This video, taken by Hromadske TV, shows some of the Ukrainian soldiers as they fled Debaltsevo. The soldiers all tell a similar tale.
One says that less than half of their battalion is left after the fight. Another says "there is no corridor. The enemy were waiting to ambush us," again contradicting the official Ukrainian government position that the troops were not encircled. Another, when asked if they were told to come here, said "no, we just decided to come ourselves," another example of a soldier who says that Poroshenko did not order the retreat. Several other soldiers said this yesterday, contradicting statements from the Ukrainian President.
At several points in the video, the road is littered with Ukrainian vehicles that were destroyed, stuck, or otherwise disabled in the retreat.
Some of the soldiers are seen moving back into the town to retrieve those who were left behind.
At one point an armored vehicles has had a car accident with a truck. At another a severely injured soldier is lying on the ground after he fell out of his vehicle. Some of the equipment has obvious battle damage.
One of the officers who is speaking to the press says "I personally want to say that authorities should give more attention to the Debaltsevo area."
Toward the end of the video, a very angry doctor says that his morgue is full, excess bodies are being stored outside in coffins (10 boxes are visible, 4 more casualties are in body bags), and his morgue has not received any funding since the summer.
-- James Miller
But at the same time the threat to [Ukraine's] statehood has become a powerful mechanism that galvanizes the birth of the new, European national identity and the building of a new Ukrainian nation. In some sense Ukrainians with their longing for dignity are already more Europeans than many old Europeans!
In our last update, the Ukrainian NSDC said that "14 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 172 got wounded in the last 24 hours." Though this number is very high, it does not match other reports.
In remarks made yesterday, President Poroshenko said that only 30 soldiers were wounded in the withdrawal. As we noted, however, soldiers interviewed right after the battle put those numbers much higher. Some of them were reporting that more than half of their units did not make it out of the "Debaltsevo kettle." Novoye Vremya reported that 38 soldiers were witnessed by one of their reports in Artyomovsk, and the commander of the volunteer Donbass Battalion, Semyon Semyonchenko, said that 167 wounded soldiers had been brought to the town (see our update here). And there are various reports that hundreds of soldiers may have been captured and hundreds more are missing.
Now there are new casualty numbers emerging:
There remains a significant fog of war on the issue of the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed, wounded, missing, or captured at Debaltsevo. The Ukrainian government has been opaque at best about the true extent of the fighting. One thing is clear, however -- all the soldiers and witnesses describe a desperate struggle to flee from the town as they were under heavy fire from Russian firepower and Russian proxies. This was not the organized retreat which the Ukrainian President described yesterday.
And we are even less likely to get an accurate estimate of the amount of Russian-backed separatists and Russian soldiers killed in the fight. Though clearly this was a significant defeat for Ukraine, the Russian government and its proxies have ensured that their own losses remain as secret as possible.
-- James Miller
Many were surprised last night when Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for the international community to send peacekeepers into eastern Ukraine. Many said it was a recognition that the Ukrainian government could not defend its country against Russian aggression, while others noted that the only peacekeeping mission even possible would have to be through the United Nations, an effort Russia would have to approve.
Today it is clear that Russia does not approve. RFE/RL reports:
Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said the truce agreement signed in Minsk last week should remain the basis for the conflict's resolution.
He also said Kyiv was responsible for making sure the accords were carried out.
Russian-backed separatist leader Denis Pushilin earlier said the presence of peacekeepers would "violate" the Minsk agreement.
-- James Miller