The situation at Shirokino
Today I talked to a battalion commander of the DPR army, which has been engaged in fighting for Shirokino over the last month.
1. The fighting there started in February and never really stopped. The battalion commander came to Russia for several days to get treatment for a bullet wound to his leg, which he received during the January NAF offensive. He will return soon, because nobody cancelled the tasks that have to do with Shirokino. He's fighting since Slavyansk, he used to be with "Batman" for a while (he spoke about him very highly). Overall - a genuine battalion commander from the front. Currently he's running around on crutches, but in the nearest time he will be commanding his people at Shirokino. He's moving around in regular boots.
2. Shirokino proper is partially controlled by our forces and partially by the junta (this is reminiscent of the situation at Nikishino). "Azov" stood at the front on their side earlier, the presence of "Dnepr-1" was noted after the rotation. The AFU forces mostly support them with artillery and tanks. The battalion commander I talked to has a tank company, which provides fire support, under his command in addition to the infantry. Overall, a group of up to 2000 people and about 50 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts is on the enemy side in the area of Shirokino and adjacent villages. There is regular rotation of forces.
3. The foundation of the defense is formed by the positions on a high point in the area of Shirokino, where the enemy built long-term defensive fortifications. The defense of the enemy is based on a system of company-level strongholds, which form three defense lines towards Mariupol up until Berdyanskoye. The enemy is preparing for defense, it even builds fortifications using concrete, lays minefields, improves its system of fire. Also they actively use drones, primarily foreign drones. The drones are often noted in the strip of the battalion's responsibility, sometimes up to 4 or 5. One of them they managed to shoot down lately. Drones are launched by our side, but somewhat fewer of them (UAVs are in short supply, as always).
4. Due to the enactment of truce, our forces redeployed their heavy artilery into the rear. There was no pullback on the opposite side and in the recent days the enemy hit our positions at Shirokino quite fiercely. Our forces naturally respond, the artillery is used by agreement with the higher-ups, when the enemy is really getting impudent. If there will be more serious events, the stuff that was pulled back will be easily returned.
5. The battalion consists of the local residents for the most part. There are Russian volunteers, who have been fighting since the summer. There are reinforcements, because during the winter the battalion suffered fairly serious losses in KIA and WIA. Before the truce they hit "Azov" nicely, some of the media talk about new corpses of the "Azov" punitive troops was their job. The infantry of the enemy is evaluted as being of medium quality, the main problems are brought by the enemy artillery.
6. There is still acute lack of uniforms and gear in the frontline units. The battalion that fights at Shirokino needs up to 200-250 uniform and footwear kits. There are very few tactical vests, the majority of special gear (night vision goggles, heat monitors, collimator sights, targeters) are trophies. This also applies to body armor and decent helments. The AFU continue to serve as one of the main supplier of the gear and materiel for the NAF. Some fighters have to partially fight in civilian clothes and buy boots of their own money after getting paid. Due to the lack of tactical vests, some are carrying ammo in their pockets. As they say, the cargo makes it into Novorossia in principle, but due to logistical and supply organization problems not everything actually makes it to the front. The stuff that gets there is often delayed.
7. From the point of view of the morale, people are quite ready to continue fighting and they are confident that the junta will inevitably suffer another defeat after the resumption of active military action. The "truce" is considered to be fiction, which only provides a temporary respite. The order in the strip near the front line is maintained strictly but fairly.
8. There is much destruction in Shirokino proper, the locals effectively left. On the other hand, somewhat further away from the front the masses of people continue to live just like before the war. The war and shelling became routine for the people, who got used to it. The population naturally is very tired of the events, but they consider the junta to be the main guilty party and the militia to be their protectors. With respect to Russia, there is certain disillusionment that the help ended up not being like the one that was expected during the spring of 2014. Overall, however, there is understanding that the DPR would not exist by now without the support from Russia.
9. The OSCE drive around the combat area, but they are not filming when the junta is firing, they pretend to have nothing to do with it. On the other hand, they try to seek moments when the NAF respond to the enemy fire. There's no objectivity there, not even close.
10. Overall, one may state that medium intensity positional warfare of sorts is going on at Shirokino. Furthermore, both sides expect that the military action may intensify in the foreseeable future.
Already after talking to the battalion commander I learned that the junta painted several tanks in DPR colors and sent them to attack our positions at Shirokino on March 15
http://rusvesna.su/news/1426486183. Overall, the war continues and my interlocutor will have to lead people and solve military tasks on the scene in just a few days.
Original article: http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2093097.html (in Russian)
Yandex translation of the comments posted to the original Russian blog entry:
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