Info
Mission
The ChDKZ has launched an offensive towards the territories under the control of the Chernarussian government in the South Zagoria region. In the offensive, they have managed to capture several coastal towns, including the strategically important towns of Komarovo and Balota, including its airfield, near the outskirts of the regional capital Chernogorsk. One of the towns in which they have managed to establish their control is Zelenogorsk, south of Pustoshka, under CDF control.
Therefore, the CDF, after withdrawing and regrouping, has launched a counteroffensive to retake Zelenogorsk from enemy hands. The operation will include elements of the 94th Motorized Infantry Brigade and the 52nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which will attack with six infantry squads and three BTR-80 armored vehicles, penetrating, after a preliminary artillery attack, into the city.
Background
War in South Zagoria
The war in eastern Chernarus continues. Since May 2011, the unresolved conflict has developed from an insurgency to a practically conventional war between the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of South Zagoria and the government of the Republic of Chernarus.
The PRSZ is, in principle, led by various nationalist groups and movements that champion the struggle for the “liberation of the Russian-speaking majority”, but the truth is that, de facto, the Marxist-oriented Chernarussian Movement of the Red Star (ChDKZ) is the most influential political and paramilitary organization within the government of the separatist republic.
Russia’s role
Since 2016, Vladimir Putin declared that, although he would not participate in the conflict and would remain neutral, he valued the possibility of mediating in favor of the Russian minorities in the region to try to solve the conflict. However, the truth is that no negotiations have taken place so far, and the Chernarus government has repeatedly accused the Russian Federation of supporting the ChDKZ.
In fact, the European Union and NATO, although they do not have accession projects in their organizations for Chernarus, have said on several occasions that Russia tries to use the ChDKZ to channel its interests in the Green Sea through the hegemony of its partners in South Zagoria, having helped them to gain the lead of the Russian-speaking nationalism through clandestine actions and weapons support against the Chernarussian Defense Forces.
NATO and Europe
Currently, Chernarus does not have any strategic plan to join the European Union or NATO, because apart from the rejection of a good part of the population to join the Atlantic Alliance, currently the European Union does not believe that the political instability that the war has caused in the politics of the country of the Green Sea is beneficial for its accession to the Union.
However, the fear of remaining within the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation, especially after Russia annexed Crimea (Ukraine) in 2014, has caused more and more sectors of the Chernarus National Congress to feel a greater need to find powerful allies outside the Green Sea that can contain Russian ambitions, since despite the reluctance of the population, recently elected Prime Minister Milos Kravel has agreed with the main political forces of the Congress that the beginning of the promotion of negotiations with NATO for the entry of Chernarus as a member country will be presented for citizen consultation in a national referendum in February 2020.
Course of war
Situation of the war
The conflict has intensified after a year and a half of a certain strategic stalemate in military operations on both sides. Both the CDF and the separatist forces had held their positions, occasionally launching artillery strikes on enemy lines and sporadic skirmishes between reconnaissance units.
However, on October 20, the day of the National Congress elections in Novigrad, hundreds of rockets and artillery shells rained down on CDF lines for hours, while several columns of infantry and armor were reported breaking through in the towns of Belyov and Krasnostav.
The front has heated up again in a politically complicated situation for the new government of Milos Kravel, but the CDF’s reaction has been swift, moving several armored columns east to the front to try to recapture Krasnostav and its important airfield, and drive separatists away from the area around the regional capital, Chernogorsk, still under government control.