International

Russia and Ukraine’s battle for Donbas could decide the war — and it could go either way

Published

2 years ago

April 20, 2022

Ukrainian soldiers stand on their armored personnel carrier (APC), not far from the front-line with Russian troops, in Izyum district, Kharkiv region on April 18, 2022.

Russia’s war with Ukraine entered a new phase this week with Moscow focusing its war machine on eastern Ukraine.
The move is seen as a bid for Russia to cement its grip on the Donbas — an area which includes two breakaway, pro-Russian self-proclaimed “republics” — and to try to annex it.
How Russia’s latest offensive goes in the Donbas region could prove to be extremely significant and decisive in the war against Ukraine, analysts warn.
It could determine how Ukraine’s territorial boundaries look in weeks and years to come.

Russia’s new offensive in the Donbas region could prove to be extremely significant and decisive in the war, analysts warn, and could determine how the country’s territorial boundaries look in weeks and years to come.

“The Russian war machine in the east could prove to be a very painful threat for Ukraine quickly,” Maximilian Hess, fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told CNBC Tuesday.

“It’s quite clear that Russia’s war aims remain quite extensive,” Hess added, saying that how the battle for Donbas proceeds “will determine how much of Ukraine east of the Dnipro (a river that bisects Ukraine) that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin carves away.”

“I think it’s pretty clear annexation is Putin’s long term goal, how much annexation is the question,” Hess added.

Russian officials have stated that their main objectives in this new phase of the war is the “complete liberation” of the two breakaway, Russian-backed “People’s Republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk. But most analysts believe that the wider Donbas region, an industrialized area rich in coal reserves, will be annexed by Russia.

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Moscow has fomented separatist sentiment in the region over the last eight years ever since it annexed Crimea in 2014, although it denies backing the region’s rebels.

Russia’s long-anticipated offensive in the east appeared to begin in earnest on Monday with its military forces unleashing attacks on a number of areas, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that “the battle for Donbas” had begun.

By Tuesday morning, Russia’s defense ministry claimed to have struck more than 1,200 targets in Ukraine overnight and later that day, there were numerous reports of intensifying rocket and artillery fire in eastern Ukraine. Officials said Russian forces have seized control of Kreminna, a city in the Luhansk region where street battles reportedly took place.

Wednesday morning, the U.K.’s defense ministry said in an intelligence update that Ukrainian forces were repelling “numerous attempted advances” by Russia in the eastern Donbas region.

The re-focusing on eastern Ukraine comes after Russia pulled back many of its troops from areas around the capital Kyiv and other northern parts of the country after failing to make military gains there. The Pentagon believes that Russia has significantly increased its fighting power in eastern and southern Ukraine now, however, with more battalion tactical groups moved to the area last weekend.

Weapons depleted

Allied global leaders discussed the new phase of Russia’s invasion in a video call on Tuesday with a number of countries, including the U.S. and U.K., promising to send more artillery systems to Ukraine while others, like Germany, pledged more money to help Ukraine buy more weapons.

Just how quickly any new weapons will reach Ukraine is a moot point, with concerns that the war-torn country could struggle to re-arm itself quickly in the east, particularly if Russia increases the frequency of its attacks on its ammunition depots.

Sam Cranny-Evans, a research analyst at the British defense think tank RUSI, told CNBC Tuesday that there was much uncertainty over how the battle for Donbas will progress, and that while both sides will have depleted their respective materiel (military materials and equipment) over the last two months, Ukraine could be in a more vulnerable position.

“The one thing that I’m quite comfortable to say is that I think it [the battle] is going to last a very long time” with both sides having demonstrated “staying power,” he noted.

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“There are a few questions surrounding the availability of ammunition for the Ukrainians and that can become a key problem, especially in the opening phases of mass artillery barrages and airstrikes. If you don’t have the munitions to return fire against those kinds of things then they do have a dramatic psychological effect and a physical effect, and they do destroy things, obviously.”

Nonetheless, he noted that Russia too was “probably on a fairly limited clock in terms of what it can do with its personnel capabilities, and with its material capabilities.”

“The Russians have spent an awful lot of missiles in this war so far, which will be quite hard for it to replace … and there’s the additional questions of how much attrition will the Ukrainians inflict on them in Donbas,” he said.

Cranny-Evans said it’s not impossible to foresee a situation in which the Ukrainians are able to push back against the Russians in Donbas, as they have shown themselves doggedly capable of doing elsewhere.

