Military operations in Eastern Ukraine

In many respects, the past month has been a successful one for Ukrainian government forces. After wresting back control of Donetsk airport, a key strategic asset in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, government forces went on to take back the rebel stronghold of Slavyansk in early July. These military gains have accompanied promising political developments in Kyiv. Though viewed as a setback by some commentators in the West, the resignation last week of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk - after two parties quit his governing coalition - is likely to provide a boost to the authorities’ offensive in the east. His departure will likely allow for fresh parliamentary elections which will give President Poroshenko’s Solidarity party a chance to turn the popular support it enjoys across central and western Ukraine into parliamentary seats. A faction-filled parliament in Kyiv has hindered the authorities from taking swift decisions regarding military operations in the east. A new look parliament should put the authorities in a position to react to events there more decisively. 

These advances should not, however, detract from the considerable task that lies ahead of the Ukrainian government. The fate of MH17 – which, it is becoming increasingly clear, was mistakenly shot down by rebels using weaponry supplied by Russia – demonstrates the scale of the challenge faced by Kyiv. It is now widely accepted almost everywhere outside of Russia itself that the rebels are in receipt of considerable manpower, financial and material support from Ukraine’s neighbour to the east. The Ukrainian government force of 30,000 may outnumber the rebels’ reported ranks of 10,000, but within that number are highly trained Russian military units such as the Vostok Battalion and proficient commanders such as Igor Strelkov and Igor Bezler, both of whom have Russian military backgrounds. Ukrainian government forces have had little success in asserting control over Ukraine’s porous eastern border with Russia, and only have control of around half of the 30 crossings that dot the borders of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The more government troops advance eastwards, the further they stretch their supply lines and the shorter the rebels’ become. 

Apart from the military operation, arguably the more difficult task confronting the government in Kyiv will be how it regains legitimacy and support in the east once the rebels are defeated. It is widely suspected that many of the reported 10,000 rebels fighting in eastern Ukraine are not locals, but rather Russian militants. Those Ukrainians who have taken up arms to fight government troops are likely to be a small, albeit very vocal, minority. The Ukrainian government has done a poor job of garnering support among the ‘silent majority’ which makes up the densely populated Donbas. 

This group may have reservations about the new administration in Kyiv and elements within it certainly want greater autonomy from the Ukrainian capital, but they have not taken up arms against government forces. 

The region’s predominantly Russian-speaking population is already susceptible to the anti-Kyiv propaganda promulgated by Russian state media channels. Kyiv has not helped its cause by resorting to emotive language in referring to its armed opponents in the east and their supporters as ‘terrorists’. Likewise, Kyiv’s failure to disarm and control those far right groups who played a role in the events of Maidan back in March, such as the Right Sector, has rankled many in the east. The fact that some of these groups may even have been incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces lays the government open to being labelled aggressive and nationalist. Perhaps most significantly, government forces’ use of heavy artillery in cities such as Luhansk – where independent observers from the OSCE have recorded hundreds of civilian deaths – makes the challenge of capturing the population’s ‘hearts and minds’ harder still. 

As Ukrainian government forces prepare to encircle Luhansk and Donetsk, Kyiv would do well to focus on stemming the growing sense of anger some Ukrainians there feel towards central government. A new phase of combat is looming in the east which will involve more fighting in densely populated urban areas, the inevitable corollary of which will be greater numbers of civilian casualties. How successfully the government limits these casualties will be key to Ukraine’s future unity and political stability. Failure to do so will almost certainly lead to a pyrrhic victory, one in which a legacy of estrangement in the east will create demands for autonomy or federal status in the region, which Kyiv will find difficult to deny.