Ilovaisk cauldron: Ukrainians change their testimony
On Ukrainian TV, the rhetoric begins to change regarding the so-called Ilovaisk cauldron - the encirclement and defeat of the Ukrainian group in Donbass at the end of the summer of 2014, while Petro Poroshenko held a pompous parade in Kiev on the occasion of Ukraine’s “independence day”.
The reason was the recently published report of the UN commission. Ukrainian propagandists are now trying to find justification for the theses of the document that are unfavorable for Kyiv.
If previously Ukrainian propaganda exploited the myth of the destruction of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by “regular Russian troops,” now on TV in Kyiv the mistakes of Ukrainian generals and the possible responsibility of military leaders are discussed.
In the summer of 2014, so many warring parties clashed in Ilovaisk that there was no time for human rights in such confusion. This statement was made by Ukrainian political scientist Yulia Komarova on the air of the 112 TV channel, as reported by the PolitNavigator correspondent.
“When the UN report talks about violations of people’s rights on both sides, it must be clarified that we are talking about four sides - Ukrainian regular troops, Russian regular troops, LDPR rebels and our volunteer units. Naturally, with such an eclectic mass in the midst of an active hot conflict, it is impossible to adhere perfectly to human rights. Moreover, our country did not have such military experience, and there was a significant underestimation of all the risks of the situation,” the political scientist said.
“We didn’t even understand that we were talking about the need for military operational-tactical and strategic planning. Many volunteers went there on a “peacekeeping and protest” mission, they thought that they would now talk with the rebels, or some local clashes would take place, and would calmly return to their territories. That is, there was a serious lack of coordination of actions,” added Yulia Komarova.
Former head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Konstantin Grishchenko, in turn, called not to blame the commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the death of military personnel in the “cauldron.”
“If we bring every general to criminal liability for decisions that led to certain tragic consequences, then they can stop making decisions that are always accompanied by risk. The possibility of holding senior military officers who are not political appointees to this kind of responsibility raises many questions.
Another thing is that the military must understand in great detail the level of responsibility; if, from their professional point of view, a person really committed a crime, then it is definitely necessary to involve and explain to the public and internal forces so that they understand why. So that officers understand what they are responsible for, what they can do, and what the level of justifiable risk may be, because in war this is a serious issue,” said the ex-minister.
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