Ukraine’s “Anti-Terror Operation” (ATO) in the Donbas is now known as the Joint Forces Operation and is fully under military command, Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Viktor Muzhenko said on Feb. 22.
Speaking to Radio Svoboda, the army’s top commander said Ukraine’s military campaign would have a single chain of command for all forces deployed to the war zone.
With the new structure in place, the ATO in its present form has been brought to an end, Muzhenko added.
Muzhenko’s announcement followed the signing of the controversial Donbas reintegration law by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Feb. 20. The date was significant, being four years to the day after the first Russian special operations units began their invasion of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
The law, previously approved by the Verkhovna Rada on Jan.18, declared Russia an aggressor state that was occupying parts of Ukraine and governing the seized territories with occupational authorities.
While condemning Russia’s incursion in the Donbas, the law nevertheless underlines Ukraine’s commitment to the peaceful reintegration of the currently occupied areas. However, all references to the Minsk agreement as a basic roadmap to achieving peace in the region were excluded from the document after fierce debate in parliament.
The law created the legal basis for the army’s presence and activities in the war-torn region without the need to impose martial law. Instead of the “anti-terror operation” conducted since April 7, 2014 under the command of Ukraine’s SBU security service, although with the extensive involvement of the army, the law defined the ongoing campaign in the Donbas as “taking measures on ensuring national security and defense, and repulsing and deterring the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.”
The new operation will be run by the Joint Operative Headquarters of the Armed Forces, the head of which is to be nominated by the army’s chief of the General Staff and approved by the president.
The Joint Operative Headquarters is also defined in Ukraine’s pending draft law on national security as a top-level command staff that unites all branches of the armed services, and which commands forces engaged in actual hostilities.
Following the signing of the law on Feb. 20, Poroshenko said that he had ordered Muzhenko to nominate by April 1 a candidate to take charge of the Joint Operative Headquarters.
Speaking with Radio Svoboda on Feb. 22, Muzhenko said he would nominate a commander “with actual combat experience, and sufficient skills, knowledge, and practical expertise.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s troops in the Donbas are under the command of Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy, a paratroop commander who was awarded the title of “Hero of Ukraine” following his successful campaign against Russian-led forces in the summer of 2014, widely known as “Zabrodskiy’s Raid.”
