 |
| Armed men in military fatigues block access to the government buildings in eastern Ukraine's rebel-held Lugansk, Wednesday. (ALEKSEY FILIPPOV/AFP/Getty Images) |
VietPress USA (Nov. 26, 2017): In 2014, Russia made several military incursions into Ukrainian territory. After Euromaidan protests and the fall of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Russian soldiers without insignias took control of strategic positions and infrastructure within the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Russia then annexed Crimea after an unconstitutional referendum in which Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, according to official results. Subsequently, demonstrations by pro-Russian groups in the Donbass area of Ukraine escalated into an armed conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Russia-backed separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. In August, Russian military vehicles crossed the border in several locations of Donetsk Oblast. The incursion by the Russian military was seen as responsible for the defeat of Ukrainian forces in early September.
In November 2014, the Ukrainian military reported intensive movement of troops and equipment from Russia into the separatist controlled parts of eastern Ukraine. The Associated Press reported 80 unmarked military vehicles on the move in rebel-controlled areas. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission observed convoys of heavy weapons and tanks in DPR-controlled territory without insignia. OSCE monitors further stated they observed vehicles transporting ammunition and soldiers' dead bodies crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border under the guise of humanitarian aid convoys. As of early August 2015, OSCE observed over 21 such vehicles marked with the Russian military code for soldiers killed in action. According to The Moscow Times, Russia has tried to intimidate and silence human rights workers discussing Russian soldiers' deaths in the conflict. OSCE repeatedly reported that its observers were denied access to the areas controlled by "combined Russian-separatist forces".
The majority of members of the international community and organizations such as Amnesty International have condemned Russia for its actions in post-revolutionary Ukraine, accusing it of breaking international law and violating Ukrainian sovereignty. Many countries implemented economic sanctions against Russia, Russian individuals or companies – to which Russia responded in kind.
In October 2015, The Washington Post reported that Russia has redeployed some of its elite units from Ukraine to Syria to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In December 2015, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russian military intelligence officers were operating in Ukraine, insisting though that they were not the same as regular troops. Despite being an independent country since 1991, Ukraine has been perceived as being part of its sphere of interest by Russia (Wikipedia).
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-11-24/russia-has-deployed-thousands-of-tanks-troops-to-ukraine-top-official-saysVietPress USA News
www.vietpressusa.us
oOo
Russia Has Deployed Thousands of Tanks, Troops to Ukraine, Top Official Says
Moscow sends a ‘continuous flow of munitions’ into the conflict zone as part of a broader scheme to degrade Ukraine’s army.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – The Russian government has deployed thousands of armored vehicles and troops into Ukraine to support separatist rebels in the war-torn country's eastern region, Ukraine's top defense official says, despite repeated assertions from Moscow of minimal military involvement there.
"It's a real army. They have continuous inflow of munitions," Pavlo Klimkin, the Ukrainian defense minister, told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of an international security conference here last weekend.
Klimkin says 2,000 Russian armed vehicles and "a couple thousand" Russian soldiers are operating in the contested Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of eastern Ukraine, known collectively as the Donbas. A simmering proxy war has taken place there since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists began fighting to break the rural provinces away from Kiev. In addition, Russia has deployed artillery, mortars, light weapons and missile systems, like the Sa-11 that reportedly shot down a Malaysian airliner in 2015.
"In the sense of planning, in the sense of steering, in the sense of operating specific warfare, it's all about the Russians," Klimkin said.
Moscow has repeatedly denied any large-scale deployment of troops into Ukraine. A separatist leader in 2014 dismissed reports of Russian soldiers operating there in 2014 as simply off-duty troops on vacation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has occasionally admitted to the presence of military intelligence operatives in Ukraine and said in October that Russia has been "forced to defend" Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.
The Trump administration is reportedly considering a new arms package for Ukraine, a break from the Obama administration's policy of refusing to provide lethal defensive weapons. Klimkin says he "definitely" believes a new U.S. arms deal is coming but repeatedly declined to discuss any details.
Klimkin did say his military requires tools to conduct electronic warfare, as well as logistics and intelligence like satellite imagery. He praised the ongoing training program conducted by the U.S., Canada and other Western allies in the western Ukrainian town of Lviv.
Both Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists routinely violate the terms of a peace deal known as the Minsk agreement that prohibits heavy weaponry or military activity along a cease-fire line in the Donbas. Analysts fear the peace process has devolved into a simmering conflict that Moscow has employed in an attempt to degrade the Ukrainian military.
As for how long Russia plans to continue supporting this war, Klimkin says, "I don't believe they have been getting advantage in the sense of staying there."
"They did control the situation with the help of special services and mercenary militaries, but at the same time there is no economic model. It is not getting better," Klimkin says, citing mines in the Donbas that have flooded, and an economy he says is based on smuggling. "There is no way for a sustainable model for functioning."
Putin doesn't need Donbas, Klimkin adds, he only needs it to exhaust Ukraine's forces.
www.Vietpressusa.us
