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bne June 2018
Opinion 53
KRUK REPORT:
No more ATO
Kateryna Kruk in Kyiv
The Anti Terrorist Operation is over. This was one of the most popular headlines in Ukrainian media since the beginning of May. However, it was mostly a wishful thinking. Indeed, the ATO, as it is known, in Eastern Ukraine is officially over, but the conflict itself is far from at an end. Does the change of the name change its nature?
ATO was officially announced on April 14, 2014. Back in 2014 authorities were talking about an operation aimed at restoring public order in the Eastern Ukraine that would last for a maximum two or three weeks. Nothing of what we thought then turned out to be true. ATO has lasted for four full years and appeared to be an operation defending Ukraine from Russian aggression.
Many complained that the name “anti-terrorist operation” doesn’t reflect the real nature of the conflict and the role Russia has in it. It was a popular line of critique towards
“ATO has lasted for four full years and appeared to be an operation defending Ukraine from Russian aggression”
Ukrainian officials who have been accusing Russia of supporting local mercenaries and sending its own regular military troops to Eastern Ukraine, but for a long time didn’t change the name of the operation or proclaim Russia an aggressor. The point is this was not a terrorist operation, but a de facto war.
Finally, in January 2018 the Verkhovna Rada officially passed a law on state policy on ensuring Ukrainian sovereignty in
the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The law recognizes Russia as an aggressor and names it responsible for the support of the terrorist groups and the
Ukraine's conflict in the east has been renamed and reorganized
occupation of Eastern Ukraine. It also puts an end to the variations in the names for the opposition such as “rebels,” “separatists” or “terrorists” and recognizes that Ukraine is fighting against Russia-led occupation forces.
By putting the name straight, Ukrainian lawmakers have finally taken the step of reorganizing the way operations
in Eastern Ukraine are managed and carried out. The most obvious change is the change of the name of the complex
of operations held in Eastern Ukraine. From now on, both Ukrainians and the international community should get used to the fact that using the ATO abbreviation is no longer proper. The new regime in Eastern Ukraine is called the “Operatsiya Obyednanych Syl” (OOS), or Joint Forces Operation (JFO).
The change of the nature of the operation seems very logical since Ukraine has officially recognized that it is fighting not against rebels/terrorists/illegal military units but against Russian occupation forces. Moreover, all the combatants that are captured will be officially treated as prisoners of war and have that status. It is important to underline that the change of format of the operation doesn’t mean Ukraine is going to give up on the Minsk II agreement. The document is mentioned in the law establishing the OOS as one of the basics of Ukraine’s policy on reintegrating the Donbas.
However, the name is not the biggest change. As the commander of the OOS/UFO Segiy Nayev said during his press-conference: “The main difference [between ATO and OOS/UFO] is that united forces operation is a military operation.” And as a military operation it requires a proper organization on the ground.
OOS structure and organization has much more clarity than ATO ever had. It was indeed unfortunate that, de facto, a big, multilayer military operation was coordinated not by the armed forces but by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Now with the new law and the new categorization of the conflict, this will change. The anti-terrorist staff of the SBU will be replaced by the United Operation Staff of the Armed
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