Putin Sends his "Leopard" to the Battlefield of Eastern Ukraine
Russia’s invaded Ukraine — again.
Though this time, it appears to be moving in weapons systems hitherto unseen on
the battlefield, signaling perhaps the next, more deadly, phase in a six-month
war which Vladimir Putin’s
government continues to deny it is a party to.
The Interpreter reported on Wednesday that two different journalists
documented new and advanced weapons systems in eastern Ukraine: Menahem Kahana took
a picture showing a 1RL232 “Leopard” battlefield surveillance radar system in
Torez, east of Donetsk; and Dutch
freelance journalist Stefan Huijboom snapped these pictures, which show the 1RL232
traveling with the 1RL239 “Lynx” radar system — as well as what
looks like a mobile command unit and escort.
Military experts
tell us that these vehicles are potent additions to the arsenal of the Russian-backed
separatists. These armored and weaponized radar systems are meant to operate
just behind front lines to track the movement of enemy convoys, troops,
incoming artillery fire, and even low-flying aircraft (helicopters or drones).
They also act as a precision targeting system, meaning that Russian-backed
fighters will be able to transform crude artillery and Grad rockets into more
devastating munitions, while simultaneously granting those fighters’ a better a tactical assessment of
the battlefield beyond their line of sight. In fact, the 1RL232 is capable of
detecting targets in the air, land, and sea, which are up to 40 kilometers
away.
This ground
surveillance radar is made even more effective when it is paired with advanced
anti-aircraft weapons like the Buk system, a highly sophisticated long-range
anti-aircraft weapon which almost certainly shot down Malaysian
Airlines Flight MH17 last
July, or the Strela-10, a short-range armored anti-aircraft system, which the
Russian-backed separatists have had since late June or early July.
While Ukraine is
said to operate a small number of 1RL232 systems, we are unable to find any
evidence that the Ukrainian military has ever used the 1RL239. Contributors to
the website LostArmour, which records Ukrainian
military equipment that has been destroyed or captured, believe that this
equipment has not been captured from the Ukrainian military. (At time of
publication, the Ukrainian military had not responded to requests for
confirmation.)
Most importantly,
to our knowledge these vehicles have never been spotted in eastern Ukraine
before today. There have not been any large-scale battles in which
Russian-backed rebels have captured Ukrainian military bases in many months. If
these systems were captured from Ukrainian forces, then they would have been
taken before the ceasefire started more than two months ago; if that were the
case, then such game-changing hardware would have debuted before now. Kyiv’s Anti-Terrorism Operation
forces would have likely used them to better target separatist positions. For
instance, for the full the duration of the ceasefire, both sides have been
engaged in a stalemated battle for the international airport in Donetsk, a
campaign which has involved daily artillery bombardment, with shells often
falling far astray of their intended targets. On Nov. 9, Nataliya Vasilyeva of AP
reported that the previous night had seen the heaviest fighting in Donetsk for
weeks. The very next day, Reuters reported the “worst shelling for
months” around the airport. The NSDC reported that 3 soldiers had been killed
and 13 wounded. The 1RL232 or the 1RL239 might have made all the difference in
this protracted battle, yet it’s
never been in documented use before.
Recently, some of
the pictures and videos purportedly showing Russian vehicles operating in
eastern Ukraine carry a symbol painted on the side which looks like “H-2200,” which
is the Cyrillic letter “N” for “Negabaritnost” or
“oversize load,” used by Russian Railways, the state-owned rail company
headed by Vladimir Yakunin (who has been sanctioned by the United States for his
involvement in the Ukraine crisis). VICE News‘s Simon Ostrovsky captured this picture on November 9 in eastern Ukraine
showing one of five tanks “spotted heading west out of Shakhtarsk, a Ukrainian
town east of Donetsk and west of Torez, 2 APCs [armored personnel
carriers] flying Russian flag following close behind.” The tank is a T-72, with
white paint on its front wheel and faint white lettering on its side, behind
the turret, which reads “H-2200.” Other T-72s, loaded onto trains,
have been seen in the Rostov region of Russia carrying the same markings. One
photograph was in fact retweeted by Daniel Baer, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), showing T-72s on a train,
reportedly in Russia, carrying the same white stripes on their wheels and the
same “H-2200” wide-load markings.
Not since the last
week of August have we seen such large of consignments of Russian armaments
being imported into east Ukraine. NATO appears to have noticed, too. Supreme
Allied Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove told reporters at a news
conference in Sofia, Bulgaria on Wednesday: “We have seen columns of
Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air
defense systems and Russian combat troops, entering into Ukraine.”
The OSCE gave a
more detailed assessment of the Russian invasion, with spokesman Michael
Bociurkiw saying, “We have reported since Saturday [there] are three separate
sightings of large military convoys — 126 vehicles in total — in areas
controlled by armed rebel groups in Donetsk.” On Nov. 11, the OSCE reported “43 unmarked green
military trucks, with tarpaulin covers, moving in the direction of the
[Donetsk] city centre. Five of the trucks were each towing 120mm howitzer
artillery pieces. Another five were each towing partly-covered multi-launch
rocket systems (MLRS).”
