Thursday, September 04, 2014

Ukraine: Did the Frog Hop Out? Or did Mariupol Become the Latest Addition to the Frog Stew?

The Ukrainian army has been in full retreat. There's almost no good way to put this, but they seriously bugged out from large parts of the east. Shyrokyne seems to have been abandoned. Anything south of Kurakhove to Mariupol seems to have been emptied out of Ukrainian troops. In the northern portion of the Donetsk Oblast, Debaltseve has been abandoned. In the Lugansk Oblast, they abandoned Starobilsk.

The Ukrainians still hold the Donetsk airport and captured 7 more Russian troops today. They are still fihting on the outskirts of Donetsk from the west. However, they may change.

There is a rumor two battalions of tanks and around a brigade of infantry are to attack Mariupol by tomorrow. The defenses around Mariupol are thinner than thin.

Supposedly, there will be a ceasefire tomorrow. Both sides have stated this. However, last time the ceasefire was decidedly one sided.  We will see if this is another rouse.

Poroshenko met with the West today at the NATO Summit in the UK.  

NATO has stated they will start providing weapons to Ukraine, not just nonlethal aid.  One would hope this would start with ATGMs and MANPADs.  I'd dream of Poland and the other xWarsaw Pact nations providing tanks and whatnot for free: Poland has 350 T-72s, 135 GRad and something on the order of nearly 1000 BMP-1s.  There are plenty of others left in warehouses elsewhere.  That alone would make up 4 brigades of tanks, 12 brigades of motorized infantry and some artillery.  I am sure the germans have a large number as do the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Romanians, etc.

On a personal note, three are out.  Two are not. 

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