Battlefield Ukraine

Donetsk

The air was musty and humid as a group of well-muscled men and women sat in an old Soviet Union underground bunker in Donetsk. During the Cold War, this hideaway had been used as an air defense command center to help coordinate the air defense of the Motherland. Now it served as a secretive meeting room for the various leaders and rebel commanders of the Russian separatist movement.

Alexander Zakharchenko, the self-appointed Prime Minister of Donetsk People's Republic, pulled his lighter out of his cargo pocket and proceeded to ignite another cigarette. He took a long pull, letting the smoke fill his lungs as his body absorbed the nicotine. As he slowly let the smoke out through his nostrils, he turned to Anton Antyufeyev and said, “If what Strelkov says is true, then we have a serious problem.”

Anton took a puff from his own cigarette and just nodded. “We need to mobilize our militias and get ready to meet the government forces when they start to move into the cities and surrounding villages.”

Alexander continued smoking as he replied, “We backed down in Kharkiv, and they killed Oleksandr Prasolov. They believe that they succeeded in crushing our movement in Kharkiv, but they did not. Now the government thinks they can replicate the success that we gave them there and throughout our area of control. What they fail to realize is that we allowed them a victory in Kharkiv — we chose to not to use our soldiers in retaliation for killing Prasolov. We will not make that same choice here.”

Strelkov leaned forward and looked Alexander in the eyes, saying, “This will be different, Alex. They are not sending a small contingent of soldiers to help augment the police like they did in Kharkiv. They are sending a much larger military force with the intent of engaging our soldiers and either forcing us to surrender or flee across the border—”

Pavel interrupted to add, “ — We must mobilize our militias and tell the Russians to be ready to help us.”

Strelkov cut Pavel off before he could say anything else. “Pavel, sit down and speak when spoken to. I am not done yet,” he grunted, annoyed at being interrupted before he could speak his piece. He had valuable information and these guys were not letting him have a chance to spit it out.

Pavel looked startled, but he sat down obediently.

Strelkov continued, “Look, my contact in the Ukrainian military said the Americans have spent the last four months getting them ready to come root us out. They have provided them with Stingers, vehicles, anti-tank missiles, and other heavy weapons. They are also going to offer them several hundred military advisors and surveillance drone support. The advisors are almost exclusively American Special Forces and infantry soldiers. They mean business, and these are soldiers who know what they are doing.” He wanted to make sure they fully understood that this was not going to be the same ragtag government soldiers they had been fighting against up to this point. This was going to be a newly-trained and well-equipped military force, advised by American combat veterans.

Those around him nodded resolutely. They were preparing themselves for a true battle.

Strelkov surveyed the faces before him. Satisfied that they were adequately concerned, he went on, “They are going to deploy the 30th Mechanized Brigade and the 1st Tank Brigade to lead the assault. These units will be supported by roughly 9,000 light infantry soldiers. My source in the 30^th said they are also going to have nearly 100 American Special Forces advisors and another 300 NATO advisors with them on a daily basis.” He showed them images on his tablet of the new equipment the units had received, including images of the venerable American Javelin anti-tank missile system, which would all but negate any advantage they had enjoyed up to this point.

Strelkov waited a moment for the images to sink in before he resumed. “Judging by the number of advisors, it looks like each platoon level element will have either an American or NATO advisor with them. They will be coordinating surveillance drones, artillery, and air support for them, just like they do for the Iraqis and Afghans in the Middle East.”

Alexander whistled softly. “I still cannot believe the Americans supplied them with what looks like 45 Strykers and 80 MRAP vehicles,” he said in disbelief and anger.

Strelkov just nodded. “They can still be destroyed; the Americans learned that in Iraq. However, the Strykers and MRAPs are going to make it a lot harder for us to engage them,” he explained in disgust.

Changing topics, Strelkov pulled up a new set of photos on his tablet. “As you know, PM Groysman leased the old Pryluky Air Base to NATO several months ago. As you can see from these photos, NATO and the Americans have been busy. The Germans moved a squadron of Eurofighters to the base and the US has established a Patriot missile battery there as well.” On the screen flashed images of American soldiers setting up the Patriot system and unloading various types of military equipment.

