DONETSK, Ukraine -- As everyday life returns in recaptured cities of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, Ukraine's eyes -- and military -- have shifted their focus to Donetsk and Luhansk, provincial capitals with 1.5 million residents who remain under the control of Kremlin-backed separatists.
As separatists dig in for what may be the final showdown, Ukraine’s commanders laid out their own plan for victory: cut them off from the Russian border and surround them.
“The experience of Sloviansk showed: cut off supplies, and they run,” says Andriy Parubiy, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
He says the separatists are trying to fortify the ground they hold because they believe the most difficult fights will in big cities. They may be right as President Petro Poroshenko said on July 8, when visiting Sloviansk that “there will be no street fights in Donetsk.”
Previously he also promised there will be no bombing of Donetsk. Vladyslav Seleznev, spokesman of the anti-terrorist operation, told the Kyiv Post that the army is going to precisely target the shelling of rebel bases.
Ukraine’s plan to smoke the terrorists out might not work any time soon because signs are that Russia is not letting go of the idea of destabilizing Ukraine, despite the diplomatic facade of peace.
“From the side of the Russian Federation, we have seen and continue to see attempts to send in insurgents,” says Parubiy. In one case, he said the Russians attempted to build pontoon bridges across the Siverskiy-Donets River where the ground is marshy, making it impossible to send heavy equipment over.
The Ukrainians have been moving to seal off the border, but the north of Luhansk Oblast remains a problem, with one border point still controlled by separatists completely. The Ukrainian troops, however, have been advancing from the south of Donbas to create a buffer zone, and setting up fire control points inland where the border remains under separatist control.
Parubiy remains hopeful, saying that although the border remains a problematic point, the recapture of Sloviansk on July 5 generated a much-needed psychological boost among the troops. “The psychological break has already happened, it was when we knocked them out of Sloviansk,” Parubiy says.
The government delivered some 100 tons of humanitarian aid after that, and invited people to return to their liberated homes. “Go back to your cities… go back to your homes and we will together rebuild Luhansk and Donestk,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said at the Cabinet meeting on July 9.
But there are plenty of reports that indicate that the insurgents are planning to put up a long – and increasingly nasty – fight.
A group of fighters attacked the border point Uspenka in Donetsk Oblast in the early hours of July 9. Three bridges were blown up in just a single day on July 8. Ten people were kidnapped on the same day, as well as at least 20 vehicles, according to Andriy Lysenko, the spokesman for National Security and Defense Council’s information center.
Speaking to journalists in Donetsk on July 9, self-proclaimed governor of the Donetsk People’s Republic Pavel Gubarev didn’t mince words in describing the ambition of separatist fighters. “We will have victory, or death,” he said.
Ukraine’s security specialists believe that a part of the reason for the destruction of business and infrastructure is to make sure that the locals in Donbas have nowhere to earn an income, except by joining the separatist troops.
Speaking on the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic’s TV station on July 9, Igor Strelkov (real name Igor Girkin), the Russian militant commander, said he was planning to create a “contract army” and will pay Hr 5,000 to Hr 8,000 to those who join.
In a video interview on July 8, separatist commander Igor Strelkov says he will pay Hr 5,000 to Hr 8,000 to residents who join his militia.
“I would like to say that many, it seems, would be ready to join the militia, if there was a guarantee for the families. Now we will have such a guarantee, starting from this month. The militants will be paid quite significant, by local standards, sums from Hr 5,000 to 8,000. We’re planning to start the pay as of July… In other words, we will be creating a contract army,” Strelkov said.
The new round of recruitment comes amid news of several separatist fighters deserting their comrades and infighting within the ranks of Strelkov’s militias.
Gubarev indicated as much on July 2, saying that while all militia groups are subordinate to Strelkov, the Russian Orthodox Army takes orders directly from Igor Bezler, the separatist commander based in Horlivka, north of Donetsk. On at least two occasions Bezler’s fighters have rolled into Donetsk and clashed with local fighters in an attempt to assert their power.
Gubarev downplayed the severity of the commanders’ spats, but said that they have had arguments on the past – by phone and email.
There still are plenty of militants hanging around on the territories that have been freed, as well, local residents report. Alexander, 53, and his wife Inna, life-long residents of Sloviansk who spoke with the Kyiv Post outside the city’s security services building – the insurgency’s former local headquarters – said several of the rebels had not fled with Strelkov and others, but ditched their military fatigues for ordinary dress and stuck around the city.
Mykhailo, a Ukrainian National Guardsman from Lviv Oblast who has spent 42 days fighting in Sloviansk and was hit in the right shoulder by shrapnel from a mortar fired by separatists during a fight at block post 2 near Sloviansk on July 1, told the Kyiv Post that he and his comrades continue to take fire from surrounding forested areas even now, after the city was liberated.
“There is shooting during the nights every night,” Mykhailo said. He asked that his last name not be used because he was not authorized to speak with the press. “Rebels dressed in civilian clothing are posing as peaceful citizens so they are not to be detained by our guys (Ukrainian troops).”
Mykhailo said he was unsure how many rebels posing as peaceful civilians had remained in Sloviansk and were shooting toward Ukrainian units around the city, “but there are many.”
“The rebel insurgency will continue… and it will – it already is – partisan war,” he added.
Around 3,000 rebels fled Sloviansk on July 5, Alexander said, pointing to a building in the city’s center where he said some 400 of them had been shacked up for three months.
“We spoke with many of them, and most were from Grozny,” he said, referring to the city in Chechnya.
While Alexander and Inna spoke with the Kyiv Post, a red sedan sped past. Upon seeing the driver, Alexander stopped speaking.
“I recognize that guy, he was a guy… from that block post,” he said to Inna as he quietly repeated the car’s license plate number to himself. Grabbing the notebook from the Kyiv Post reporter’s hand, he jotted down the plate number, adding that he was “keeping a list.”
Parubiy says that to fight the type of warfare Ukraine is facing in the east of the country, a different type of the army is needed.
“New war means new challenges,” he says. So, special troops capable of handling complex, subversive tactics are needed. Moreover, strong counter-intelligence and preventive action based on that intelligence are key to success, and so are high precision weapons able to target separatist bases. And that is something Ukraine is yet to get.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya and editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
