The Ukrainian military moved to tighten the noose around territories occupied by Kremlin-backed separatists on Aug. 4, coming closer to fully encircling the separatist strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk and raising the specter of bloody street fights in the provincial capitals.
Kyiv is
now urging residents in Donetsk to evacuate the city. It has opened
humanitarian corridors in order to facilitate their escape.
Meanwhile,
Ukrainian volunteer battalions Azov and Shakhtarsk said that they had
entered the Donetsk city limits and have begun the operation to “liberate” the industrial
eastern city. Two members of the groups posted word of the move (here and here) on social media, including a photograph that purportedly shows the battalions within the city limits.
The
government has made clear its intentions of moving into the city, but it has
stopped short of giving a specific timetable. The heaviest fighting up until
now has occurred mainly on the outskirts of cities in Donetsk and Luhansk
oblasts, although rockets, mortars and small arms fire from both sides have struck
and destroyed residential buildings on several occasions, killing scores of
civilians and injuring hundreds more.
In all areas over the course of Ukraine’s military operation, 1,129 people have been killed and nearly 3,500 have been wounded, according to the United Nations. Tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes since the onslaught of the conflict in mid-April.
The
military has made big gains in the separatist-controlled regions since
businessman Petro Poroshenko was elected president in May and after he restarted
the active phase of the government’s “anti-terrorist operation” following a
brief and unsuccessful unilateral ceasefire.
After Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 was downed near Torez in a rebel-held area of Donetsk Oblast on July 17, government forces stepped up their fight. Kyiv and the West say the
Boeing 777-200 was shot down by Kremlin-backed rebels using a Buk missile
system supplied to them by Russia. Moscow, on the other hand, says Ukraine
fighter jets shot the airliner out of the sky. All 298 people on board were
killed in the shoot down.
In the
past two weeks, Ukrainian forces have mounted major offenses in the northern
and western outer districts of Donetsk, and in nearby Gorlovka, another city
ruled by separatists. The military also fought pitched battles with separatists
in Shakhtarsk and Torez as they moved to cut through the separatists’ territory,
blocking a critical corridor east to Luhansk and the border with Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia announced new military exercises by at least 12,000 troops massed near the Ukrainian border.
Should the fight move to the streets of metropolitan
Donetsk, where several hundreds of thousands out of about one million remain,
it would likely lead to a bloody confrontation. While the Ukrainian forces
outnumber the separatists 3 to 1 (Ukraine is said to have more than 30,000
troops fighting in the region, while the number of insurgents is estimated to
be around 12,000), the insurgents know the city well and have fortified it in
the four months they have controlled it.
Moreover, Ukrainian troops on the ground in the east
have little or no expertise in such situations, raising the risk of heavy
civilian and military casualties, according to Olexiy Melnyk, a former Defense Ministry official and
now co-director for foreign relations and international security programs at
the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre.
He told the Kyiv Post in an interview that urban
battle would be to Ukrainian troops’ “disadvantage” and play to the strengths
of the separatist fighters. Still, he believes it is a likely scenario, given
the government’s desire to wrap up its war against the separatists as soon as
possible.
A senior security official speaking on the condition
of anonymity because he was not allowed to comment publicly on the situation also
said Kyiv’s goal is to finish its offense in time to celebrate Independence Day
on Aug. 24.
Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Kyiv’s
military operation in the east, said during a recent news conference
in the capital that Ukrainian forces have ruled out “massive bombardment
of populated areas.”
“We will use only ground forces there, which will free
the city street by street, block by block,” he said.
That could turn ugly fast, as separatists aren’t
likely to lay down their arms and surrender. They have insisted time and again
that they will fight to the bitter end.
“We will have freedom or death,” Pavel Gubarev, a
separatist leader, told the Kyiv Post during an interview in July.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can
be reached at [email protected] and
on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
