Russian Reserve FSB Colonel Igor Girkin said in a television interview that a total of 15,000 well paid contractors are part of the rebel army in the separate republic of Donetsk, according to a korrespondent.net news reports.
The Donetsk army counts 40,000 effectives in their ranks including, according to Ukrainian reports, about 4,000 Russian regulars.
Col. Girkin, who goes by the call sign Strelkov, was a key figure in the start of the civil war in Ukraine, and played a central role in the takeover of Crimea during the spring of 2014.
Girkin also said in his remarks that the rebel army no longer has the combat power to expand the territory Russian backed separatists now control, save for a Russian-backed general war and offensive. The reasons include the increased strength of the Ukrainian Army in the area.
Despite temporarily holding the post of Donetsk minister of defense before Vladimir Kononov took over in early August of 2014, Girkin has not had friendly relations with the political and military leadership of Donetsk.
In a Live Journal post last Sunday, Girkin all but called Donetsk president Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Lugansk president Igor Plotnitsky criminals who would not be able to maintain their posts in any future administration, even in the unlikely event a political solution to the Ukrainian civil war could be found. Girkin's suggested solutions included the formation of a Transnistria-like autonomous entity which would presumably fold both former Ukrainian provinces into a single autonomous region.
Transnistria is a nation state between western Ukraine and Romania recognized by only three other nations, including Russia. It was formed following a brief civil war just after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1992.
Since the start of the Ukrainian civil war in the spring of 2014, autonomy for Donetsk and Lugansk has been discussed between Ukraine, Russia and the European Union as a possible solution to the conflict, the most immediate effect of which would be to turn Ukraine into a federation. Ukrainian nationalists, such as members of Right Sector and other political blocks, vehemently oppose federalizing the nation to suit a Russian speaking minority in southeastern Ukraine.
Recriminations have been flying between Girkin and the former and current political leadership of Donetsk in recent days.
According to former foreign minister of Donetsk Aleksandr Koffman, it was Girkin's actions in the early part of the civil war while in Slavyansk in the spring of 2014 that provoked the Ukrainian military into attacking the separatists with military force. Girkin already had been fingered along with Ukrainian GRU Colonel Igor Bezler for the murder of Vladimir Rybak, a Gorlovka politician in March of 2014.
Reports following the separatists' retreat from Slavyansk in the summer of 2014, even those most favorable to Girkin, painted his charges as armed thugs who conducted checkpoints to rob passersby.
Fighting in Donetsk and Lugansk
According to several news reports in lb.ua, a total of seven Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers were wounded in the ongoing fighting in Donetsk and Lugansk on Monday.
According to one of the lb.ua accounts, rebel 120mm mortars struck Ukrainian positions in southern Donetsk at Shirokino, Novotroisk, Marinka and Krasnogorovka. Rebel 82mm mortar fire hit Gnutova.
The report said that rebels used rocket artillery, tank gunfire and mortar fire in Avdievka. Rebel 82mm mortar fire hit Opytnoye, Kamenka and Zaitsevo.
In Lugansk, rebel 120mm mortar fire hit Ukrainian positions at Krimenskoye.
Rebel media claimed that Ukrainian artillery fire damaged 13 buildings in western Donetsk city and in Zaitsevo overnight.
Ukrainian artillery fire was reported at the Kuibyshevsky district of Doentsk city, at the Donetsk airport, at Spartak and Zaitsvo.
In southern Donetsk, Ukrainian artillery hit rebel positions at Novoazovskiy, Sakhanka and Kominternovo.
A mortar duel between rebel and Ukrainian forces was recorded near Debaltsevo, near the Svetlodarsk region.