Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1532587
along the Sea of Azov, capturing Novoazovsk and advancing toward Mariupol. Additional Russian units enter Luhansk Oblast, pushing Ukrainian forces away from the regional capital. However, despite several crushing defeats for Ukraine, the situation cannot be deemed a total victory for Russia. Several elite Ukrainian units break through the front and conduct a 470 km raid deep into enemy- held territory, disrupting Russian supply lines. Russia fails to capture Mariupol, which Ukrainian forces had abandoned months earlier. Near Luhansk, Russian units suffer heavy losses, and Ukrainian forces capture Russian prisoners. The world becomes aware of Russia's direct involvement in Donbas. Additionally, one of the Donetsk-based groups, likely by mistake, shoots down a Dutch passenger plane using a Russian-supplied air defense system. This incident sparks international outrage and becomes a factor in temporarily stabilizing the situation. Russia manages to hold the front line and prevents pro-Russian groups from being encircled or destroyed. Eventually, Russia and Ukraine sign the first Minsk agreements. During the winter of the same year, Russia conducts several further operations, though on a more limited scale. These aim to straighten the front line and secure better positions for Russian forces. Regular Russian army units are again involved in these operations to a limited extent. Russia captures Donetsk airport and Debaltseve. The parties sign the Minsk II agreement, stabilizing the front line until 2022. In the years that follow, trench-based fixed- position warfare continues, with periodic escalations along different sections of the front. After stabilizing the front, Russia intensified efforts that began in the fall of 2014, to fully subordinate Donbas and establish a controlled civil and military administration. Aware of the inefficiency of the warring factions, Russia enforces centralization and order with a heavy hand, yet without addressing corruption or abuses in the so- called "people's republics." Instead, Moscow selects individuals it can easily control, implementing a governance structure mirroring that of Russia. Key figures are handpicked as Russia's proxies, allowed to loot the region in exchange for loyalty and obedience to Moscow's directives. Given the complete absence of grassroots social organization, long suppressed by local mafias, there is no resistance to this new power system. The proponents of romanticization of the so-called Russian Spring, who believed they were building a new, redefined Russia in Donbas, are sidelined. At best, they leave politics; at worst, they are physically eliminated if they resist or speak out too much. The heads of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics (LPR and DPR) are "elected" in controlled republican ANALYSIS