Election sours Russian, NATO relations
2014-11-05
Posted by: badanov
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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
General Phillip Breedlove, commander of NATO forces in Europe (SACEUR) said Tuesday that Sunday's parliamentary elections in Lugansk and Donetsk have further soured NATO relations with the Russian Federation, according to several English language news accounts.
General Breedlove told reporters that the border between Ukraina and Russia was "completely porous", and that large amounts of Russian military supplies were flowing into the two breakaway former Ukrainian states.
Two weeks ago, about mid October, Russia was to have demobilized a large part of the forces it previously mobilized for "refresher training" the previous August. The exact number of troops in the Russian southern military district was unknown at the time, but at the same time Russia was to have pulled away its troops from the border with Ukraina, which was a requirement of the Minsk ceasefire agreement.
Now, says Breedlove, it appears that Russia has moved some of its troops back near the border. Additionally, Breedlove said, about 300 Russian effectives are known to be operating in Lugansk and Donetsk, training and helping refit Donbas rebel forces.
Ukrainian military analysts say the number is much, much higher, as many as 15,000 effectives, and those numbers include new military equipment.
According to Breedlove a total of seven Russian battalion tactical groups are deployed on the border with Ukraina, which if true would represent a Russian violation of the ceasefire. A battalion tactical group is a task-organized military unit totaling about 300 effectives, or about a battalion sized element. Since commanders who organize those groups do not follow a set organization, those groups could include any number of infantry, armor and artillery units.
Tuesday, Ukrainian president Piotr Poroshenko announced that a number of reinforcements would be sent to Kharkov, well to the north of the Novorossiya area of operation, and to Mariupiol, directly on the forward Ukrainian line near the Sea of Azov.
The Mariupol deployments are likely in response to an attack, and to artillery fire on a checkpoint by Donbas rebels, and to a report filed last week by Russian military journalist Dmitri Steshen, who reported while riding along with a Donbas military unit that Mariupol appeared to have been abandoned.
Poroshenko's reaction may also concern reports filed last week that Russian troops, possibly border guards have throttled traffic in the Mariupol region in favor of Russian military convoys.
According to Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin, pro Russian guerrillas in the Kharkov region have been active recently with attacks against Ukrainian officials, and may be a reason why Poroshenko sought to move more troops to the region.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
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