"Battle Footage On The Battle For The Ukrainian Town Of..." Topic

… Maryinka (Top Video is From The Rebel Side, Bottom Video From The Ukrainian Army Side).

YouTube link

YouTube link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting, separatist video claims this to be a 'major offensive', yet this is well into the government side of the last given ceasefire border so not a disputed region.

The separatist leader said this was merely a small counter attack:

Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-styled "Donetsk People's Republic", said the Maryinka fighting had left about 400 Ukrainian troops dead and up to 1,000 wounded. "This was a counter-attack. If we had attacked, we would have captured Maryinka," he said on Friday.

There's a lot of counter-accuses from both sides, OSCE were not there at the start of the fighting, and it seems that they've failed to notice the movement of heavy weaponry from both sides to the positions where they were not supposed to be – not surprising, as both sides restrict their movement in frontline area. Who has started the offensive is not clear – well, we have two opposite opinions and nobody to verify either version – but it seems that the fight was bloody, with higher death toll than previous months.
Frankly, starting an offensive right before G7 summit was not in favour of Russia. I'm not ruling out both Ukrainian offensive, or rebel offensive if some of them were hoping to escalate the conflict for direct intervention of Russia.On the first day of escalation I remember seeing on rebel site a note that they're moving into the parts of Mariinka that were left by government army…

This map would seem to suggest there shouldn't have been a conflict there at all (?) is it is outside of the disputed area, unless the separatists have continued to make inroads since the ceasefire

It does seem that both sides may have [attempted to] taken advantage of the thinness of the OSCE monitoring mission to fire periodic rounds whenever they think they can get away with it.

From what I've read in the last 48 hours, it appears there is a bit of fighting along a very widespread front, so it seems the Russians and their guerrillas have used the ceasefire to redeploy their units advantageously.

Also, apparently the Russians have grown careless with pulling/covering up insignia, since some of that has been observed on their troops/vehicles in Ukrainian territory.

Clearly, the EU/NATO are rather concerned about the situation at the moment.

"I would like to say – there's no need to be afraid of Russia, the world has changed so much that people in their right mind cannot imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to do, I can assure you. Only a sick person -- and even then only in his sleep -- can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO."

Vladimir Putin

Of course easy to say while you are the one dangling the very large club.

So, is Vlad confirming the rumors that have been swirling around him, from various corners, in a tongue in cheek manner?

I guess time will tell.

Trying to pull a Richard M. Nixon, crazy like a fox tactic, like he did back in the day with those B-52s orbiting just outside Soviet airspace (think good cop/bad cop, with nuclear armed bombers, if you are unfamiliar with the military exercise back in the day).

"Other things" – VP appear to be less than "large scale" attacks in the Ukrain (which isn't part of NATO). So he is being truthful.
The concern is that he may be also truthful about what a sick mind might be contemplating…
Though I believe the intent is incremental rather than all out and as a warning to others not to move too far from Russia.

I think his words are very carefully chosen.