will do its best to unblock this group and maintain Debaltsevo under its control. The question is not only about an important military advantage, but also about political survival.
The same goes for the security officials of the DPR. If the Debaltsevo entrapment is not closed, the militias will do their best to close it as soon as possible and cut off supplies to Ukrainian troops occupying Debaltsevo. “Of course we can fire on Debaltsevo, as this is our territory,” a representative of the defense agency of the DPR, Edward Basurin, said after signing the Minsk agreement.
The fact is that, even after launching the ceasefire regime, the fighting in Debaltsevo didn’t stop. Even the UN Secretary General expressed serious concerns about messages “on continued military fighting, including in Debaltsevo.” The topic is so thorny that Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested establishing an expert commission which would assess what is going on in Debaltsevo – whether there is an entrapment or not.
According to the Ukrainian side, in the first 24 hours of the ceasefire regime 5 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 25 were injured. The Azov and Donbas volunteer units suffered losses near Mariupol – the second strategically important direction in the conflict, where tough fighting has taken place in recent weeks. The occupation of Mariupol by the militias would mean they have access to the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, the press secretary of the ATO, Andrei Lysenko, told Ukrainian press that the Ukrainian side couldn’t withdraw armored vehicles and heavy weapons from the front line under the current conditions, as the first provision of the Minsk agreements has been broken – the ceasefire. The militia also complains about breaking of the ceasefire regime.
“The ceasefire is not being fulfilled in several parts of the Donbas front line. Today the residential area of Granitnoe has been attacked by artillery; we have two injured people in Dokuchayevsk,” Vladimir Kononov, the Defense Minister of the DPR, told journalists.
It seems the truth lies somewhere in the middle: neither the Ukrainian army nor the militias could achieve their military goals in Debaltsevo before the Minsk agreements were signed. The militia couldn’t capture the town, while the Ukrainian security officials couldn’t unblock their group. The unclear situation on the battlefield, including in Debaltsevo, became the main obstacle on the way to fulfillment of the ceasefire agreement. It seems the Minsk agreements will be a short break in the military conflict in Ukraine.
