“More than anything we want peace, but we must at the moment face up to the worst-case scenario.” Said in an interview Ukrainian president to the German daily, Bild.
So it seems that the ‘anti-terrorist action’ which mainly focuses on the bombing of civilians in the areas of New Russia will be continued. Carrying out a series of interviews with Dr. Matthew Piskorski (founder of the Center for Geopolitical and one of the international observers of the situation in the New Russia) I asked him about the status of the Ukrainian army and situation on the front. It is worth noting that some of the information cited here comes from the prime minister of DLR, Oleksandr Zacharczenko. Here is the report of situation in New Russia from dr.Matthew Piskorski.
The morale of people who are forcibly recruited in the army, sent to die in horrible conditions, are very low. Now, Ukrainian army is unable to secure weapons and even lunches and food.
From what we know, a lot of food, which is sent to the units fighting on the front is stolen on the way. Extremely small rations reach to conscripts on the front.
This information is from Mr. Zacharczenko, Prime Minister of DRL: there are scenes in which representatives of the so-called ‘separatists’, announce through megaphones on the front line, that those who will give up immediately, in the near future, will be able to go home.
Thus, they appeal to those conscripts. Dozens of people with raised hands go into captivity of LRL and DRL. In order to have any chance to return home. While, on the other hand, they know that there can be repressed. They de facto are faced with a choice: whether to go to prison and survive, or become a cannon fodder for the front. We also have a third option and also observe it here in Poland. This option is emigration. Therefore, we will have an increased outflow of young men at military age in Ukraine. People who do not want to die in these terrible conditions, not in theirs interests but oligarchic.
On the other hand, we have the National Guard. It consists largely of former combatants, or the organizers of Maidan, but not the extreme right-wing nationalist. Indeed, they already create penal battalions of which we mentioned earlier. In the National Guard, opposition sentiments to the authorities in Kiev grow and this can be very dangerous for Kiev.
At one point, this National Guard may decide that they go back to Kiev to organize Maidan again and remove the oligarchs from power. The highest morale have units created and co-created by Ukrainian nationalists. Morale and attitude of the Ukrainian Right Sector is in similar – when it comes to the level of devotion, fanaticism – it is a similar attitude that represent terrorists of Islamic state in the Middle East.
I received chilling information that separatists’ prisoners of the exchange program, were underfeeding to death by the Ukrainian side. One important officer for DRL was released and transferred to Donetsk and then two days later he died. Previously, as it turned out for two months did not receive any food, he was extremely exhausted. It was unable to save his life in Donetsk.
As part of the exchange of prisoners program, Ukrainian side once gave the side of Donbas dozens of people whose representatives of military units Donbass do not know who these people are. Practically speaking, there was no information that they fought under any of the battalions, any of the units of the so-called ‘separatists’. As it turned out they were people who were accidentally, homeless. Somehow gotten by the police and security services in Kiev. Then transported directly from Kyiv railway stations as alleged captives. Prisoners of war who were a part of the exchange program and should hit the Donbas. The question arisen in the case is what happened with real prisoners, who were subject to this kind of prisoner exchange program ,agreed at a conference in Minsk. The fate of most of them is unknown.
I received information that at the border of DRL district, actually, near Donetsk, Grat missile systems are settled in several towns. There are approximately 50 of them at this moment. These are of course the systems that prepare a massive attack, actually sweeping away from the surface of the earth, the population of the city district. If the Ukrainian authorities decided to take such a desperate step then there will be thousands of victims among civilians. On the other hand, I am convinced that the Ukrainian troops today are not ready to carry out any major operation.
Ukrainian army does not exist. One month ago, official statements of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine said that 67% of the Ukrainian army equipment was destroyed, or is not suitable for use. Because of that, we do not have to deal with the regular army. We have to deal with a jumble of volunteer battalions consisting of nationalist extremists and mercenaries from third countries.
I also talked with representatives of the DRL and learned some very interesting things. The Ukrainian front consists of three lines. Conscription or let’s say openly cannon fodder fight in the first line: young people who were forcibly conscripted into the army and sent to the southeast of Ukraine in order to take part in the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operations’. These people, whenever there is a possibility, submit to the representatives of the People’s Republic hoping that thanks to the prisoners exchange program they will go back home. They cannot withdraw because, behind their backs stand Ukrainian Guard unit that shoot each retreating soldier.
This is the old method known from the period of the Second World War. This method is now applied in Ukraine. And the third row, the most ruthless, the most dangerous military units are penal battalions that shoot both of these recruits mentioned at the beginning as well as possibly retreating units of the National Guard. Accordingly, the so-formed front is obviously chance to carry out various kinds of military operations on a smaller scale.
This will, however, take place at the cost of lives (including thousands of people in the operations on a large scale), mainly conscripts – ordinary citizens, young people who are now conscripted into the army in Ukraine. This in turn will cause the predictable protests, predictable outrage of the families, mothers, wives, children of those who died on that front. This would have dire consequences today. Any intensification of hostilities on the part of Kiev would have dire consequences, even for Kiev. I’m not afraid of the level of morale and level of preparedness of the so-called ‘separatists’. I suspect that these so-called ‘separatists’ built more professional, better equipped army than the Ukrainian army.
Geopolitical goal of the sponsors of current authorities in Kiev is not to maintain the Ukrainian statehood. Geopolitical goal of the current sponsors of so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ (operating through figures, such as local oligarch Igor Kołomojski and a few others) is to maintain a zone of chaos in our part of Europe, namely to continue this conflict without a firm resolve to either side in the years to come . In order to lead this conflict to a source of contention, the source of conflict between the European Union and the leading countries of the European Union and Russia, and that the conflict has allowed Western world geopolitical reformat and setting up a Trans-Atlantic investment partnership zone that is subordinate to the United States the EU economy. This is the geopolitical background of the conflict. I stress once again that the party authority, the sponsor and the party coordinating these events is the United States, with a minor contribution from its European partners.
Washington has decided to arm Ukraine for renewed military assault on Russian ethnics in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The US Senate approved the first reading of the draft law according to which henceforth Ukraine has the status of an American ally, without holding membership in NATO. This bill requires that the US, in the case of direct military aggression of Russia against Ukraine, will put its troops into action in the territory of an allied country in order to fight against the Russian enemy.
As a consequence, we have a situation in which Ukrainian troops can join the storming of the Donbas. In the event of a failure, they can accuse Russia of aggression and then America will have the full right to start a war in Ukraine.
As Poroshenko said he is ready for ‘total war’.
Konrad Stachnio is an independent Poland based journalist, he hosted a number of radio and TV programs for the Polish edition of PrisonPlanet, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
