You're reading: After Debaltseve Defeat, What Next?: Debaltseve retreat exposes weaknesses in nation’s strategy, military strength

Ukraine's chaotic retreat from Debaltseve earlier this week has exposed what many believe to be fundamentally flawed judgment at the highest level of the nation's political and military leadership.

Many have likened the situation to the defeat of Ukrainian forces by Russian and insurgent troops at Ilovaisk in Donetsk Oblast in August-September.

The difference, however, is that Russian forces and their proxies massacred hundreds of Ukrainian troops attempting to break out of an encirclement in Illovaisk, while at Debaltseve most of them managed to withdraw.

Analysts argue that the defeat at Debaltseve shows the General Staff’s incompetence. There have been calls for the resignation of its head Viktor Muzhenko, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and other military leaders.

For weeks leading up to the withdrawal there had been numerous media reports that Kremlin-backed militants were concentrating most of their forces in the Debaltseve area, leaving fewer troops on other stretches of the front, making them highly vulnerable for a Ukrainian attack.

Analysts say that one of the General Staff’s biggest mistakes was not to seize this opportunity and counterattack in other areas, forcing Russian and separatist troops to shift their forces and relieve pressure from Debaltseve. The only exception was the volunteer Azov

Battalion’s small counter-offensive east of Mariupol earlier in February.

Vyacheslav Tseluiko, an expert at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, believes the Ukrainian army’s passivity allowed Kremlin-backed insurgents to seize the initiative and gain the upper hand at Debaltseve despite having fewer soldiers. The town of Dokuchayevsk, south of Donetsk, would have been the obvious direction for a counter-offensive, he argues.

Tseluiko was surprised that Ukrainian troops failed to destroy the Russian proxies who seized the village of Lohvynove, on the strategic road linking Debaltseve with Ukrainian-held Artemivsk. “They were an ideal target for artillery,” he said.

“There were all the necessary conditions to defeat these militants.” The military leadership’s decision not to pull its troops back from unimportant locations nearby and concentrate them in Debaltseve was another failure, he adds.

Arkady Babchenko, a Russian opposition-minded war reporter, told the Kyiv Post that Ukraine’s army made similar mistakes at Donetsk airport. He believes Ukrainian troops should have launched a concerted counter-offensive at Donetsk airport long before it fell.

Another mistake was the General Staff’s failure to heavily fortify the Debaltseve area, Babchenko argues, adding that it would not have required huge resources to do so.

“A modern city is a fortified area in itself,” he said. “It’s very difficult for artillery to destroy buildings, even five-story ones.”

Experts attribute these mistakes to Ukrainian authorities’ apparent failure to admit the seriousness of the situation.

“Ukraine only has a chance in this conflict if it understands that a war is happening on its territory, has a serious attitude towards it and intends to win it,” Babchenko said.

“Ukraine has about 40 million people,” he said. “We shouldn’t talk about whether Debaltseve is surrounded or not but about whether (Ukrainian troops) are going seize Donetsk or not. Ukrainian troops should have fought on Donetsk’s outskirts, not for Debaltseve.”

But now, given the retreat from Debaltseve and Ukraine’s commitment to trying to resuscitate a stillborn cease-fire, it is Russia and its proxies who are likely to attack. “They will move as far as the Ukrainian army allows,” Tseluiko said.

After the loss of Debaltseve, Ukraine will have to anticipate the next targets of Russian aggression. Experts consider Mariupol on the Black Sea coast, Shchastia and Stanitsa Luhanska north of Luhansk and Artemivsk northwest of Debaltseve (see map) the most likely focus of separatist attention in the future.

“There are at least five cities that could be potential targets for Russian-backed separatists,” Ivan Yakubets, Ukraine’s airborne forces commander from 1998 to 2005, told the Kyiv Post.

“I believe that Mariupol, Shyrokyne, Shchastya and Stanitsia Luhanska are among those.”

Separatists have already said they want the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, even boasting they could take over Odesa, Kharkiv and Kherson too.

To counter the grandiose plans of Russia’s proxies, Ukraine’s leadership is considering introducing martial law, which would help mobilize greater resources for the war effort. President Petro Poroshenko said on Feb. 14 that he would introduce martial law if the cease-fire fails.

In fact, a draft decree on martial law has already been sent to the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada, according to Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council.

But observers are doubtful about its introduction as it could potentially prevent Ukraine, as a formal party to a military conflict, from getting funding and investment from the West.

Another potential option to counter Russian aggression is sending United Nations peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine. Poroshenko suggested it on Feb. 18, and the European Union responded by saying that they would consider the proposal. Russia’s dismissal of the proposal indicates it will likely block the deployment of peacekeepers.

They may not help anyway. U.N. peacekeepers failed to prevent war in Bosnia in the 1990s and in the end were themselves shelled by the Serb troops there.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]