Chronicles Of Ceasefire: Drugs At Frontline And Clouds Over Party Of War

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Pro-Kiev forces have been hitting fresh highs of the degradation amid the ceasefire in the region of Donbass in eastern Ukraine.

The ceasefire between the Kiev regime and self-defense forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) officially stated on June 27 and as of July 27 it mostly remained in force in the region. The sides regularly accuse each other of ceasefire violations and pro-Kiev and DPR/LPR forces even suffer casualties. In aprticular, units loyal to the Kiev regime recently suffered several casualties as a result of mine explosions during failed raids in the ‘gray zone’ near positions of the DPR and the LPR. However, the intensity of artillery strikes and regular firefights on the contact line significantly decreased. Small arms and small-calibre mortars are still actively employed.

At the same time, the Ukrainian Army and illegal armed groups loyal to Kiev (but barely controlled by the Zelensky administration) have been contributing extensive efforts to strengthen their fortifications on the frontline. DPR and LPR militias respond in a similar manner.

According to interviews of Ukrainian servicemen surfacing online, the decrease of tensions also negatively impacted the already low moral level of pro-Kiev forces. Earlier, there were multiple reports about the usage of alcohol, drugs, the lack of discipline, the open participation in organized crime and the intentional terror against local population by pro-Kiev units. The Zelensky administration and the military leadership of Ukraine failed to exploit the ceasefire to deal with these problems.

“The regular army should not sit idle because the moral decay begins. I still keep my battalion in my fist, but our neighbors have already started a mess – the fighters began to drink alcohol due to idleness, they even smoke weed at watch. Therefore, you need to send them to fight or to the rear. Contractors like the situation that they don’t shoot. But the personnel have changed dramatically over the past two years. Most of the contractors are zarobitchane (hint: a local word for Ukrainian migrant workers). They came from remote villages to earn money. Of course, they are calmer when it’s safe and the money is paid,” Strana.ua quotes a lieutenant-colonel, Sergey, deployed in the combat zone.

The lack of the constant threat of a military escalation (for years, intentionally fueled by Kiev) also removed the cover from apparent negative tendencies in the Ukrainian society. The political, social and economic crisis becomes obvious when the population is no more distracted by the never-ending “war with Russia” (Russia did not come to fight). On August 25, the extraordinary session of the Ukrainian Parliament approved the EU Credit Memorandum under which the country surrendered the vestiges of its sovereignty to foreign actors in exchange for the new loan (600,000 EUR + 600,000 EUR if all demands are met). SouthFront covered this in details HERE.

Pseudo-patriotic (legalized neo-Nazis) and pseudo-church (local sectarians) structures created in the post-2014 coup Ukraine have been also passing through the hard times. asdf

On August 26, the Synodal Administration of Military Clergy of the ‘independent’ Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) released a statement restricting participation of OCU ‘combat clerics’ in public and non-government organizations, including NGO “Chaplains of Volyn”. The leader of this NGO, archpriest Michail Buchal, was excluded from the Synodal Administration of Military Clergy of the OCU. Earlier this year, the Synodal Administration of Military Clergy of the OCU criticized the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the lack of attention to requests of the OCU, including the introduction of financial bonuses and appointments of ‘not recommended’ chaplains to army units.

Representatives of the ‘independent’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church created during the Poroshenko era are once again clashing for the control of financial resources within the organization. Since the very creation of the OCU, the organization has failed to gain a wide support of the Ukrainian population. The organization even split into two rival parts. Nonetheless, it has become used to sucking budget funds from the Kiev regime. Now, in the conditions of the further developing economic crisis, these budget flows are decreasing. So, the competition for money and government-assigned posts within OCU factions have become especially acute.

Another side that has been passing through a crisis due to the decrease of violence in the region of Donbass is the so-called ‘party of war’ led by former President Petro Poroshenko and neo-Nazi-styled armed groups and political parties that got power after 2014. Their political and public strategy was mostly based on the fueling hysteria over some shadow war in which Ukraine was defeating Russia year by year. (at least in Ukrainian media) Therefore, the ceasefire is something what goes fully contrary to their interests. It is hard to talk about the ‘war with Russia’ in these conditions. Therefore, they have been trying to paint the decision of the Zelensky administration to support at least a ceasefire, if not a political settlement of the conflict, as a ‘surrender to Russia’. Zelensky & Co have already demonstrated that they are not seeking a real peace in the region of Donbass. However, this is not enough for Ukraine’s self-styled patriots that make money on the violence. They seek to turn Donbass into a permanent hotspot in Eastern Europe through in order to use it as a justification for a wide-scale corruption and looting of the country, as well as to ask more money for the ‘war with Russia’ from the West.

Currently, the Zelensky administration does not look like a power than can change this and turn the trend towards the political settlement and the peace. However, if this happens, pseudo-patriotic and pseudo-church structures that de-facto occupied Ukraine and have been draining its resources, will suffer a major blow.

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Ukraine Essentially Entirely Sells Out For EU Loan
• Long Road Towards ‘Independent’ Orthodox Church Of Belarus
• Ukraine Is Hovering Between New War And Economic Collapse

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