Appears that while it appears the UA "lost" the Debaltseve battle because they pulled out but in fact they robbed Russia and the mercenaries a massive propaganda victory and their loses were massive in relationship to the Ukrainian side.
In the end roughly 2.5K came out of the bulge with a majority of their heavy equipment and looking forward to fighting again.
The UA has the Russian out foxed with the number of troops in the encirclement---Russians were coming from 8K and are equally stunned that 2.5K put up such a massive resistance fight.
If one notices Putin and his FM have been totally silent after their constant stream of "surrender" comments---still think they are stunned by the turn of events.
Now they are on their back feet with the Ukrainian demands for a EU police mission and or UN peacekeeper mission since they are now fully seen as participants and cannot participant under UN requirements.
Also the southern Mirauipol offensive by the UA was a very well conducted attack to draw the attention after from Debaltseve just long enough to gain time and space and they caught the Russians off guard and inflicted also heavy loses.
Not bad for a rag tag military---shows what happens when a military fights for it's own civil society---something totally missing in Iraq.
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