Ukraine’s so-called “Anti-terror operation” (ATO) in the war-torn Donbas region in the east of the country will end on April 30, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has said.
Speaking to the BBC’s Ukrainian Service on April 21, the senior official added that the ATO, the officially used term for the ongoing war against Russian-led forces, would be replaced by the Joint Forces Operation (JFO).
According to Poltorak, the Defense Ministry has already prepared the “military command facilities that will carry out tasks in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.”
“The new operation will be conducted by the commander of the Joint Forces, who will organize training and control of all of the defense forces (deployed to the Donbas),” Poltorak said. “Not only of combat formations belonging to Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but also of the SBU (Ukraine’s security service), the police, the National Guards, and the Border Service.”
Earlier, on March 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev head of the new Joint Forces Operation.
“(Nayev’s) basic mission is to liberate the territory from occupation and secure the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Poltorak said.
Poltorak also said that the number of Ukrainian troops in the region could be increased if there was a worsening of the security situation or a decision was taken to liberate the occupied Donbas by force. According to official figures, Ukraine has currently deployed at least 35,000 servicemen in the Donbas, against approximately the same number of Russian-led fighters.
The new form of Ukraine’s four-years-long military campaign in the Donbas is in line with the much-debated so-called Donbas reintegration bill, which was approved by parliament on Jan. 18 and signed into law by Poroshenko on Feb. 20.
The headline-making bill, among other things, proclaims Russia an aggressor state that occupies parts of Ukraine and governs the seized districts through its occupational authorities, which are falsely presented as self-proclaimed breakaway “republics.” The defensive campaign against the Russian-led forces is to be conducted by the military via the newly-created Joint Operation Forces, the top commander of which shall be nominated by Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces and approved by the president.
The bill granted a legal basis for the operations of the Armed Forces in the region without imposing martial law; Full control of the campaign in the Donbas will now rest with the top military command rather than the SBU security service, which was in charge of the Anti-Terror Operation.
The ATO with the active involvement of the Armed Forces was officially declared on April 14, 2014, by then-time acting President Oleksandr Turchynov amid growing unrest and the seizure of government buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv by armed pro-Russian separatists, and their proclamation of “independent people’s republics” intended to subsequently integrate into Russia.
Since then, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces has left much of the region in ruins, with more than 10,000 having been killed, including at least 2,800 Ukrainian servicemen. As a result of the battle of Debalseve in early 2015 and the signing of the Second Minsk accords, a 400-kilometer front line divides the industrial region, with the region’s two main cities – Donetsk and Luhansk – still being occupied by the Kremlin-led forces.
When it ends on April 30, the ATO will have lasted 4 years and 16 days.
Since the mid-November 2017, combat operations in Donbas have been commanded by Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy, a top commander of the Air Assault Forces, who earned the title of “Hero of Ukraine” for his successful campaign against Russian-led forces in the summer of 2014, widely known as “Zabrodskiy’s Raid.”
However, against expectations, Zabrodskiy, a highly-popular combat officer, was not appointed to lead Ukraine’s further military operations in the Donbas.
In an interview with Radio Army FM on April 4, Zabrodskiy nevertheless said that all of the Ukrainian troops under his command had met his highest expectations and demonstrated very good combat skills.
