The expected recruiting drive, which mirrors Kiev’s own mobilization order by President Petro Poroshenko last month, will be officially launched next week, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, told a local news station.
“As for mobilization, conscription, we are capable of doing it,” he said, adding that the troops would be involved in a counteroffensive against Kiev forces.
“We plan to form five new brigades, three of them mechanized. We have the basis to train the soldiers. I believe we can do it by springtime,” he added.
The official later clarified that they plan to recruit more volunteers, rather than to enforce conscription, and that the training may take as long as six months.
Reports from on the ground indicate that logistic structures of the rebels are only partially functional, and that conducting a full-blown conscription campaign amid ongoing hostilities may be too complex. Enrolling and training “up to 100,000 soldiers,” as declared initially by Zakharchenko, is clearly an impossible goal in the war-torn region that saw hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in the past several months.
Kiev officials cheered the news, saying it indicated impending doom for the militias.
“We are still checking it, but it indicates that they are short of fighters,” Kiev military spokesman Andrey Lysenko told at a daily briefing.
Ukraine’s own mobilization campaign, the fourth since the armed coup in Kiev brought to power the current government in February 2014, is reportedly stalled because potential recruits are dodging conscription officials. Hundreds of Ukrainian men are choosing to flee the country rather than be enrolled.
The violence between government troops and anti-government militias escalated in January. The rebels fended off what Kiev described as a “massive offensive” and scored several territorial gains.
The focus of the current hostilities is the area around the city of Debaltsevo, a stronghold of Ukrainian troops deep inside the rebel-held part of the country. Some 8,000 troops stationed in the area are at risk of being cut off from supply lines and suffering a major defeat.
Attempts by Moscow and the OSCE to bring the belligerent parties back to the negotiation table failed last Saturday in Minsk. The self-proclaimed republics insisted on President Poroshenko ordering his troops to cease firing before they would agree to any truce. They also want Kiev to acknowledge as theirs the territories captured during the latest round of hostilities. The Ukrainian government wants their opponents to fall back to their old positions.
Moscow is skeptical about the prospect of a new ceasefire, blaming Washington for not pressuring Kiev into seeking peace rather than continuing the war.
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