“Kiev’s “infiltration teams” don’t seem to last very long, especially in the cities, because the civilians turn them in”
If the population is with the Russians, it will be a steep uphill climb to retake those areas militarily.
What you are seeing is that the rebels are getting “froggier”, when it comes to “Special Missions”.
A few rebel “Spetznaz” did a nighttime motorcycle ride 40 miles through Kiev’s lines last week, the night of the Konstaninovka revolt, and engaged a Right Sector group sent in to restore order, killing some of them. The rebels claim they all got back to rebels lines safely the next day.
Last night, someone attacked and destroyed a Kiev Mobile Radar installation about 100 miles north of Luhansk.
And there have been a couple of claims by Kiev of rebel infiltrators captured in and around Kharkov, where there have been some bombings and attacks in the last few months.
What isn’t widely recognized is how much money Ukraine spent on Crimean infrastructure after the Russians ceded it to them. The industrial areas that the Russians are decimating were an economic basket case before Russia invaded. They were a drain on the budget.