“If they can organize, and if they can equip their troops adequately, they may be able to do that. And some analysts are cautiously optimistic that Ukraine might even be able to win this war … a lot really does pivot on the next phase of the conflict and it will show which side is likely to win,” he noted.

Who ‘wins’?

The reason analysts find it hard to assess how significant the battle of Donbas could turn out to be in the wider war is that it’s hard to gauge what Putin’s ultimate objectives are in Ukraine.

RUSI’s Cranny-Evans noted that the big question remains whether, by focusing on its self-proclaimed mission to “liberate” Donbas, Putin has abandoned his “maximalist aim of regime change in Ukraine and capturing Kyiv” or whether it might accept a more limited victory in the east.

For Ukraine, he said, there could be a difficult price to pay if it loses the battle for Donbas and Russia annexes the region. In any case, defining the winner and loser of the war will be no easy task amid the already-immense destruction seen in Ukraine.

“[You could say] that Ukraine has won because its country still exists but if it does lose Donbass entirely, is that really a victory? Does it mean that peace will last forever? Or will Ukraine have to fight another war in 10 years time? There is a lot of stake for the Ukrainians,” Cranny-Evans said.

In its assessment of what the next phase of the conflict might entail, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Russia’s offensive “is unlikely to be dramatically more successful than previous Russian offensives” but cautioned that its forces “may be able to wear down Ukrainian defenders or achieve limited gains.”

The think tank noted that Russian forces had not taken the “operational pause” necessary to “reconstitute” and properly integrate damaged units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine into operations in eastern Ukraine.

“As we have assessed previously, Russian forces withdrawn from around Kyiv and going back to fight in Donbas have, at best, been patched up and filled out with soldiers from other damaged units, and the Russian military has few, if any, cohesive units not previously deployed to Ukraine to funnel into new operations,” it said.

It added that frequent reports of disastrously low Russian morale and continuing logistical challenges indicate that “the effective combat power of Russian units in eastern Ukraine is a fraction of their on-paper strength in numbers of battalion tactical groups.”

The institute noted that while Russian forces could wear down Ukrainian positions through “heavy concentration of firepower and sheer weight of numbers,” this would come at a “high cost” and that a sudden and dramatic Russian offensive success remains highly unlikely.

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International

UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza

Published

12 hours ago

September 7, 2024

Trends Admin

Displaced Palestinian children gather to receive food at a government school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 19, 2024, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (AFP)

UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS: The UN independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, an allegation that Israel vehemently denies.

In a report this week, investigator Michael Fakhri claimed it began two days after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, when Israel’s military offensive in response blocked all food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said accusations of Israel limiting humanitarian aid were “outrageously false.”

“A deliberate starvation policy? You can say anything — it doesn’t make it true,” he said in a press conference Wednesday.

Following intense international pressure — especially from close ally the United States — Netanyahu’s government gradually has opened several border crossings for tightly controlled deliveries. Fakhri said limited aid initially went mostly to southern and central Gaza, not to the north where Israel had ordered Palestinians to go.

A professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, Fakhri was appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council as the investigator, or special rapporteur, on the right to food and assumed the role in 2020.

“By December, Palestinians in Gaza made up 80 percent of the people in the world experiencing famine or catastrophic hunger,” Fakhri said. “Never in post-war history had a population been made to go hungry so quickly and so completely as was the case for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”

Fakhri, who teaches law courses on human rights, food law and development, made the allegations in a report to the UN General Assembly circulated Thursday.

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He claims it goes back 76 years to Israeli’s independence and its continuous dislocation of Palestinians. Since then, he accused Israel of deploying “the full range of techniques of hunger and starvation against the Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death that it can cause through food systems.”

Since the war in Gaza began, Fakhri said he has received direct reports of the destruction of the territory’s food system, including farmland and fishing, which also has been documented and recognized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and others.

“Israel then used humanitarian aid as a political and military weapon to harm and kill the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he claimed.

Israel insists it no longer places restrictions on the number of aid trucks entering Gaza, including food.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Netanyahu cited figures from COGAT, Israel’s military body overseeing aid entry into Gaza, that 700,000 tons of food items had been allowed into Gaza since the war began 11 months ago.

Nearly half of that food aid in recent months has been brought in by the private sector for sale in Gaza’s markets, according to COGAT figures. However, many Palestinians in Gaza say they struggle to afford enough food for their families.

