Russia is keeping the fighting going in Donbas:
Gen Breedlove, Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, was speaking after a meeting with Nato military chiefs in Vilnius, Lithuania.
"The situation in Ukraine is not good right now," he told reporters.
"The number of events, and the number of rounds fired and the artillery used across the past few days match some of the pre-ceasefire levels. The ceasefire is still there in name, but what is happening on the ground is quite a different story," he added.
He said that since last week, some Russian forces inside Ukraine had returned to Russia but remained available to "bring their military force to bear on Ukraine".
And Strategypage comments:
In Ukraine (Donbas) the Russian backed rebels are still very active, as are over 3,000 Russian troops who have quietly entered Ukraine in the last month. The Russians deny they have troops in Donbas but it is an open secret in Russia where many parents of Russian soldiers killed in Donbas are demonstrating their anger at government efforts to keep them quiet about where their sons died and how. So far the Donbas fighting has left over 3,000 dead (including civilians). There ae another 25,000 Russian troops on the Donbas border, apparently ready to move in on short notice. ...
The Russian supported Donbas rebels have still not recovered from the beating they took from Ukrainian forces before Russian troops entered in force on at the end of August. These Russian troops appear to have done most of the fighting since then, and taken most of the rebel casualties. This has become a lie Russia is having increasing difficulty telling with a straight face, at least to non-Russians.
I suspect that when Russia rebuilds their proxies that the war will resume in earnest.
I just hope that Ukraine uses their time better than Russia does.
