Interesting article- Was Slavyansk really a military win for Kiev?Could it have been a war lord (Oligarch) buy out?Or a complete coercion on the part of the fascists in Kiev?Highlighting the interesting bits-
DONETSK, Ukraine >> Driven out of their key stronghold in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russia separatists regrouped Sunday in the city of Donetsk, vowing to renew their fight against the government in Kiev before thousands of cheering supporters at a rally.Ukrainian troops on Saturday forced the rebels out of Slovyansk, a city of about 100,000 that had been the center of the fighting. The government’s success there suggested it may finally be making gains in the months-long battle against the insurgency.President Petro Poroshenko said, while it was not a total victory, purging Slovyansk of the armed insurgents had “incredible symbolic importance.”
It was not yet clear, however, whether the rebels have been permanently crippled and their setback will also increase pressure on Russia to do more to help them.
Rebel fighters from Slovyansk and other towns taken over by the Ukrainian army moved freely Sunday around central Donetsk, a city of 1 million and the capital of a region where the separatists have declared independence in the name of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The insurgents control the regional administration building and checkpoints on the city outskirts,
Igor Girkin, the defense minister of the separatist republic, told the Russian television channel Life News on Sunday that he would keep up the fight from Donetsk.“We will continue the combat operations and will try not to make the same mistakes that we made in the past,” said Girkin, a Russian also known by his nom de guerre, Igor Strelkov.
At the rally Sunday afternoon on a square in Donetsk, people waved flags from Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic.
“We will begin a real partisan war around the whole perimeter of Donetsk,” Pavel Gubarev, the self-described governor of the Donetsk People’s Republic, told the crowd. “We will drown these wretches in blood.”
But he said the insurgents could easily die in Donetsk if Russia did not come to their aid.They were forced to flee Slovyansk because several commanders had betrayed Girkin and left his forces vulnerable to attack, Gubarev said.
I feel comfortable assuming that the so called victory came to the Kiev junta thanks to either pay offs & graft OR threats and coercion? But, a military victory (hard won battle) does not appear to have been the impetus behind the taking of Slavyansk.
“We will fight to the end because we have nowhere left to retreat,” said one of the masked fighters, a 32-year-old former coal miner who would give only his first name, Artyom, due to fears of retaliation. “I don’t want to fall into the hands of the Ukrainian authorities, those fascists.”
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