Here’s the Summary for July 2, 2014
The bad news:
1. The RNBO [National Security and Defense Council] reported today: since the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation [ATO] in Ukraine, 200 servicemen were killed and 619 were wounded. According to the Defense Ministry, 29 Ukrainian servicemen are held hostage by terrorists.
Civilians are being killed as well. The Donetsk Oblast State Administration said that over 160 innocent civilians were killed during terrorist actions just in Donetsk Oblast [region] alone.
The blood of our brothers continues to saturate our land. For Russia who incites this slaughter and who traditionally treats the death of its citizens with indifference, these numbers might not be as impressive. But for Ukraine, the life of each serviceman and each peaceful civilian taken away by this conflict is a great tragedy.
2. Today, a “BMP” infantry fighting vehicle [IFV] of the ATO forces got blown up on a land mine near the border crossing checkpoint of “Izvarino” [Luhansk Oblast]. Later, terrorists fired at this checkpoint with artillery.
These situations are very revealing. [They show that] insurgents won’t allow themselves to get cut off from the border with Russia this easily. They understand perfectly that severing the delivery channels of Russian mercenaries and weapons is the end to terrorism in Donbas.
According to our data, even when border control guards and the army gain control of the border in an area where insurgents are active, they [insurgents] immediately begin to actively mine the positions of our security forces, and to conduct firing attacks. Therefore, the battle for the border is only just beginning.
3. Yesterday, the LNR [Luhansk People’s Republic] terrorists captured a journalist, Anastasia Stanko, and a cameraman Ilya Bezkorovainyi from HromadskeTV.
This is an episode of war for minds. According to pro-Russian insurgents (and their masters in the Kremlin), Russian propagandists from the media who illegally enter Ukraine, can work closely with terrorists running around Donbas. But representatives of unbiased public media do not have the right to work here. Not a word of truth from Donbas–[this is] the main slogan of the Kremlin and its mongrels.
Today, the RNBO reported that Stanko and Bezkorovainyi are alive, and that negotiations for their release were underway. God willing, the guys will be released soon. A low bow to them for their honest, dangerous and much-needed work. [Editor’s note: both journalists were finally released today].
The good news:
1. The anti-terrorist operation [ATO] is currently in its active phase, and is demonstrating success. Now security forces are finally showing what we’ve been waiting to see from them. Finally. Only yesterday, they destroyed 120 terrorist objects, after they’d held scouting missions and made sure that there were no peaceful civilians there.
It’s not easy to comment on the assumptions coming from government offices that there might be a repeat of the ceasefire. I know that among you, my friends, are many who have not given up hope for a peaceful dialogue. As well, there are those who are certain that terrorists need to be neutralized and destroyed without compromise, and that a peaceful dialogue is at our own peril.
To be honest with you, in my soul, I am wholeheartedly for the second option. But in my mind, I fully admit that a ceasefire can take place. However, not like the first time, when security forces were not carrying out active operations but terrorists in the meantime turned Donbas into a bloodbath and prepared for further confrontation.
The truce can only take place to allow insurgents to lay down their arms. Any other option is difficult to justify.
2. Winning this war is possible only by winning it on all fronts. Including on the information [front] where Ukraine was quite clearly losing from the first day of Russia’s aggression.
The situation is not without problems, but it is getting corrected. Changing the spokesperson of the RNBO Information Center to the “real Colonel,” Andriy Lysenko, is just one of the steps in that direction. In effect, a proficient public information strategy comes into action. With that, we constantly say that since Ukraine is the victim of aggression, its best counter-propaganda is to rapidly provide objective information. Only in this manner is it possible to beat the Kremlin’s powerful propaganda machine.
By the way, as for me, the arrival of A. Lysenko on the scene is a very good move. I have known this officer for a long time, for many years he served brilliantly in the press service of the Defense Ministry, and he served in the peacekeeping troops. He can be characterized in one word: professional. And the fact that a person in uniform covers and comments on the actions of the armed forces of the country is also a correct move.
We, the IR group, are also undergoing a change in the format of our work. We are currently working on a new algorithm of interaction [mechanism of communication] with state agencies. As we constantly said, we are not competitors of state mechanisms but a public initiative that strives to help its country in a time of need. Therefore, we will not duplicate the state agencies, but [will] only work on strengthening where [our] help is needed.
3. The Information and Analytical Center of the RNBO said today that the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric at Russian federal TV channels and state news agencies had noticeably softened after the election of the President of Ukraine.
Maybe that’s true. However, it’s nowhere near Russia discontinuing its most powerful information war against Ukraine. In any case, this is a positive.
