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Related: About this forumThe Battle Behind the Fog of Propaganda: The "Exceptional" U.S. Suffers Crushing Defeat in Debaltsev
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Battle-Behind-the-Fog-by-Mike-Whitney-Military_Suffering_Ukraine-150220-655.htmlThe Battle Behind the Fog of Propaganda: The "Exceptional" U.S. Suffers Crushing Defeat in Debaltsevo
By Mike Whitney
OpEdNews Op Eds 2/20/2015 at 21:47:14
In less than a year, the United States has toppled the democratically-elected government of Ukraine, installed a Washington-backed stooge in Kiev, launched a bloody and costly war of annihilation on Russian-speaking people in the East, thrust the economy into a downward death spiral, and reduced the nation to an anarchic, failed state destined to endure a vicious fratricidal civil war for as far as the eye can see.
Last week, Washington suffered its greatest military defeat in more than a decade when Ukraine's US-backed army was soundly routed in the major railway hub of Debaltsevo. Roughly, 8,000 Ukrainian regulars along with untold numbers of tanks and armored units were surrounded in what-came-to-be-known-as "the cauldron." The army of the Donetsk Peoples Republic led by DPR commander Alexander Zakharchenko, encircled the invading army and gradually tightened the cordon, eventually killing or capturing most of the troops within the pocket. The Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered major casualties ranging between 3,000 to 3,500 while a vast amount of lethal military hardware was left behind.
According to Zakharchenko, "The amount of equipment Ukrainian units have lost here is beyond description."
Additionally, the US-backed proxy-army saw many of its crack troops and top-notch units destroyed in the fighting leaving Kiev unable to continue the war without assistance from allies in the US or Europe. The full impact of the defeat will not be known until angry troops returning from the front amass on the streets of the Capital and demand Petro Poroshenko's resignation. The Ukrainian President is responsible for the massacre at Debaltsevo. He was fully aware that his army faced encirclement but ordered them to remain in order to satisfy powerful right-wing elements in his government. The disaster is even more terrible due to the fact that it was entirely avoidable and achieved no strategic purpose at all. Extreme hubris frequently impacts outcomes on the battlefield. This was the case at Debaltsevo.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Same goes for the American media, deflect, deflect deflect.
Victoria Nuland was so incompetent Obama left her in charge of advising Ukraine, with predictable results.
Obama The Negotiator supporting a power that refused to negotiate? Sounds like Obama? Not.
Until Deblatsevo was doomed Kiev refused to negotiate, and thus the scramble for a ceasefire, then rather rapidly the Minsk Accords were reached and apparently holding - because Kiev has run out of cannon fodder......so obvious what really happened to force an agreement by Poroshenko......his major forces were surrounded, an ever greater humiliation awaited.
Why did the Novoroyssia forces let the trapped soldiers/ militias go? It was an act of mercy. What else can you call it?
Like I have said for weeks, Obama is never going to arm the Kiev regime, leaving Nuland in charge guarantees that.
Obama is also "evolving" on Ukraine.