The Donetsk National Republic lives!

Slava Donbass!

What follows is from a memorial to the victims of the Jan 22 trolley bombing in Donetsk.

Zakharchenko, wrote:

How could I express my condolences? You know, when our comrades, loved ones and neighbors are dying - a part of us is dying. I want to say one thing - they are killing us not because we wanted freedom, but because we are different. We were able to do what each of them was scared to do. This is what makes us different - bravery, pride and yes, a love of freedom. I don't agree that one should forgive the killers.

I want to say the following: Today began an offensive on Mariupol [the crowd cheers], God willing in a couple of days Debaltsevo cauldron will be closed. And it will be the best answer to honor the memory of the dead. Because we will pay back everyone, we will pay those who pulled the trigger or pushed the button which launched the missiles that killed our countrymen here. Those who shot people in Gorlovka, Makeevka, Yenakievo, Shakhtersk, Zhdanovka, Kirovka. Will pay back for each of our murdered child, and each old man innocently killed here. 

Glory to Donbass! Glory! (The crowd cheers)

And now I would like to have a moment of silence to all those killed by the Ukrainian punishers. 

Eternal memory to the dead!

and from the reporter ...

Юрия Котенка or Yuri Kotenka wrote:

A few minutes ago a memorial was held on Kuprina street, which was dedicated to the peaceful civilian victims, who were killed on January 22 by a missile which landed here.  The head of the Donetsk Republic Alexander Zakharcheno's words that the militia, defenders of Donbass,  launched an offensive on Mariupol, which is occupied by the Kiev junta, caused an ovation from the crowd. The people were supporting and cheering.  All of this is showing that they will be fighting to get their land back. All of this shows that Donbass will never be a part of Ukraine, to live with the killers in the same state - is not an option. Soon, in several hours, days, a Debaltsevo cauldron will be closed, were another group of Ukrainian punishers will find itself. There is a great number of heavy equipment and personel. If they don't surrender, they will be destroyed.  One cannot forget what a great significance Mariupol holds for Donbass - it is a great port city and a metallurgic center, one of the major industrial centers of former Ukraine, and now of Donetsk Republic. 

... and now of the Donetsk Republic.

There is good news and there is bad news, as the saying goes.

The Saker wrote:

The good news: the junta appears to be completely unable to mount any effective offensive.  Except for one successful counter-attack north of Peski, even the junta can't even claim a single tactical success.

The bad news: the Novorussians are clearly stronger, and they are generally prevailing, but nowhere near the kind of superiority to achieve an operational breakthrough.

The intrepid author is of the opinion that the Debaltsevo cauldron will be closed, as a result of which "most of the junta forces will either die or be taken prisoner with only a minority extracted on time. " He is more pessimistic on retaking Mariupol. Unlike the junta, as the brutal false flag operation showed, the Armed Forces of the DNR has no wish to bombard civilian areas and this makes taking Mariupol more difficult. Especially when the junta uses the civilians as human shields. In fairness, I should add that the DNR troops were accused of the same thing by HRW or some similar organization; but, in general, these things are very asymmetrical since the resistance, as I am calling them, have so far no interest in inflicting civilian casualties on the territory controlled by the junta.

The issue of the mobilization of troops by the junta is a farce. I posted an article on the Ukraine2 thread which showed that a million Ukrainian men have now fled to Russia to avoid military service with the Poroshenko regime.

This has got to be the first time in human history in which prospective soldiers of a country "invaded" by another have fled, en masse, to the "invading" country. As the Saker notes, the junta is now using road cops to hunt down draft dodgers. 

Ukraine is, for all the world to see, a failed state.And they are running out of time. 

Long live a free Donbass!

One side is bombing civilian areas, the other is defending those areas. Unless the resistance marches all the way to Kiev, things are going to stay that way.

Why not just stop bombing civilian areas? And why is the President of Ukraine gloating about it?

Slumberjack wrote:

One thing that's strikingly visible in the battle footage clips is the high morale and motivation of the DNR's troops.

