Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
As a note: there has been a marked increase in artillery attacks and resulting civilian casualties on western Donetsk city and in Gorlovka. These artillery strikes vary from those that went on starting in 2014, in that now the civilian casualty rate is much higher.
At the outset of the war, I figured the Russians would first move to clear out Ukrainian forces arrayed against Donetsk in the northern and western sectors before attempting operations elsewhere; that the Ukrainians before they capitulate or withdraw, would do as much damage as they could.
If you've read any at all from the Russian perspective and even in past reports -- starting in Jan, 2015 that have been on display at Rantburg -- the three locales the artillery is coming from, Avdievka, Opytnoye, and Peski, have been very tough positions for the separatist forces to take, so much so that until this war, separatist forces had not even tried to take for the casualties they could suffer.
[ColonelCassad] Today, more than 120 Grad and Uragan MLRS rockets, as well as from 100 to 150 artillery shells of 155-mm caliber (NATO) have been fired at Donetsk.
Officially they talk about the dead and 22 wounded. The numbers are not final. Dozens of houses and buildings were damaged.
1. The shelling of Donetsk, obviously, is of a terrorist nature and has no direct military meaning. Just as the vast majority of the shelling of Donetsk since 2014 had no direct military meaning.
2. Nevertheless, the hidden meaning of the terrorist shelling of Donetsk is that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the army of the DPR reduced pressure on Artemovsk, Severodonetsk and Slavyansk, throwing part of their forces into the dubious frontal assault on the Avdeevsky fortified area, because the main striking forces are concentrated in other directions and even if we assume that the command will go along with the enemy and begin to withdraw troops from the main directions to Avdiivka, then this will take time, while not guaranteeing results in the capture of Avdiivka itself (see Marinka and Ugledar).
3. Counter-battery warfare at this stage cannot guarantee the cessation of such shelling, so they will continue. An asymmetric response to such actions, given the inability to stop this problem in a short time by military means, is the infliction of punitive strikes on important infrastructure and political centers - the Regional State Administration, power plants, the administrative quarter in Kyiv, etc. To mark the cost of continuing such terrorist practices.
4. The absence of clear (primarily for the population) response measures will lead to an objective increase in dissatisfaction with the inability of the army to clearly respond to such actions. The enemy naturally also keeps this dissatisfaction in mind when conducting terrorist attacks. And since there is no clear answer, there is no reason to stop.
5. Alternative option. Do not react - the population endures further, the military continues to methodically follow the plan of operation to defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine, concentrating on solving priority military tasks. From a military point of view - a logical option. From the political point of view, it is costly.
From two days ago:
Who is shelling Donetsk
[ColonelCassad] To the question of who is shelling Donetsk.
Kachur Roman Vladimirovich, a native of Sumy, colonel, commander of the 55th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. From 2014 to 2018, he commanded the artillery of the 81st Airborne Brigade, which operated in the Donetsk direction and also shelled Donetsk (Petrovsky and Kyiv districts).
The brigade is armed with foreign military equipment, including 155mm self-propelled guns "Caesar" and towed howitzers M777, which have been used to shell Donetsk in recent weeks. In recent days, it has been using, among other things, ammunition with a remote fuse in residential areas.
So this is one of the figures who directly carries out the execution of criminal orders related to the terrorist shelling of Donetsk.
Russian blogger Donetsk says 300 shell and rockets were fired in two hours:
Ordinary fascism
A total of 300 rockets and shells in two hours. There are dead and wounded. The affected educational institutions and the windows of the maternity hospital carried out by the blast wave, the dead, including the child.
And Pushilin’s statement that they will do something and finally close the excess and leave people at home in order to save them. What should have been done last week, when the crisis developed. Guernica . Any Nazism sooner or later comes to Guernica with further accusations of those killed that they are themselves. So it is now - first the bombing, then the bots whispering about self-shelling.
And some of the fools with a fright believe in it. Small, but ... Although this is the business of the MGB. And stop rumors, and finally fight bot farms. It is possible in collaboration with bloggers. This is just not a problem even once, in contrast to the possibility of repeating such raids by the Nazis over and over again. I can only repeat for the hundredth circle to the oak patriots - "I did not betray, I stayed" this is the blood of children on your hands. Don't fool people's heads. Decided to die guarding the good - your right, let others evacuate.
The army is doing what it can. Maybe not all. More precisely, everything, but on the TV show and among the vigilant citizens running around the prosecutor's offices, looking for harm, and tormenting Donetsk residents yesterday at the same time as Ukrainian bots. Only the former wrote about self-shelling, the latter about alarmists.
In real life, the army is fighting hard in the North. The battles are quite successful, they write to me that the fracture there is quite real and in a step, but devouring most of the forces. What is left to suppress a couple of UGIL brigade artillery groups is not enough.
This is reality. Bad and ugly. You can swear at me, the army, the authorities, but it won't make it any easier. It is better to prepare the basement, take the children out if possible, and not leave the house unless absolutely necessary. There will be no other. The main thing is to survive. The rest later. When will it end.
And there is nothing more to cheer. People themselves understand everything. And about the South, and about the negotiation expectations and other things. Nevertheless, Nazism does not cancel the fact that here is constructive on the track. And the Nazis beat the cities. And they will continue. No choice. That's all.