But there was no shelling. There was not even artillery, on both sides of the contact line, because the arty was withdrawn. For years the ceasefire-violations explosions were from occasional grenades or anti-tank guided missiles (aimed at supply trucks or bunkers rather than tanks, because tanks were also withdrawn) or mortars at most, directed at trenchlines and ouposts, and again I guess I need to repeat they were coming from BOTH sides of the conflict.
The extremely few civilians who died in recent years were mostly victims of old mines or enexploded munitions from 2014-2015, across both sides of the contact line, and originally belonging to both sides. Usually there were 0 (zero) civilians deaths from active hostilities during any given month from 2018 to 2022.
The "petty puppet statelet had actually launched an all-out assault on the Donbas" indeed, the DNR-LNR did just this on February 24 of last year. It was just went nowhere except only on Mariupol direction, and this only due to the attack by Russian regulars from the west (from Crimea) where there have been no fortifications whatsoever. Ukraine abandoned northern Luhansk because it was undefensible for the same reason (now suddenly surrounded from south, east and north, with any fortifications only on the contact line to the south). But just west of Donetsk - it's 1 year of continuous attacks where they only really captured the village of Pisky, which was just west across the Airport airstirp (and which they've been also shelling and attacking 2014-2017 despite the ceasefire). Even what remains of Mariinka is still contested (since 2015).
And the losses of DNR-LNR forces (who are now officially are regular Russian soldiers and police since the annexation) in 2022 have been just horrible for very little gain and never achieving any breakthrough west from the lines of 2015-2022 except in Mariupol where it was due to Russian Marines going from west and even north everntually. Most of them were untrained conscripts (from the total conscription of all males ages 18-60 announded a week before Feb 24) and given often WWII gear and weapons. LNR-DNR territories self-genocided their male population by turning them into cannon fodder. Only in the first few months more of them died than in all of 2014-2022, and that's to just their official statistics. And the territory was hugely underpopulated to begin with, most people had long left either to Ukrainian or Russian territories (or to Poland). At this rate it's soon going to end like Paraguay after its insane conflict, almost every able (and its very losely defined, like they've been since taking men over 60 too) man who didn't escape from Donetsk City will be first press ganged and then end up dead or maimed. Unless is captured, or deserts.
A friend of my friend once helped a Bosnian Serb deserter from the VRS to escape to Germany with his wife and kids. One day he was press ganged along with all men from his village until he deserted. They've first escaped to hide in Belgrade and then were taken by smugglers who were supposed to take them to Germany where his brother lived but left them in Poland.
But there was no shelling. There was not even artillery, on both sides of the contact line, because the arty was withdrawn. For years the ceasefire-violations explosions were from occasional grenades or anti-tank guided missiles (aimed at supply trucks or bunkers rather than tanks, because tanks were also withdrawn) or mortars at most, directed at trenchlines and ouposts, and again I guess I need to repeat they were coming from BOTH sides of the conflict.
The extremely few civilians who died in recent years were mostly victims of old mines or enexploded munitions from 2014-2015, across both sides of the contact line, and originally belonging to both sides. Usually there were 0 (zero) civilians deaths from active hostilities during any given month from 2018 to 2022.
The "petty puppet statelet had actually launched an all-out assault on the Donbas" indeed, the DNR-LNR did just this on February 24 of last year. It was just went nowhere except only on Mariupol direction, and this only due to the attack by Russian regulars from the west (from Crimea) where there have been no fortifications whatsoever. Ukraine abandoned northern Luhansk because it was undefensible for the same reason (now suddenly surrounded from south, east and north, with any fortifications only on the contact line to the south). But just west of Donetsk - it's 1 year of continuous attacks where they only really captured the village of Pisky, which was just west across the Airport airstirp (and which they've been also shelling and attacking 2014-2017 despite the ceasefire). Even what remains of Mariinka is still contested (since 2015).
And the losses of DNR-LNR forces (who are now officially are regular Russian soldiers and police since the annexation) in 2022 have been just horrible for very little gain and never achieving any breakthrough west from the lines of 2015-2022 except in Mariupol where it was due to Russian Marines going from west and even north everntually. Most of them were untrained conscripts (from the total conscription of all males ages 18-60 announded a week before Feb 24) and given often WWII gear and weapons. LNR-DNR territories self-genocided their male population by turning them into cannon fodder. Only in the first few months more of them died than in all of 2014-2022, and that's to just their official statistics. And the territory was hugely underpopulated to begin with, most people had long left either to Ukrainian or Russian territories (or to Poland). At this rate it's soon going to end like Paraguay after its insane conflict, almost every able (and its very losely defined, like they've been since taking men over 60 too) man who didn't escape from Donetsk City will be first press ganged and then end up dead or maimed. Unless is captured, or deserts.
A friend of my friend once helped a Bosnian Serb deserter from the VRS to escape to Germany with his wife and kids. One day he was press ganged along with all men from his village until he deserted. They've first escaped to hide in Belgrade and then were taken by smugglers who were supposed to take them to Germany where his brother lived but left them in Poland.