
According to official data from GlobalFirepower.com, Russia is more militarily superior. For example, Ukraine has 225,000 active soldiers and Russia has more than one million. Together with the reserve forces, Russia has at its disposal three million soldiers, Ukraine 1.15 million.
A U.S. military cargo plane was still parked on the runway of Kiev airport on Sunday afternoon. It is one of two planes that landed at dawn Sunday at Boryspil Airport, bringing ammunition and other military equipment.
“This morning, two planes arrived in Kiev with the American ambulance to strengthen the defense of Ukraine. This is part of the $ 200 million recently approved bailout,” said the US Embassy in Kiev.
Military assistance to Ukraine is much needed. Irish Times graphs have prepared this graph showing the military capability of Ukraine and Russia.
While US military planes were sending needed aid to Kiev, civilian planes were transporting from the Ukrainian capital those who no longer consider the country a safe place to live. The passage reserved for diplomats was opening more and more often. The British were suggested to leave Ukraine by 15 February at the latest. The Americans in this country were instructed to withdraw by road, towards the border with Poland, in case of air traffic suspension. The Dutch company has suspended flights to Ukraine. Insurance companies, writes Ukrainian Pravda, and reports Kyiv Independent, warned other airlines not to fly through Ukrainian airspace. At the same time, the (pro) Russian media and the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zaharova, claims that the officers of the OSCE mission in Ukraine are provoking armed formations that control parts of Luhansk and Donetsk. Following the media, you come to the conclusion that the country is on the brink of war.
But in the center of Kiev, there is nothing to prove it. The restaurants were open exactly at the time written on their doors. But you cannot find many guests on Sunday, at eight-thirty in the morning. Ukrainians have chosen morning jogging and coffee from a plastic cup they buy in Maidan Square.
In Maidan Square in 2014 the crisis in Ukraine began. That continues today. When the Russians lost control of the authorities in Kiev, they began military operations. Russian-reinforced paramilitary formations occupied about 30 percent of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. At the same time, Russia annexed Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula separating the Black Sea from the Azov Sea.
To bring drinking water to the Crimea, the Soviets began digging a canal through the Perekop Strait in the 1960s. Decades later, water from the Dnieper River would flow into the Crimea through this canal. After Putin’s occupation and annexation of the peninsula, the Ukrainians blocked the canal in 2014 and left the occupied territory without water.
If you look at a map of Ukraine with clearly defined territories controlled by pro-Russian paramilitary formations, you will see that the Luhansk and Donetsk ore-rich regions are not linked to Crimea by land. And that’s what the Russians, after all, want. The map published by the German Spiegel shows the deployment of Russian military forces around Ukraine.
Therefore, most of the forces are directed towards the city of Dnieper. By occupying that part, Crimea would be connected to Donetsk, take water from the Dnieper River, and Ukraine would be left without access to the Sea of Azov, which practically enters the bowels of the Russian Federation.
Mariupol is a city in the Sea of Azov which is under the control of the government from Kiev. It also borders on the pre-state creation of the Donetsk People’s Republic, supported by the Russian Federation. The region is also known as the Donbas. How much, in fact, Russia militarily supports paramilitary formations in the region can be best seen in 2019. OSCE observers then filmed the modern Tirade-2 blocking system. The registrations were made on March 16, 2019 in the occupied part of Donbas, Ukraine, and everything is stated in the OSCE report.
At the time, this system was available exclusively to the army of the Russian Federation, whose allies all the time claimed to have no connection with the rebels in eastern Ukraine. Following the presentation of these recordings, the OSCE Mission will soon discontinue the practice of publishing photographs taken by their drones.
Today, however, Russian Federation officials call provocateurs OSCE officials who carry out “reconnaissance” in conflict zones.
According to the latest OSCE daily report, about 40 explosions were reported in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Most of them are registered in the Luhansk region, near the Luhansk station. It is one of the few places planned to cross from the territory of Ukraine that is under the control of the government in Kiev, to the territory controlled by paramilitary formations. To get to Luhansk station you have to go through four checkpoints of the Ukrainian army and police. The first trenches are located a few hundred meters from the crossing. Luhansk city is about twenty kilometers away from Luhansk Station. To cross to the other side, ie to the territory under the control of paramilitary formations, you must have the appropriate passport (Ukrainian or Russian) or special permit. Plus a negative test for Covid that you can do inside the complex that is considered a border crossing. You can not drive on the other side. Exhausted and sick people are transported in wheelchairs. It is not uncommon for coffins with the dead to be carried across the aisle, as families want to bury them in the place where they live.
One hundred kilometers from Luhansk Station is the city of Severodonetsk. We have already written that the Bosniak community lives here. They came thirty years ago, mostly as workers in Vranica. They mostly speak Russian, but feel like Ukrainians. In general, everyone in this city would say they live in Severodonetsk. Which is, as a Ukrainian diplomat will explain, the Russian version. True Ukrainians, they tell us, call that city Sieverodonetsk. But despite the fact that the Russian version of the name is used, Sieverodonetsk is under the control of the government from Kiev. It was released in the summer of 2014. There is no trace of war in the city. But as you move further east, you will see ruins.
Formally, peace is in force. In essence, it is the shooting. And more and more stories about the great war. Ukrainian authorities have given Russia an ultimatum for talks on Crimea and other occupied territories. This ultimatum expires on February 16th. Then, according to US intelligence, the Russian invasion of Ukraine will begin.