Jack Losh
“Of course we want to listen to the radio and
hear the news from Kiev,” said Bardan, a Ukrainian infantryman based in a
devastated neighbourhood on the northern fringes of Donetsk. “Out here, though,
we just tend to pick up stations from Russia and Novorossiya Rock FM.”
He stood smoking in a gutted building in Pesky,
one of the war’s deadliest stretches of the frontline in the conflict between
Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels. The scant choice of Ukrainian radio
programmes may seem trivial. But it highlights the gulf between frontline
fighters and their superiors, and signals a wider breakdown in communication
occurring on the restive nation’s far eastern limits.
Red tape is stifling Ukraine’s war effort, they
say, as military commanders allegedly delay and even ban soldiers from responding
to artillery attacks from pro-Russian rebels.
When bombarded from enemy positions, government
units regularly have to seek permission for a counterstrike from superiors
removed from the action. But they complain of an inefficient chain of command and
say the fight is lost in a bureaucratic bottleneck. Heavy weapons are ready to
use, but often high command must first give the green light. “That comes too
late,” one officer told The Independent on Sunday. “Sometimes we wait an hour,
even more. It’s not effective. It’s no way to win a war.”
Bardan, 26, added: “A few days ago, we were
under fire from Grad missiles and 152mm shells. The enemy shoots at us but we
don’t have permission to answer with our artillery. It’s a big problem. They
kill our soldiers but we can only stand and watch. We’re sitting ducks.”
Ukraine is keen to publicise its compliance with
February’s crumbling ceasefire deal agreed in Minsk. The government wants its
armed forces to be viewed as a responsible force that resorts to heavy weapons
only in defence. Do the soldiers accept that the peace accords are, in part,
reason for the limits on the force and frequency of counterstrikes?
“Not at all,” said Bardan, echoing the response
heard across the frontline among government and rebel fighters. “Minsk is
dead.” Heavy exchanges of artillery this month around the rebel-held city of
Gorlovka and the small, government-held town of Starohnativka, killing
civilians and soldiers alike, would support such a statement.
Oleksiy Melnyk, a foreign relations and
international security expert in Kiev, points to deeper systemic issues.
“Decisions are made two to three levels higher than in the British military,”
he said, with commanders sometimes even seeking permission from civilian
leaders in Kiev. Some senior Ukrainian commanders have also faced criticism for
strategic failures and mass casualties, Mr Melnyk said, and try to shift
responsibility to avoid possible flak.
Yesterday, France’s President François Hollande
spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin
and said that all three backed a complete halt to ceasefire violations from
this Tuesday, a plan that had been mooted, according to the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) which monitors the conflict. OSCE
observers have noted an increase in ceasefire violations involving artillery.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday,
Viktor Muzhenko, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, confirmed
that troops “all along the frontline” have to seek permission from senior
military commanders before responding with artillery. But he insisted that this
was because of the ceasefire deal signed in Minsk and said the procedure was
“optimised as much as possible”.
“We do not keep firing back because the Ukrainian side will fulfil its
promises, including those made in the Minsk agreements,” he said. “We also want
to show the civilised world that we are ready to resolve the conflict on a
political level.
“Our position allows us to disprove the cynical
propaganda from Russia,” he added, with Russia having been repeatedly accused
by Western nations and Ukraine of backing the rebels and having forces directly
involved in the conflict. Russia has denied this despite what appears to be
mounting evidence of troop numbers. “They try to portray us as the instigators
of the war and to absolve themselves of responsibility for the deaths of
thousands of people,” Mr Muzhenko said.
Mr Muzhenko denied that permission necessarily
had to be granted from Kiev, and said local commanders had the authority to
sanction artillery attacks after notifying officials from the OSCE.
Pesky’s destruction bears all the hallmarks of
repeated blitzes from missiles, mortar rounds and artillery shells. In the
town, Vasily, a sniper, surveys no-man’s land from his barricaded lookout. Next
year marks a quarter of a century of independence from the USSR. Where did
Vasily expect his country to be then? He looked dead ahead. “We’ll be in exactly the same place.”
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