Yes, and the contrast with the mutual infighting among the supporters of the junta (some of whom have surrounded the Presidential office in Kiev in the last day or so in protest) is remarkable.

DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko is one to watch for conveying this high morale.

Has Donetsk been betrayed by Moscow?

Mark Sleboda wrote:

Vladimir Suchan is unfortunately perfectly correct on this. As I've said before, Moscow still set on selling NovoRossiya and its people back to Kiev and the West for a "good price" in federalization and influence, despite the NAF winning so convincingly on the battlefield in Donbass:

"On the talks in Moscow between Putin, Merkel and Hollande: the key result is an agreement to try to hammer out an "agreement on the IMPLEMENTATION of the Minsk Agreements." The wording and editing is planned for tomorrow, and the possible agreement might be published (at least in its public portion) on Sunday, if the work succeeds. However, it seems that there is a basic understanding of the will of Moscow and the West to enter a new, somewhat modified phase of the "implementation" of the Minsk deal. The implementation document is said to be based on the proposals of Poroshenko and Putin, which means that it is based on som form of Western demands as mediated and communicated by Merkel and Hollande.

Importantly and tellingly, the negotiations of this new implementation of the Minsk agreements are to be in the Normandy format and NOT in the Minsk format. What it means is that Moscow agreed to exclude the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics from having any part in ironing out the "implementation" of the deal, which could seal the life and status of the two break-away republics. In this way, as before, Moscow signed and gave away even the idea that the two republics are any independent or politically relevant subjects, not to mention "equal partners" in talks with Kiev.

In fact, already in the Minsk process, the two republics were merely treated as added witnesses to the decisions made for them by others, and their representatives were asked to sign on the documents only with their personal names without any titles or names of the republics, which they represent."

Even the corporate media is starting to crack in regard to the steady stream of lies about the resistance.

FT wrote:

School lessons and shelling forge new identity in east Ukraine

Courtney Weaver in Donbass

'War has changed us': a Donetsk resident tries to salvage belongings from a badly damaged residential building this week
As world leaders convened in Minsk this week to decide the fate of east Ukraine, Tatiana Prussova, a teacher at Khartsysk school number 23, stood in front of her class, a map on the wall behind her.

For 10 minutes, she led a group of 15 and 16-year-old students through the day’s lesson: a review of the recent developments in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). She explained a new local holiday — February 8: Day of the Young Anti-Fascist Heroes — and recounted a pivotal week in which the US was considering arming Kiev while the rebel army had gained ground around the crucial rail hub of Debaltseve.

“Thanks to the gains of our Donetsk People’s Republic rebels, the road to Debaltseve has been closed and the town has been encircled,” Ms Prussova told the students, gesturing at the map in the same way other history teachers might point to the battle lines in Flanders or the Napoleonic War.

The class is one of dozens of so-called political information lessons now being taught at schools across rebel-controlled east Ukraine. It is a Soviet tradition that was disbanded following the fall of the USSR but has been revived by the pro-Russian DPR’s education ministry.

“We decided to inform the children from an objective point of view about the current developments of what’s happening inside the Donetsk People’s Republic,” said Lidiya Aksyonova, the school’s principal. “The beliefs that we form here in school will in 10 years become the political views of our government.”

While some may see this week’s Minsk memorandum, which calls for a ceasefire in east Ukraine and the eventual re-establishment of national borders, as the first step towards the DPR’s disbandment, there are few signs in the region of a rebel leadership preparing to relinquish control — or a society that wants them to.

After a months-long siege that has destroyed local infrastructure, and left the population under the near-constant percussion of artillery, a new sense of regional identity has taken hold in Donetsk. Though some of it is being transmitted through top-down initiatives such as Ms Prussova’s class, much of it has come through the Ukrainian army’s shelling, which has turned many formerly pro-Ukrainian locals against Kiev.

Another source of anger for many was an October speech by President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, in which he declared that the region’s citizens would suffer for the rebel leaders’ actions. “Our children will go to school and nursery school, and theirs will sit in basement!” he declared, waving a finger.

Poroshenko was talking about bombing children, make no mistake. And forcing them to hide in basements.