“You can see they have also moved a number of drones to the base. We can assume the Americans will be providing the government forces with a lot of intelligence gathering support. Most of these drones can be armed, but we do not believe the Americans are going to be providing the government with armed drones.”

There was a collective sigh of relief by everyone in the room. The last thing any of them wanted was for the central government to be armed with American drones carrying out assassination missions like they did in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

The group sat back in their chairs then, quietly digesting the information Strelkov had just shared. They were not quite sure what to say or do just yet. Strelkov’s sources were good; if they had passed this information to him, then chances were, it was accurate. This was going to happen. Strelkov was a Colonel in the Russian GRU (military intelligence), and he had developed an effective method of collecting intelligence throughout the Ukrainian military over the years. Mostly, he just bribed them with American dollars and they told him whatever he wanted to know. He was also the primary point of contact between the separatist forces and the GRU, which routinely provided their group with as much accurate and up-to-date intelligence as possible.

Igor Bezler had not said anything up to this point. He cleared his throat to get the attention of everyone at the table before speaking. “Now that everyone has heard the information Strelkov has to share, we must formalize a plan for what we are going to do. The Russian army can deliver thousands of additional RPG-7s and other heavy weapons to help us turn the surrounding villages approaching Donetsk into a fortress. However, we know that this battle will have to be fought by the separatist forces. Russian paramilitary forces are and will continue to act as active advisors, but the army will not send uniformed forces into the Ukraine.”

Igor was the paramilitary representative to the separatists. Igor had a Spetsnaz background himself, and had spent over two decades in the Russian Special Forces. He had nearly 200 fellow Spetsnaz operating in the Ukraine, mostly to carry out specialized missions against Ukrainian military units when they strayed into separatist-held territory. They also helped to run several of the training camps, teaching specialized courses in sniper operations, explosives, kidnappings, and other advanced activities.

The next man to speak was Taras Kolomoisky. He ran what was arguably one of the most stable separatist regions. He maintained an uneasy peace between the separatist movement and the central government by trying to play both sides. In the past, he had often strived to be an honest broker between the two groups. However, his son had been killed by central government soldiers nine months ago; he was trapped at a checkpoint trying to re-enter the separatist region, and when he refused to pay the bribe that they demanded, they shot him. While the death of his son tore him apart, what really caused him to throw his lot fully behind the rebel cause was the rape of his daughter two months later. The sons of two prominent law makers in the central government attacked his daughter while she attended a university in Switzerland. Whatever restraint Taras had been trying to maintain in the hopes of achieving a peaceful end to the conflict had been evaporated by these two events.

Now he was doing what he could to help support the separatist movement and undermine the central government. Being the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region meant his district was a buffer zone between the separatists and the central government zones of control. Now that he had turned on the central government, he began to provide the central government with as little support and cooperation as possible. His region began to stop sending taxes to Kiev, and then a week ago, he essentially cut off all communications with the central government.

Taras leaned forward to address the group, “Before we break up our meeting and head our separate ways to prepare, I would like to provide a suggestion. In Iraq, the Americans owned the night, they owned the skies, and they won every direct engagement. However, this did not stop the insurgents from attacking the Americans or inflicting a terrible cost on them. We must do the same. If the Americans are now actively backing the central government, then we need to find a new strategy.”

Taras continued, “I agree that turning the cities into fortresses will help, but what we also need to do is make the roads nearly impossible for them to use. We need to have teams constantly placing Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and carrying out hit-and-run RPG attacks. If we can make the roads treacherous to use, we will limit their ability to move freely within our regions. We will grind them into the dirt until they eventually leave,” he said confidently, as if he had just laid out the most comprehensive battle plan they had ever heard.

Smiles could be seen on the faces of the men around them. They had already planned on doing exactly this, but they were happy to finally have Taras come to the same conclusion.

After another hour of discussions, the group broke up and the leaders dispersed to begin getting their various groups ready to meet the government forces.