Posted on 04/01/2015 6:02:00 AM PDT by lodi90
For the past year, the Kremlin has strenuously denied that its troops are supporting pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine — but fighters on the ground are apparently no longer bothering to keep up the farce.
St. Petersburg native Dmitry Sapozhnikov, who went to Ukraine in October to fight alongside the rebels, told the BBC Russian service in a candid interview from Donetsk that Russian military units have played a decisive role in rebel advances, including the operations in February that led to the capture of the transport hub of Debaltseve. Russian officers directly command large military operations in eastern Ukraine, he noted.
"Tanks and Russian units came through the LPR," Sapozhnikov said, referring to the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic on the border with Russia. "But I don't think that this is a secret anymore, everyone admits it, and the Russians admit it.… Thanks to the Russian forces, we're able to take positions quickly. We were located near Debaltseve and thinking, well, we're going to hold them in this encirclement for another month, it will drag on.… But in the end we took it in three days."
Author is Moscow based journalist who also writes for London Guardian newspaper.
Full story here: https://news.vice.com/article/russian-soldiers-have-given-up-pretending-they-are-not-fighting-in-ukraine
40,000 in Ukraine. 55,000 near the border.
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