According to the Daily Beast, a
former Pentagon advisor estimates that there are currently around 7,000 Russian
troops inside Ukraine, backed by “as many as 100 tanks are inside Ukraine
now, more than 400 armored vehicles, and more than 150 self-propelled artillery
and multiple rocket launchers.” Another 40,000-50,000 Russian soldiers, the
same source claims, are positioned at the border with even more tanks, armored
vehicles and self-propelled artillery. Meanwhile, the New York Times‘ Roger Cohen, relying on an
assessment of an unnamed retired NATO general in contact with the Kyiv
government of President Petro Poroshenko, noted this week that “tens of
thousands of Russian irregulars of various stripes inside Ukraine organized by
a smaller number of Russian officers and military personnel.”
Needless to add,
such allegations have been dismissed by the Russian government as Western
propaganda. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov called Breedlove’s latest appraisal “hot air,” and said he no longer takes
the NATO commander seriously. Although Moscow did admit that “volunteers” from Russia continued to pour
across the border to aid the separatist cause while offering no explanation or
credible refutation of the mounting evidence of materiel accompanying these
patriotic citizen-soldiers.
The Kremlin has typically
left the admission of its own role in east Ukraine to proxies or surrogates. In
July, Sergei Kurginyan, a Moscow theatre director who leads the left-wing
ultranationalist movement the Essence of Time, claimed, on video, in conversation
with separatist leaders, that external hardware entering Ukraine had come from
Russia’s
“civil society” — a prime facie absurdity, although one designed to reassure the
then-demoralized militants that more help was indeed on the way.
Why is Russia
suddenly dispatching these heavy-duty toys to its proxies? Well, radar systems
and T-72s might be needed to fortify current positions or prepare for a
forthcoming blitzkrieg into Ukrainian-held territory. Here, other Putinists may
be telegraphing the Kremlin’s
intentions. “Novorossiya soldiers would not initiate the
battle,” Sergei Markov, an often hysterical loyalist commentator told the Daily
Beast on Nov. 10 — Novorossiya referring to a notional land for Russians abroad
made up of parts of Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, and for now, the name
bestowed on Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine — “but I believe [the
separatists’]
plan is to gradually take control over Piski, Avdiivka, and Schastye, a town
with a central heating station.”
Schastye would
indeed be a major prize for the insurgents. On Sept. 2, the night before Putin and
Poroshenko discussed the ceasefire, the town was heavily shelled. Journalist Cristian
Jereghi described the road
from Schastye to Novoaidar in the north as follows: “A checkpoint, burnt out
with Grads. Artillery shelling. The apocalypse. Night, a burning forest,
soldiers in gas masks, armoured vehicles along the roads, tank columns.” The
first round of shelling directed at the Lugansk
Thermal Power Station was reported on Sept. 17. A month later, the
shelling had not ceased. On October 17, the OSCE published
a report mentioning
reports of regular shelling of the plant.
Interestingly, in
recent weeks, no major fighting has occurred in Lugansk apart from around the power station in Schastye, indicating that separatists may be busy
consolidating their turf and possibly laying the foundation for occupation
regime, one which would necessarily be reliant on an energy supply independent
of Kyiv. Russian-sourced T-72 tanks and ground radar systems could be integral
to seizing that power source.
But they’d also help in fortifying
another separatist enclave. The so-called “People’s Republic of Donetsk” (DPR),
or the separatist administration in charge of the city, is now in Stalinist
statelet-building mode, with a de facto government reminiscent of the Soviet
politburo. It holds interminable meetings, hands out awards for public service,
and issues decrees, with the pomp of officialty — DPR seals and signatures. It’s also printing ATM cards for
locals dependent on social welfare schemes; redistributing whatever aid comes
in via Russia’s
“humanitarian convoys” (of which there have now been seven in total); repairing damaged homes, hospitals, schools, and shopping centers. It’s even conducting tax collection of the
some 33 percent of all enterprises registered in the DPR. (The alternative to
paying taxes is being arrested or shot.) The DPR even created a Ministry
of Transport and charged Oplot (“Bulwark”) — one
of its elite battalions formerly led by Aleksandr Zakharchenko who is now the “prime minister”
of the DPR — to put an end to train robberies, which have become reportedly
become a major problem in east Ukraine since the crisis began and which has
resulted in the theft of enormous amounts of cargo.
Life under the DPR’s reign is
hardly a socialist paradise, however.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights reported 812 kidnappings earlier this year and there
are constant stories of extortion, beatings, and summary executions. A cartoonist
who mocked former commander Col. Igor Strelkov was apprehended and tortured; only
his girlfriend’s connections with some policemen close to the DPR got him
released. Recently, the Associated Press reported that in Alchevsk, a town ruled by Aleksei
Mozgovoy, commander of the Prizrak (“Phantom”) Battalion, a public tribunal was
held for two rapists and the crowd urged that they be put to death.
This week, a group of Donetsk
teachers stood on the Donetsk Bridge with Ukrainian flags in their hands to
protest the takeover of their region. Donetsk “is currently ruled by terrorist
groups that have subordinated local authorities, taken over private buildings
and industrial plants, organized their own tax system and bank, and intervened
in the health and education sector,” they protested. The DPR is acting like a Robespierrean
Committee of Public Safety, determined to stamp out anything deemed
counterrevolutionary, including Ukrainian nationalist symbols and the Ukrainian
language — a grim irony given that an original pretext of the separatist
insurgency was protecting Russian-speaking populations.
Putin hasn’t come this far,
braving international opprobrium and penalties, only to see his imperial
project fail. With Western attentions diverted in the Middle East, the European
Union’s insistence that it has no plans to increase sanctions whatever he does,
and the reality of Russia’s drip-drip invasion now of humdrum newsworthiness,
he reckons he can’t lose.
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