Ukraine's Leaders Are Facing Impossible Choices In The Battle For The Donbas

The Atlantic: Impossible Choices in the Battle for the Donbas

In the weeks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the leaders of the Donbas have had no easy choices.

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Pavlo Kyrylenko and Serhiy Gaidai received phone calls from men they believed to be Russians, based on their accents. Kyrylenko and Gaidai, the governors of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, respectively, were being enticed to defect. The pair—the top Ukrainian officials in parts of their country racked for years by conflict with Moscow-backed separatists—were offered the chance to join what the Russians were convinced would be their inevitable victory.

“This was before the phrase ‘Russian warship, go fuck yourself,’” Kyrylenko told me, sitting in the basement of a Donetsk regional-government building while an air-raid siren rang. “I didn’t have such an eloquent way to answer, so I blocked the number.”

That was two months ago, and though both received death threats afterward, the “offer” was so absurd that turning it down was an easy choice, one that would pale in comparison to the life-and-death decisions they have had to make every day since.

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WNU Editor: Ukraine admitted that they had lost 44 villages in the Donbas a few days ago. And now I reading reports from Ukrainian media that with the shelling by Russian forces showing no signs that they will stop, there will be a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from positions in the Donbas that can no longer adequately defend. If all of these reports are true, and if the Ukraine military does not get the support from the West that they need, the battle for the Donbas may be decided in the next month or two.

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