Ukraine surrenders Debaltseve railroad hub

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko decided on Feb. 19 to remove his armed forces from the embattled railroad hub of Debaltseve in the Donetsk region. Ukraine’s Armed Forces fully completed their mission there, he said. “That position and the successes were very necessary in Minsk during the talks, and after Minsk,” he said. “We were able to demonstrate to the whole world the true face of the bandits, the separatists supported by Russia, which acted as a guarantor and direct participant in the Minsk talks.”

The battle at Debaltseve “is convincing evidence of the fighting capacity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the effectiveness of its military command,” Poroshenko said. “Regardless of the intense artillery shootings from Grad rapid-fire missile launchers, we have data on 30 wounded among the more than 2,000 Ukrainian forces,” he said. About 80 percent of Ukrainian forces had been removed by the afternoon of Feb. 18.

Local news reports from Debaltseve largely contradicted the accounts offered by the Ukrainian president. Soldiers described having to fight their way out of the encircled town in a chaotic escape that began the early morning of Feb. 18, reported the zn.ua news site. Commanders led their units to evacuate after receiving no clear orders from their superiors in Kyiv. “Under the protection of the 128th brigade commander, several armies gathered and attempted a breakthrough, which was chaotic, under constant fire. The enemy destroyed our hardware and soldiers under heavy artillery fire,” said the deputy commander of the 25th Kyivska Rus battalion, as reported by the zn.ua news site.

Soldiers estimated hundreds of casualties and injured, without official data, reported the New York Times, which cited a surviving soldier estimating that not more than a third survived. By the evening, Donbas battalion commander Semen Semenchenko confirmed 167 wounded being treated at the hospital in nearby Artemivsk. The same evening, the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) press center estimated 22 dead and 150 wounded out of 2,459 evacuated. The same day, Russian-backed separatists attacked the village of Shyrokyne outside of Mariupol nine times, reported the Facebook page of the Defense of Mariupol civic organization.

Russian-backed separatists used modern weapons in attacking Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a Feb. 18 press conference in Riga. “We see that the cease-fire isn’t being upheld,” he said, noting that OSCE observers weren’t allowed to approach Debaltseve. “We see that the separatists in eastern Ukraine are advancing, particularly in the region of Debaltseve.” He called upon Russia to remove its armies from eastern Ukraine, cease its support for the separatists, uphold the Minsk accords and use all possible pressure on the separatists to force them to uphold the cease-fire accords.

Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko’s support among the public is sure to decline, particularly after his commanders reportedly failed to arrange for a safe passage of Ukrainian soldiers out of the war zone, despite his claims that the evacuation was orderly. It’s not so much the defeat at Debaltseve that concerns the public as much as a lack of a clear strategy and reliable information about the war. The Ukrainian public is losing trust in government claims about the war, which contrasts severely with the firsthand accounts of soldiers published in newspapers.

Even more dangerous, the Russian military and the separatists they back are emboldened by their latest victory and flaunting of the Minsk cease-fire accords. Based on the Feb. 12 agreement, Debaltseve belonged to a buffer zone from which heavy artillery was supposed to be removed. Instead, their persistent violations of the Minsk cease-fire accords have only brought them rewards.

We have no doubt that they will use any possible lull in warring following their capture of Debaltseve to regroup and plan for their next attack, which will likely target the industrial hub and port city of Mariupol. If Debaltseve resulted in significant military casualties (more than a hundred), which has yet to be confirmed, we expect Brussels to respond with a consideration of new sanctions and Washington to respond with consideration of dispatching arms. But as we’ve noted, it’s civilian casualties that have prompted the swiftest and strongest response.