Israel allows trucks of aid through two small crossings in the north and one main crossing in the south, Kerem Shalom. However, since Israel’s invasion of the southern city of Rafah in May, the UN and other aid agencies say they struggle to reach the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom to retrieve the aid for free distribution because Israel’s military operations make it too dangerous.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “beyond catastrophic,” with more than 1 million Palestinians not receiving any food rations in August and a 35 percent drop in people getting daily cooked meals.

The UN humanitarian office attributed the sharp reduction in cooked meals partly to multiple evacuation orders from Israeli security forces that forced at least 70 of 130 kitchens to either suspend or relocate their operations, he said Thursday. The UN’s humanitarian partners also lacked sufficient food supplies to meet requirements for the second straight month in central and southern Gaza, Dujarric added.

He said critical shortages of supplies in Gaza are stem from hostilities, insecurity, damaged roads, and Israeli obstacles and access limitations.

UN investigator accuses Israel of starvation campaign in Gaza

ARAB NEWS

International

Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment

Published

12 hours ago

September 7, 2024

Trends Admin

Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment

Protests are taking place across France over the nomination of right-wing Michel Barnier as the new prime minister, after an inconclusive election in which the left won the largest number of seats.

More than 100 protests are expected to take place on Saturday, with people already on the streets in cities including Bordeaux, Nice and Le Mans.

The demonstrations were called by trade unions and left-wing political parties, whose own candidate for prime minister was rejected by President Emmanuel Macron.

Mr Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, said he is open to forming a government with politicians across the political spectrum, including the left.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran firebrand from the radical France Unbowed party, called for the “most powerful mobilisation possible” in national marches.

Around 130 protests are being held, with the biggest setting out from central Paris this afternoon. Other cities staging protests include Marseille and Lyon.

The demonstrators are using slogans such as “denial of democracy” and “stolen election”.

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Parties on the left are angry that their own candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets, was rejected by Mr Macron, who said she had no chance of surviving a vote of confidence in the National Assembly.

Mr Barnier may be able to survive a confidence vote because the far right, which also won a large number of seats, has said it won’t automatically vote against him.

However, that has led to criticism that his government will be dependent on the far right.

Ms Castets said she – like millions of French voters – felt betrayed and that the president had in effect ended up governing with the far right.

“We have a prime minister completely dependent on National Rally,” she added.

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the protests, Mr Barnier is focussed on forming a new government.

After talks with the leaders of the right-wing Republicans and the president’s centrist Ensemble group, he said discussions were going very well and were “full of energy”.

Some on the left have blamed themselves for ending up with Mr Barnier as prime minister.

Socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo pointed out that the president had considered former Socialist prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, for the job but that he had been turned down by his own party.

Another Socialist Mayor, Karim Bouamrane, blamed intransigence from other parts of the left alliance: “The path they chose was 100% or nothing – and here we are with nothing.”

Protesters rally in France against new PM appointment

BBC

International

Man who attacked judge in court pleads ‘guilty but mentally ill’

Published

17 hours ago

September 7, 2024

Trends Admin

Deobra Redden

Man who attacked judge in court pleads ‘guilty but mentally ill’

Deobra Redden, the man caught on video attacking a judge during an attempted battery conviction, has pled guilty with a significant caveat—he has been declared “guilty but mentally ill.”

In a statement released on Friday, September 6, by Redden’s lawyers at CEGA Law Group, they emphasized that their client acknowledges the severity of his actions and is seeking mental health treatment as part of his sentencing. The legal team is pushing for mental health reform and hopes Redden’s case will help spotlight the need for improvements in the system.

The attorneys expressed sympathy for Judge Mary Kay Holthus, the judge who was attacked, and thanked the Clark County District Attorney’s Office for working towards a resolution.

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The shocking courtroom incident, which was caught on video, shows Redden leaping over the judge’s bench as Judge Holthus was delivering his sentence for an earlier conviction. Holthus had made a comment about Redden “getting a taste of something else” before he ran towards her. Despite the chaos, the judge only sustained minor injuries after hitting her head.

Redden was quickly restrained and appeared in court days later, wearing a facemask and hand covers, where he was sentenced to 19-48 months behind bars for the attempted battery conviction.

Redden’s sentencing for the judge attack is set for November 7. His legal team is advocating for mental health treatment to be central to his punishment.