Leonid Bershidsky — Ukraine's President Is Trapped With His Troops

Bershidsky gets most of this the right, with a Western spin, of course. He is either missing some background or leaving it out. But overall, he sums it up. 

Bloomberg View
Ukraine's President Is Trapped With His Troops
Leonid Bershidsky

Der Spiegel — German Intelligence: Ukraine Army Disintegrating — While social unrest is brewing in the rear

Not just the military that is disintegrating. And this is from Der Spiegel, which tends to be hawkish in its reporting on the situation in Ukraine.

Frustration among the public at large is growing with some in Kiev even talking about a "new Maidan," a reference to the protests that drove Yanukovych out of office (and out of the country) one year ago. 

"If nothing changes in Ukraine, then everything will explode in four to six months," says Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia and supporter of the new Kiev leadership. 

Aid from the International Monetary Fund and other donors is aimed at preventing such an explosion from taking place. In the next four years, Ukraine is to receive around €40 billion euros -- but the program includes "extremely strict conditions," say senior Berlin officials with concern. Among them is an increase in gas prices for private consumers as well as an unpopular pension reform aimed at cutting government spending. 

Berlin is worried that support for the government could rapidly disappear should too much be demanded too quickly. Chancellor Merkel has thus charged her economic policy advisor Lars-Hendrik Röller with encouraging the IMF to exercise political caution. "The aid program cannot be allowed to destabilize Ukraine domestically," said one government official in Berlin.

Russia Insider
German Intelligence: Ukraine Army Disintegrating — While social unrest is brewing in the rear
Der Spiegel - Excerpt

Also

This is a much more detailed account of Minsk than I have seen elsewhere. It seems that while the Merkel and Putin knew the state of the Debaltsevo cauldron, Poroshenko had not been informed by his military leadership, as observers had previously suspected to be the case based on his statements. Good summary of a mainstream German viewpoint.

Der Spiegel
The War Next Door: Can Merkel's Diplomacy Save Europe?
Spiegel Staff — Nikolaus Blome, Matthias Gebauer, Christiane Hoffmann, Dirk Kurbjuweit, Christian Neef, René Pfister, Matthias Schepp, Christoph Schult and Holger Stark

Also

This is the kettle or cauldron in which the separatist trapped a salient of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It's a complete disaster for the UAF, just like previous kettling operations by the NAF in response to UAF salients.

Fort Russ
Ukrainian General Staff Confirms Debaltsevo Force Collapse

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

J.Hawk’s Comment: So it’s coming to an end. It’s only a matter of how many troops make it out alive. But the loss of equipment, combined with earlier losses here and everywhere, put into question the UAF’s ability to conduct large-scale operations for a long time to come. The days of “Victory” have come to an end. The days of “Treason” are only beginning… Poroshenko and others were able to avoid reckoning for the earlier Ilovaysk debacle apparently only by promising a rematch. They seem to have lost that one too, and Round 3 does not seem in the cards. But Round 2 is the only thing kept all the different factions of the very fragile "pro-European" junta together.

Alexander Zakharchenko, the Novorossiyan leader was slightly wounded by shrapnel in the leg.