Петро Порошенко on Twitter: "Our soldiers, brave defenders of our land, gave a blow in the teeth to those who were trying to encircle them and withdrew from Debaltseve."

Many here are displeased with the approach taken by Poroshenko and UA army command (probably deservedly).

However, let's look at what are essentially five possibilities:

  1. [Armchair general's favorite] Punch through encirclement from the outside. Pluses: keep land; save most people; gain morale; save equipment. Minuses: big risk - you need superior numbers or you risk losing a lot of people/equipment and land; you are seen as also violating ceasefire.

  2. [Slavic morbid special] Though troops inside can't be relieved, fight to the last soldier to keep Debal'tseve. (Essentially, what #1 becomes with insufficient force available.) Pluses: gain sympathy from the West. Minuses: lose most people; lose land; lose equipment; major morale loss; risk of coup.

  3. [Pacifists' 20/20 hindsight] Withdraw troops rather than have them encircled (before Minsk). Pluses: save all people; save equipment; shorter frontline. Minuses: lose land; major morale loss; risk of coup.

  4. [Putin's choice] If troops cannot break out, have them disarm/go through provided corridors, or surrender. Plus: save all/most people. Minuses: lose land; lose equipment; lose people as POWs; major morale loss; risk of coup.

  5. [What actually happened] Fight to break out, but do not fight to keep land within Debal'tseve. Pluses: save most people; minor gain or loss of morale. Minuses: lose some people; lose land; lose equipment.

Unless I made a major error here, there are only two scenarios without major drawbacks of one kind or another: #1 and #5.

And if one is certain that Russia will match whatever forces you throw into #1, you can go only with #5, however crappy it is. In isolation, this looks cynical (sacrificing some people to gain morale); however, higher morale reduces losses in the next battles.

That leaves the issue of trying to sell this decision to minimize the loss of morale. So far, Poroshenko goes for the narrative of "not giving up land without a fight". His PR is traditionally low quality, unfortunately.

/r/UkrainianConflict Thread Link - twitter.com