Ukraine forces have reduced Donbas battle zone by three-quarters

The Ukrainian government’s anti-terrorist operation has succeeded in reducing the battle zone by three-quarters in two months’ time, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told an Aug. 5 meeting of military leaders. “The main result is that millions of people have the possibility of returning to normal life,” he said. The operation’s goal is to minimize civilian and military casualties, he said.

The Russian government dispatched drones onto Ukrainian territory and increased its infantry on the Ukrainian border in the last 24 hours, reported National Security and Defense Council Spokesman Andriy Lysenko on the morning of Aug. 5. The Russian drones flew over the Donetsk and Kherson regions and a former air force base in the city of Bolgrad in the Odesa region. Meanwhile, additional infantry has been mobilized to the Russia’s Rostov, Byelgorod and Kursk oblasts that border Ukraine.

“The general amount of accumulated Russian units concentrated along Ukraine’s border amounts to about 45,000 soldiers, 160 tanks, up to 1,360 armored vehicles, up to 350 artillery systems, 130 rocket systems, 192 fighter planes and 137 strike helicopters,” Lysenko said. He added that the Russian Defense Ministry has launched widescale military training that involves more than 100 fighter aircraft. “Ukraine considers such unprecedented military exercises on its border as a provocation,” he said.

The Ukrainian government has evidence of the Russian government supplying terrorists modern armaments produced after 2000, which include flame throwers and sniper rifles, Dmytro Tymchuk, the head of the Information Resistance news site, told an Aug. 5 press conference. Ukraine’s Armed Forces never purchased the Dragunov sniper rifles found to be in the possession of the terrorists, he said. “It remains an open question as to the fighters’ source of the Strila-10 and Buk anti-aircraft systems, though the terrorists deny their presence, as we all know,” Tymchuk said.

The Donbas war has created 117,000 refugees within Ukraine’s borders, a United Nations agency reported on Aug. 5. The residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions account for 85 percent of refugees, compared to 15,200 from Crimea, the agency reported. A significant amount of refugees are fleeing the conflict zone surrounding the cities of Horlivka, Donetsk and Luhansk while many are returning to cities where the Ukrainian government has regained control, such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Zenon Zawada: The momentum in the war is certainly on the side of Ukrainians, though all the evidence points to the Russians planning retaliation. Ukrainian volunteer battalion commander Semen Semenchenko estimated this week that at least two to three months are needed to free the Donbas region from the pro-Russian terrorists, but that assessment doesn’t take into account a possible Russian escalation. Indeed nobody can predict whether the Russians will escalate the conflict but no one will be surprised should it happen. It’s possible for the conflict to continue into the winter as part of a Russian war of attrition against Ukraine.