Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1517379
se in 2014 was somewhat chaotic, to say the least. In practical terms, those units were formed by random people, most of whom have never yielded a we- apon before. People eager to support the country in crisis, but also less than ready to face the challenges ahead, in Donbas. People wearing „any" uniform, yielding „any" weapon, and less than somewhat trained - as no professio- nal instructor cadre was available in Ukraine, while the small number availa- ble was busy with training the regular army and national guard units. The very same chaos was present when it came to the funding of those units. Local au- thorities were more active in some lo- cations, with money becoming available for the new battalions, while in other regions the funds were insufficient, and the Territorial Defense only existed in the paper trail. In other regions, private sponsors provided funding of their own to maintain those units. Thus they could have influenced the existence of those battalions to the extent so large, that they could consider them to be private armies of their own. During the Febru- ary 24th invasion, back in 2014, the frontline situation forced the Ukrainian command to employ the Territorial De- fense units on the frontline, instead of using them as regional peacekeepers. The reality in which those units found themselves departed from what was initially assumed. A huge volunteer movement also emer- ged, somewhat separated from the afo- resaid process. That movement divided into two key components, that were still tightly interwoven. The military component - including various volunte- er military units created outside of the state structures, and the volunteer component - became the back end for the military units. The volunteers were acting in the capacity of private per- sons, or engaged in crowdfunding, mass procuring and delivering what was ne- eded by the soldiers, autonomously. And the inventory was missing abso- lutely everything. The volunteer move- ment in Ukraine can be explained by the distrust expressed towards the formal state structures, especially prominent after the Pro-Russian Yanukovych go- vernment was overthrown just a few months before, in a situation when numerous members of the delegalized Party of Regions were still working as officials, at lower levels. The image of a volunteer was romanticized - he, using money and means provided by the citizens directly, is defending his own country, saving his homeland. The level of trust expressed towards the volun- teer units and supporting organizations (stably doing that, post-2014) was hi- gher than the trust towards the autho- rities. Who was forming those units? Private citizens, including reservists (like in the Donbas battalion case), or nationalists (AZOV battalion, or the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps). Some units were formed under the strong influen- ce of the Ukrainian oligarchs. Ihor Kolo- moysky was one of the most prominent persons in that group, financing the establishment of several units in the south and east of the country. The Vo- lunteers were often the first to appear in Donbas, and to secure the cities in the region, preventing the Russian for- ces from expanding the area controlled by them. Donbass and Dneper-1 batta- lion, operating near the cities of Dneper and Zaporizhzhia, secured the western part of the Donetsk district, clearing it and pushing the Russian combatants out, until this day, this part of Donbas is one of a few calm areas in the region, controlled by Ukraine in a very stable manner. It quickly turned out, howe- ver, that the chaotic volunteer force operations could only stop the Russian hybrid groups temporarily. To liberate the areas conquered, coordination and armament were needed, solely available to the state. As time went by, and as the conflict grew, and as the state was mobilizing more forces, the volunteer units became more integrated within the state structures. During the active phase of the Donbas War (2014-2015) integration usually involved formal at- tachment of battalions to the power structures, so that the operations could be conducted in coordination and alignment with the regular units, and the National Guard. To some extent, this also helped in securing the we- apons and ammo supplies. As time went by, and trust towards the Armed For- ces grew, that integration was getting deeper. We will discuss this in further paragraphs, in detail. The state in which the Ukrainian Armed Forces found themselves at the very start of the conflict made it impossible to rapidly take action aimed at stop- ping the Russian sabotage operations ANALYSIS