Ukrainian tanks deployed between civilian homes and apartments in Avdeevka while an officer speaks with an OSCE representative.
1. Despite the efforts of the "international community" and the calls of the UN, OSCE, US, Russia, and EU, the fighting has still not stopped. Attempts to temporarily cease firefights in the Avdeevka area in order to repair damaged infrastructure came to naught as both sides continued to shoot. As is the tradition, both sides blamed each other for now allowing the power supply to Avdeevka be repaired while the partial evacuation of the city continues.
Due to the destruction of life-support infrastructure [water, heating, electricity - JA] and ongoing firefights, there is no sense in speaking of a normalization of life in Avdeevka. The PR of various Ukrainian politicians on this matter serves purely political purposes. In regards to the situation with the Avdeevka Coke Plant, Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov has been frozen in a kind of split as the continuation and intensification of hostilities could lead to the further destruction of the remnants of his industrial empire.
The shelling of residential areas in the Donetsk People's Republic is ongoing. Once again, dozens of homes have been damaged, there are killed and wounded among civilians, and various life-support infrastructure have been confirmed as damaged.
Overall, the war is for now developing in line with the positional warfare scenario which is costly in terms of damage and casualties. Against this backdrop, Savchenko has declared Poroshenko an "enemy of the people" and called for a struggle against him.
2. However, there have been no serious advances on the front near Avdeevka. Both sides are dealing with heavy fire from cannon and rocket artillery which largely keeps the situation in a positional phase. But here it must be understood that the damage caused by shelling to the first line of defense of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces and Ukrainian Armed Forces is establishing the prerequisites for them to attempt to test the each other's defenses by throwing into battle tactical battalions from the second tier which will be tasked with rapid operations. At the same time, however, it is not necessarily Avdeevka that will be the main point where a decisive intensification takes place. The UAF's activity on the Mariupol and Volnovakha fronts almost hints at an alternative scenario.
Both sides are ready for such a turn of events. Donetsk has declared that the UAF is preparing to break through the Avdeevka industrial part with the aim of surrounding DPR troops near Donetsk. Also circulating are various rumors that the go-ahead could be given for a DPR offensive on Avdeevka with the aim of taking the town.
If civilians are evacuated from Avdeevka, then the Novorossiyan Armed Forces will certainly be strongly tempted to take advantage of this. Avdeevka will risk turning into another Donetsk Airport with the total destruction of the town. This would be largely unavoidable if the UAF fortifies the city. It is worth recalling that despite the cries of "separatists fire at us from cities," the UAF's positions in Avdeevka are deployed directly between houses and apartments:
The destruction of these positions would naturally be accompanied with the destruction of the adjacent housing.
Comment: BBC reporter films Kiev tanks in residential area on E. Ukraine frontline
A video showing Kiev's troops and tanks in the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdeevka emerged online, posted by a BBC correspondent working in the area. Earlier, the OSCE warned tanks were headed there, slamming the move as a violation of withdrawal lines.
"We met Ukrainian troops and tanks in Avdiivka [sic] who seemed ready for action - and we could hear that there is no ceasefire here," BBC correspondent Tom Burridge tweeted along with the video (video above).
The video shows soldiers in Ukrainian military uniforms crowding around at least two tanks among high-rise apartment buildings in what appears to be a residential district. The 13-second-video also shows an OSCE car nearby.
A picture posted on Twitter by a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Aleksandr Kots a little earlier appears to show the tanks in the same Avdeevka neighborhood on Wednesday, February 1.
Official representative of the press center for the Ukrainian military in Donbass, Leonid Matyuhin, denied any Ukrainian tanks were in Avdeevka.
"I've been in Avdeevka the whole day today. I have not seen a single tank, I saw one police CRV [combat reconnaissance vehicle] with large letters on it saying 'Police'," Matyuhin told RIA Novosti.
Yet, on Tuesday, the OSCE special monitoring mission (SMM) reported that Kiev's tanks were spotted in the vicinity of Avdeevka, close to the disengagement line between pro-Kiev forces and the rebels in the east. http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/296721
"In violation of withdrawal lines, the SMM observed ... two tanks (T-64) between government-controlled Orlivka (22km northwest of Donetsk) and Avdiivka (17km north of Donetsk)," the report says, stating also that Kiev's military equipment, from howitzers to Grad rocket launcher systems, has been spotted in Kiev-controlled Talakovka, Ivanovka and Aslanovo, along with troops and "stacks of what appeared to be ammunition boxes."
These and other scenarios are currently hanging in the air.
