ATO Progress

For the past day we observed rearrangement of terrorist attack forces in the border areas, namely in the direction of Rovenki-Sverdlovsk. According to reports of our competent sources from the front line, a part of the 72th and 95th brigades got into encirclement. At the same time official sources say that there is no encirclement anywhere. However, no one can deny that the servicemen are in a very difficult situation. Conduct of combat by those divisions is complicated by the fact that the enemy takes place at zero and inflicts fire blows. To avoid provocations, reprisal fire is not opened.

Also today (June 16) users uploaded a video demonstrating a BM-21 “Grad” attack from Gukovo (Rostov region, Russian Federation) on the territory of Ukraine:

We hope that the international community adequately responds to the incident. The detailed analysis of the incident with all necessary references to the topography is already available in the Internet. The analysis confirms that the shelling was performed from the territory of the Russian Federation.

On June 16 there was the predicted dissecting attack near Marynivka. Since the very morning Ukrainian military aircrafts had been suppressing resistance of the enemy. The efforts of volunteers collecting information for the ATO forces, helped to find out possible approach routes of terrorist reserves from Torez and reveal an attack group in the north of Amrosiivka. As it become known in the evening, good reinforcement to our forces arrived to Amrosiivka (we are not going to disclose any details to make that a surprise for terrorists). In this regard we can expect the near end of the crisis in this region in favor of Ukrainian forces.

The very fact of having reinforcement on our side gives hope that groupings located in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Novoshakhtinsk and Matveev Kurgan (Rostov region) will not take the risk of entering the territory of Ukraine. Although the probability of attacks from the territory of the Russian Federation (we wrote about that in our previous report) still remains high. However, let us wait for political decisions that are going to happen in the night.

Besides, we noticed that terrorists are trying to get full control over the border checkpoints in Izvayne, Dolzhanskyi, Marynivka which coincide with the directions of possible attacks. Alternatively, more active transfer of military equipment and weapons for militants to Ukraine will continue. At any rate the fine line between the fight against terrorism and the fight against hypocritical military aggression almost vanished. Perhaps the words of the declaration of war will never be spoken but the Russian tanks are already in Ukraine, columns of cars with Russian troops are also here and moreover, Russia does not feel shy – even formally – of shelling Ukrainian territory with rockets. No comments.

The good news is that in the night a column of terrorist forces which moved from Snizhne to Torez was destroyed. Our intelligence worked perfectly in this case.

As for Luhansk, terrorist tactics remains the same: they shell from residential areas and change their positions. In addition, according to the reports of the locals, militants plan to assault Luhansk airport. In Donetsk the situation is similar. Rumors are that Donetsk will be shelled in the night from the southern direction.

It can therefore be argued that the attacks which we predicted and which militants are trying hard to implement are not successful. It should be noted that the activity of the militants in the southern direction is probably due to their very bad situation in the north.

Our forecast for tomorrow: if Russia does not decide to send troops, there might be an attempt to break through towards Marynivka checkpoint as the militants need to move out the grouping formed near Snizhne. Moreover, judging by the build up of the forces in Lysychansk (currently there are about 20 tanks and the forces are constantly brought up) and given that terrorists are actively preparing diversions in Krasnyi Lyman, militants will possibly try to recapture Siversk and Krasnyi Lyman. Also, for a number of reasons, we expect activity of subversive groups in the area of Kramatorsk.

Major Developments in the International Arena in the Context of the Situation in Ukraine

Everybody is waiting for the decision of the Council of Europe regarding the tightening of the sanctions against the Russian Federation. It became know that the United States imposed new sanctions against Russia. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the sanctions will be targeted at a number of leading Russian banks and energy companies.

In the night there were several telephone conversations: Angela Merkel and Joe Biden talked to Petro Poroshenko and promised that the U.S. and the EU will support Ukraine; the other was the dialog between Angela Merkel and Barack Obama: reportedly they discussed the situation in Ukraine but the details are unknown.

In general the United States openly declare their readiness to tighten sanctions and call on the EU to do the same (it is known that there is no unanimous position on this in the European Union). Due to the meeting accents in the German position changed a bit from the moderate position to a more radical one. For example, the member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Germany, Karl-Georg Wellman, said that the sanctions are inevitable because Russia performs no steps to de-escalate the situation.

President of Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman promised support to Ukraine. According to him, in the event that Russia tries to capture new territories of Ukraine, the western countries will have to take serious actions, up to sending NATO troops.

Vladimir Putin in anticipation of the Council of Europe meeting send the new head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, a letter in which he had called the situation a “time of a serious test of relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union”.

The video conference with the participation of Ukraine, Russia, the OSCE and the terrorists failed because the terrorists “did not come”. These were the very negotiations Angela Merkel insisted on. However, the position taken by the terrorists suits Kyiv well: once again the terrorists proved that they are interested neither in ceasefire nor in negotiations.

Russian version: АТО. Сводка за 16.07.14