Quote:

“As a student, as the future generation, I was for a united Ukraine. We really believed in Poroshenko,” said Yekaterina, a 20-year-old student at Donetsk National University. While her family fled to the Ukrainian side during the summer, they were forced to return to Donetsk in September after they ran out of money. It was then that her feelings changed.

“We thought [Mr Poroshenko] would come to Donetsk, but he didn’t come once,” she said. She dismissed claims that Donetsk locals were being brainwashed by the rebel leadership and Russian television. “You don’t need to be a soldier to understand from what direction artillery fire is coming,” she said. “We have access to the internet. We’re not in the stone age. We’re not zombies.”

What a great quote.

You don’t need to be a soldier to understand from what direction artillery fire is coming.

You don’t need to be a soldier to understand from what direction artillery fire is coming.

You don’t need to be a soldier to understand from what direction artillery fire is coming.

Quote:

In Donetsk’s Kievsky district, one of the most heavily bombed parts of the city, a middle-aged worker named Svetlana said she had been living underground in a cold war-era bomb shelter with 50 of her neighbours since the bombing began in May. While she refused to take part in the separatists’ referendum and appeal to join Russia in May — “I could tell that something smelt funny,” she explained — her views changed during the months underground.

“How can I be for a united Ukraine when Kiev has spent the past six months bombing us?” she asked. “They came to power and destroyed the entire infrastructure of southeast Ukraine.”

Enrique Menendez, a Ukrainian-born businessman with Spanish roots, said one of Kiev’s biggest mistakes was to vilify the people of southeastern Ukrainian rather than open a dialogue.

“At the beginning, a lot of journalists, bloggers, opinion leaders — most of them pro-Ukrainian — left Donetsk. But when they got to Kiev, the rhetoric [about southeast Ukraine] was very negative,” said Mr Menendez. “This aggression and lack of understanding of what was going on here really offended the people that stayed behind.”

One of a dozen organisers of a March rally for a united Ukraine, Mr Menendez eventually decided to stay in Donetsk to set up an organisation that delivers humanitarian aid.

In August, there were only five people left in his apartment building. They would crowd into the corridor during the worst of the shelling. Now, nearly all the 80 or so former residents have returned.

“The wartime mentality has changed us,” he explained. “We’ve stopped valuing the superficial things in life. We’ve lost everything: our savings, our prospects, our businesses. Some people lost their relatives. But we’ve become more pure.”

Even though the rumble of artillery fire could still be heard in central Donetsk this week, much of city life felt normal. A ghost town for much of last year, most of the city’s residents have now returned. Restaurants and shops are reopening, and most local schools are in session.

Igor Kostenok, the DPR’s education minister, appears determined to use his post to encourage a lasting regional identity. In addition to the new political information classes, Mr Kostenok said schools would also teach students about the experience of youngsters who fought for the rebels during the summer.

“Our story of the Great Patriotic War [second world war] tells us that many children who were forced to grow up early because of the war took up arms and defended their home. History is doomed to repeat itself,” he said.

One such youngster is Alexander Vasin, a 16-year-old student from the Donetsk suburbs who fought at Donetsk airport over the summer in a rebel battalion called the 15th International Brigade, despite his parents’ objections. He returned when school resumed in September, but said he would go back to the battalion later this year if the war had not ended. Of the fighting, he said: “It’s difficult at the beginning, but you get used to it.”

A video of the fighting he shot on his mobile phone won a prize from the DPR education ministry and is now being shown at schools across the region.

Geoff wrote:

Perhaps the uprising in Donetsk will inspire the people of Chechnya to resume their fight for independence from Russia.

Given that Russian President Putin has completely turned things around there, and the fact that Chechen troops are volunteering to fight with the Donetsk resistance, I'd say that your wish is about as likely as pigs flying.

supplemental: even stinking Reuters has reported on Chechen fighters joining the Donetsk resistance.

Now there's a commander!

His men were OK. He took a hit.

Zahkarchenko: "The entire country is fighting."

Those that are good have to have fists!