Talked to a Lt Col friend of mind and ask him his take
He said the most obvious motive for doing this is to draw Russian formation out of Eastern Ukraine, the fact that the Russia had massed 15k troop in the region just about 3 months ago, that saying something, maybe they see thru the Russian and thinking they can get away with this? I don't know, that remain to be seen, but whatever they were doing, it seems like they are going according to the Ukrainian plan. Unless it was Russian plan to have them look stupid......
This is a supported attack, they shot down Su-25 fighter and gunship means they have at least some Anti-Air defence in the area, there were report that Russian killed a Ukrainian Buk-2 but that remain to be seen. At this point, nothing seems certain other than the fact that the support level of this attack makes me think this is a long-haul engagement, they are there to fight it out until their position is untenable. No prospective that the Ukrainian can hold on to those gain indefinitely, but if they are holding it now, that mean they are there doing something, as with my last post, we need more time to find out.
