The key task of the plan was the capture of Ilovaisk with the simultaneous capture of the northern outskirts of Makeevka. This made it possible to block the transport communications of the militia. In addition, a bridgehead appeared for further encirclement and capture of Donetsk. Interestingly, the official propaganda mouthpiece of Ukraine was talking about Russia's military presence in the conflict zone. Thus, the General Prosecutor's Office broadcast that in August 2014 Russian units entered the territory of the Donetsk region, and also fired at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from artillery pieces.
Ilovaisk today
In Ukraine, it was argued that the largest invasion dates back to August 23-24, and even the number of personnel of the "occupiers" from the Russian Federation is given - 3,500 fighters. With them allegedly drove 60 tanks, 320 BMD or BMP (here in Ukraine they are confused), 60 cannon artillery, 45 mortars in total and humiliatingly few ATGMs - 5 copies. Considering the saturation of the Donbass theater of military operations with tanks, such "hindsight" on the part of the Russian leadership looks rather strange.
Then there are accusations of violation of Article 37 of the Additional Protocol of the Geneva Convention, dated 12.08.1949. This article prohibits killing, wounding or capturing an enemy by resorting to treachery. Examples of perfidy in the article are the following actions: a) feigning the intention to negotiate under the flag of a truce or feigning surrender; b) feigning failure due to injury or illness; c) feigning civilian or non-combatant status; and (d) feigning protection status through the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations, neutral States or other States that are not parties to the conflict. At the same time, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine says that the reason for accusing Russia of violating the Convention is the removal of markings from its own equipment and the application of identification marks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Comments to such conclusions, I think, will be superfluous.
As an excuse for the failure and catastrophic losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the region of Ilovaisk in Ukraine, very interesting figures are given for the ratio of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the enemy: personnel - 1:18, tanks - 1:11, light armored vehicles - 1: 6, artillery - 1:15 and MLRS "Grad" - 1:24. In general and in particular, the militia has an overwhelming advantage. At the same time, an impressive reserve of 50 thousand contingents of the RF Armed Forces stood on the border with the LPNR - it could be brought into battle at any time. The question arises: who gave the suicidal order to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack the locations of the militia, if the enemy's superiority in force was so impressive?
Nevertheless, on August 10, the Azov and Donbass battalions launched an attack on the city of Ilovaisk, trying to destroy the fortified areas and militia checkpoints in the first phase of the operation. But they suffered losses and retreated to their former positions - a kind of reconnaissance in force turned out. In "Donbass" they announced the irrecoverable loss of four "patriots" and seven wounded, and in "Azov" two dead and five temporarily out of order were missing. The attack was the exit of the group under the cover of the BMP-1 and a self-made armored car.
Location map of combat units in Ilovaisk
But the tracked vehicle was out of order and stood in the middle of the field, and militia snipers and machine-gun points did not allow the infantry to raise their heads.
The second assault took place on August 19 and was more massive - bloody battles unfolded already in the city limits. By the end of the day, the armed formations of the DPR covered the positions of the Ukrainian punitive forces with the MLRS Grad. The losses of the "Donbass" battalion were then confirmed by the Ukrainian media. On August 25, Azov was removed from the front and sent to defend Novoazovsk and Mariupol (which, in fact, saved him), and a day later, militia units were already surrounded by many volunteers and regular units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The cauldron hit "Donbass", "Dnepr-1", battalions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs "Kherson", "Svityaz", the regiment "Peacemaker", "Shakhtarsk" together with the combined company of the 93rd and 17th brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By the morning of August 27, judging by scattered data, Ilovaisk was under the complete control of the militia. By August 28, the situation in the boiler of the Ukrainian Armed Forces turned out to be catastrophic, and on August 29, President Vladimir Putin called for a corridor to be given to units of the Ukrainian security forces to get out of the encirclement. The militiamen agreed to such an operation, but specified that fighters without weapons would pass through the bottleneck. However, in Ukraine everyone trumpeted that on August 30, the punishers came out with their banners raised high and with weapons in their hands.
New monuments in peaceful Ilovaisk
DPR Minister of Defense Volodymyr Kononov later said that the Ukrainian army was trying to break through the encirclement, despite the corridor presented, and clarified that for the military who agreed to disarmament, the corridor was preserved. The answer of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine was a little discouraged - all data on losses and maneuvers are classified, and in general you are all paying too much attention to this ordinary battle. Like, all this is just another intrigue of the Russian special services in the plane of information war. DPR, meanwhile, in the Starobeshevo area, which was part of the structure of the "Ilovaisky boiler", on the night of August 30 to 31, 198 conscripts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were disarmed. In total, during the ceasefire regime, 223 servicemen and national guardsmen were transferred to the Ukrainian side. In many ways, the Ukrainian units considered the ceasefire and the organization of the corridor to be a pretext for regrouping forces and concentrating units in critical areas. The general comment of representatives of the DPR Foreign Ministry was the following: “This morning, a number of armed units of the Ukrainian army began to move out of the encirclement. Someone on armored vehicles, someone on foot, destroying their equipment. These actions have nothing to do with the humanitarian corridor”. Such attempts to break through were successfully stopped by the militia.
Peaceful Ilovaisk today
The head of the temporary investigative commission of the Verkhovna Rada to investigate the event in Ilovaisk, Andrey Senchenko, said in the course of work: distribution point of view, public access, and all other issues are classified."
At the meeting of this commission of inquiry, a scandal generally occurred when Geletay (the Minister of Defense of that time) refused to report on the situation in Ilovaisk in the presence of the media at all and left. As is usually the case in such stories, ordinary soldiers indicate the generals as the main culprits of defeat. This is exactly what the commander of the Dnepr-1 regiment Yuri Bereza said.
Pyotr Litvin - one of the "heroes" of the Ilovaisk battle
Moreover, he even named the name of Pyotr Lytvyn, brother of the former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Volodymyr Lytvyn. And the current deputy and “hero” of Ilovaisk, Andrei Teterev, who was the commander of the “Peacemaker” regiment in 2014, said about General Litvin: “It was this general who skidded with his subordinates, exposing our flank, which made it possible to quickly complete the encirclement of the city of Ilovaisk. Neither I, nor my brothers-in-arms can forgive such behavior to the general, who had to carry out the tasks assigned to him."
By the way, Lytvyn is now the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of Armenia. The country does not forget its heroes.
The most interesting and intriguing part of the Ilovaisk battle was the informational confrontation between Russia and the Western countries and Ukraine. The latter actively and uncompromisingly accused Russia of direct interference. Sometimes this nonsense went beyond all limits.
