Video of Combat in Eastern Ukraine Adds to Worries in Kiev

[jakeXT]

While the advance of pro-Russian separatists across a swath of southern Ukraine stirred alarm Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the president’s office in Kiev to complain about the conduct of the war in the east of the country, where five battalions of volunteer fighters were reportedly cut off by a rebel counterattack.

Concern about the volunteers stranded in the town of Ilovaysk, outside Donetsk, was fueled by an angry Facebook post from the commander of one of the battalions, Semen Semenchenko, who accused the government of abandoning his men, and by new video uploaded to YouTube that gave a vivid sense of the intensity of the battle there.

The combat footage, accompanying a dispatch from Ilovaysk by a correspondent for the Ukrainian news site LB, showed fighters from the all-volunteer Donbass Battalion treating their wounded comrades on Tuesday in a school they were using as a base, and engaging in a firefight with the rebels.

The protesters in Kiev were called to the streets by Mr. Semenchenko, the battalion’s commander, who was wounded in battle and evacuated from Ilovaysk last week during fighting that also claimed the life of a 55-year-old American volunteer, Mark Paslawsky.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/video-of-combat-in-eastern-ukraine-adds-to-worries-in-kiev.html?_r=0

[newthinking]

1. Alternative media in Ukraine has been talking about where the war could go

The citizenry is recovering from the heavy war propaganda and are beginning to realize the reality of war. Once you let the genie out of the bottle....

If a solution is not found there is a huge risk of the war coming to Kiev. That is just the reality. Either Kiev stops the war or it must suppress the east. If the war continues it simply can't remain in the east. The rebels don't just stay where they are and keep getting bombed. They either have to surrender or they have to march on Kyiv. Even though they may not want to march on Kiev that would be the only other way for them to stop the war.

Not saying that is a good thing at all, just the reality of war. War is rarely the only way and almost always is the worst way. And unless you are conducting it from across an ocean almost impossible to have war without it also engulfing ones own centers. That is one reason why even when one thinks they have the "right cause", it still may not be the best way.

[zeemike]

2. I did not understand a word they said.

But the emotions and images spoke loud and clear.