3. Due to the fact that neither side has enjoyed operational successes, various provocations and propaganda bluffs are in the forefront of the routine of shelling. Today, Ukraine attempted to exacerbate the situation by sending an An-26 scout over the Tavrida and Crimea-1 drilling platforms in the Black Sea, which Kiev does not want to recognize as belonging to Russia. But Ukraine can do nothing with this, hence the flying of a spy plane over the platforms as a form of provocation. They were allegedly fired at from small arms, but Russia has declared that only flares were shot in the direction of the plane, not bullets. Whether they shot or not is irrelevant since this is the territory of the Russian Federation and any violations of a state boarder can be answered with opening fire, including to kill. The main point of this story is that Ukraine needs a media picture of "Ukraine fighting against Russia," precisely for which this episode is being used. In this regard, it cannot be ruled out that new provocations will surface on the Russian-Ukrainian border, including at Perekop.
We've also been confronted with the story of the BUK missile supposedly shot at an OSCE UAV. By the evening it became clear that the OSCE did not lose any drones. Why the BUK rocket was launched, a fragment of which was found in Makeevka, remains unclear. Perhaps the target was DPR drones...
4. Attacks, provocations, and various information-psychological warfare elements serve the clear aim of creating a media image intended by the initiators of this bloodbath to revive the Western political establishment and media with the image of "Ukraine as a victim" attacked by "Putin's executioners."
Comment: Ukraine's offensive 'aimed at preventing Russian sanctions being lifted' provokes criticism instead
Due to the changes in Washington and its likely reassessment of events in Ukraine (today Ukraine noticed that mainstream American media used the term "civil war" in relation to the war in Ukraine), taking into consideration the scenario of a changing out of the Kiev puppets (not in vain did Onishchenko, Pinchuk, and Saakashvili speak against Poroshenko's corruption from the US - it is none other than there that the question of changing out one Ukro-Fuhrer for another will be decided), as well as regarding the confusion and vacillation in the camp of the US' European satellites, the picture of "Ukraine fighting Russia" is needed to form a new anti-Russian agenda. In this case, Poroshenko would retain the capacity of political survival and the Euro-Atlantic elites can count on an update of their habitual policy aimed at "containing Russia."
Poroshenko gives offensive orders, DPR's Basurin threatens Avdeevka cauldron
According to Deputy Commander and Spokesman of the Ministry of Defense of the Donetsk People's Republic, Eduard Basurin, the situation in the Donetsk People's Republic continues to deteriorate. What's more, the DPR's intelligence has established that Commander Sokolov of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' 72nd brigade has received orders from the Ukrainian leadership for an active offensive operation.
According to Basurin's situation report, Ukrainian forces have used weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements against almost all residential areas along the front lines, including 152 and 122 mm artillery, Grad rocket volley systems, tanks, 120 and 82 mm mortars, infantry fighting vehicles, and small arms of various types.
36 residential areas in total have been subjected UAF shelling. Worst of all have suffered Donetsk, Makeevka, Yasinovataya, and Dokuchaevsk. As a result of shelling by Ukrainian punitive forces, over the past 24 hours more than 50 buildings have been damaged in Donetsk, Yasinovataya, Makeevka, Leninskoe, Kominternovo, Alexandrovka, and Zaytsevo.
So far today, February 2nd, two civilians have been killed by fire from the Ukrainian fascists and five have been taken to hospitals with various injuries. Information on destroyed infrastructure and casualties continues to be specified as the number of victims of the Poroshenko regime's crimes continues to rise.
The orders sent to the Ukrainian Armed Forces' 72nd brigade for an offensive include the authorization of unlimited use of heavy artillery against residential areas and large cities of the DPR.
At the moment, the operative reserves of the UAF from the 25th airborne brigade and nationalist battalions, along with artillery from the 55th artillery brigade, have been moved up to the city of Avdeevka.
Eduard Basurin delivered the following statement:
I hereby declare that we will not give a single inch or centimeter of our land, watered with the blood of our comrades, up to the enemy! If Ukrainian encroachments on our territory do not immediately stop, then there will be no avoiding an Avdeevka cauldron.
All responsibility for the death of servicemen and citizens of Ukraine lies exclusively with the Ukrainian regime which has given orders to the army to intensify offensive operations which manifest direct aggression and genocide against the civilian population.
In this regard, I appeal to the mothers and wives of Ukrainian soldiers: only your decisive actions can stop this senseless bloodshed! Only you have the will to get through to the consciousness of the Ukrainian authorities and hold them accountable for the unjustified deaths of Ukrainian soldiers!
Stop the Kiev tyrants who are throwing your men and sons into a new meat grinder! There was enough of their blood in Ilovaysk and Debaltsevo.
Act as a united front in all cities of Ukraine and demand that this damned civil war in Donbass be stopped! Save your loved ones from the disgraceful fate of becoming a prisoner or facing certain death in a foreign war started by the Kiev murderers.
Poroshenko, don't count on it! We will not retreat! We are on our own land, and we will liberate it from the fascists with all available forces and means.
Comment: Putin on E. Ukraine flare-up: Kiev trying to extort US, EU cash by playing the victim