The Anti-Terror Operation, conducted by Ukrainian forces against Russian-led forces in the Donbas since April 2014, is over.
But Russia’s war, which has already claimed more than 10,300 lives, is not. Starting at 2 p.m. on April 30, Ukraine launched a new campaign, the Joint Forces Operation, led by the country’s top military command.
Ukrainian President and Commander-in-Chief Petro Poroshenko signed the order to launch the new operation.
“Today, the large-scale anti-terror operation in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts is finished,” Poroshenko said during a meeting with the country’s top security and defense leadership in Kyiv. “Now we are starting a military operation under the guidance of the armed forces to ensure the protection of the integrity, sovereignty, and independence of our country.”
The Security Service of Ukraine, better known simply as the SBU, will no longer be in charge of the operations in Donbas. Instead, all Ukrainian formations of the army, the police, the SBU, the National Guard, and the Border Service that are deployed in the war zone fall under the unified command of the Joint Operative Headquarters of the Armed Forces, led by Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev.
Nayev, 48, accepted control of Ukrainian contingent in Donbas on his birthday, replacing the last ATO commander, Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskiy, a highly popular combat officer who, against expectations, was not appointed to continue commanding the defense of the Donbas.
Even though Ukraine remains committed to the peaceful reintegration of the occupied Donbas, the Joint Forces commander must be ready to repel a new large-scale Russian invasion, Poroshenko said.
Besides, he added, Ukrainian troops deployed all along the front line reserved the right to retaliate to any armed provocations and attacks by Russian-led forces.
“The confrontation with the Russian aggressor will finish when the last patch of Ukrainian territory is liberated,” Poroshenko said. “This includes both Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and occupied Crimea.”
The formal end of the Anti-Terror Operation was stipulated in the controversial Donbas integration law approved on Feb. 20, which, in particular, gave a leading role in the Armed Forces in the war zone without the need for the government to declare martial law in the region.
However, according to Poroshenko, a new anti-terror operation could be started if the threat of terrorism re-emerges in liberated areas of the Donbas.
The ATO, led by the SBU but with the active involvement of the armed forces, was initially declared on April 13, 2014, by then-Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov amid growing unrest and the armed seizure of government buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv.
After a shaky start, Ukrainian forces began to win back areas occupied by Russian-led forces, but by late August 2014 the Kremlin launched a large military incursion with its regular forces and stopped the Ukrainian advance. Ukraine was forced to negotiate for peace in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014.
As a result of a further decisive battle, in Debaltseve in early 2015, and the signing of the Minsk II accords, a 400-kilometer front line still divides the embattled region, with its two main cities – Donetsk and Luhansk – still occupied by Kremlin-led forces.
As of now, Russia still maintains control over 20,100 square kilometers in the Donbas alone, almost the size of the American state of New Jersey.
