The story began with a massive seam of high grade Titanium-yielding ore being discovered in the former soviet republic of Moldistan, a sleepy woodland country wedged between Europe and Russia.
Ruled by the autocratic President Aleksandr Gretsky, Moldistan existed largely out of sight from the rest of the world. What was originally a poor backwater country of woodcutters and farmers, existing on the edge of poverty, suddenly became a wealthy industrialist nation almost overnight.
Usually wherever you find money, you find corruption and Moldistan was no exception. It wasn't long before Gretsky was floating amidst allegations of corruption and was suppressing the will of the people and keeping them in a middle ages-style serfdom whilst accruing great personal wealth.
Operation Skylight
The Operation opened with the Minister of Trade, Artem Novik being kidnapped by insurgents on his way to inspect the Gorazh National Mine, which was being hastily constructed to extract the ore.
The Peoples Front of Moldistan (or MPF) , an anti-Gretsky political body of former governmental soldiers and radicals, accepted responsibility for the kidnap, but a botched rescue attempt by the Moldistan Defence Force (MDF) - the government army (and it was rumoured, special forces from the west), left Novik dead.
President Gretsky arrived to perform the official opening of the Mine and the MPF made various attempts to assassinate him. The attempts all failed and Gretsky was whisked to safety by his bodyguard and personal MDF guard troop.
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| Gretsky and Bodyguard Making Their Escape |
Throughout the weekend, there were continued firefights between the MDF, the MPF and western Special Forces, who were allegedly in-country to "advise the president on tactical matters".
Operation Tailspin
This occurred in the spring of 2015. The "unrest" in Moldistan had stilled somewhat over the harsh Moldistan winter, but Gretsky, arrogant and confident at his ability to survive multiple concentrated attempts on his life, had not been idle. Irritated by US attempts to interfere in his country, lured by the promise of Titanium for their defence industries, he petulantly signed a counter Titanium trade agreement to supply the Russians instead, effectively shunning the US.
Moscow, encouraged by Gretsky's public shunning of the USA and also eager to obtain Titanium supplies to produce key lightweight components in their own armaments industries, encouraged him to expel all US forces from Moldistan as a sign of good faith.
In Operation Tailspin, a black ops NATO reconnaissance flight crashed in Moldistan and there was a race to reach its pilot and the sensitive equipment on board. US Special Forces formed a rescue mission and entered the country secretly. They joined forces with the rebels, supplying them with arms and managed to extract the pilot with their help. Unfortunately for the west, a flight recorder was recovered from the wreckage by government troops. It contained incriminating flight logs providing irrefutable proof of NATO spying, which did nothing to improve relations with the West.
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| Donating Weapons to the MPF |
The operation also saw the neutralisation of a defence radar AA site to provide a "hole in the fence" and a mission to assault the Moldistan Special Research Facility (MSRF) by a combined NATO SF/MPF force. The government's chief scientist, Professor Gagarsky, an expert specialising in liquid explosives and insect-sized surveillance drones, was being forcibly held at the MSRF. The assault force were able to rescue him and transport him to Europe where he was offered a new life working for Uncle Sam.
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| The MSRF |
Operation Firestorm
By the summer of 2015, Gretsky had quarrelled with Moscow. Their repeated attempts to force him to increase production had prompted him to accept a better offer from Washington and sell his Titanium to the U.S.
Gretsky was losing the popularity war in his own country and he needed to wage a public relations offensive. Disillusioned with the leadership and poorly paid, some of his beloved MDF had defected to the rebels. With the influx of US Dollars, he was able to buy his own well trained private army in the form of battle-hardened Private Military Contractors from the shadowy US based organisation Mercury.
In order to lift the morale of his troops and citizens, the president despatched his Prime Minister to make a rousing motivational speech in the frontier village of Tsiara.
Prime Minister Borodin was instantly mobbed by the protesting villagers, who had been agitated by the rebels in anticipation of the VIP visit. The PM was struck by a cabbage from a protesting woman, but the MDF managed to rescue him from further harm and get him on the presidential helicopter back to Krasvin..
Furthermore, the Gorazh Mine was attacked by the MPF rebels and in the last few hours of the operation, was captured by the insurgents.
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| The PM is Mobbed |
Operation Claw Hammer
The closing months of 2015 saw the Mine being operated by the rebels, technically assisted by Russian supplied engineers. Titanium was once again being exported to Russia, but at a fraction of the price they had paid Gretsky before !!
Gretsky was out of favour with Washington. Their Titanium supply had been diverted to their arch rivals in Moscow and Gretsky was chastised for his inability to control insurgency in his country.
Cornered like a rat and at his lowest ebb, Gretsky requested boots on the ground from NATO to help him fight the Russian-backed rebels and free his country (and revenue earning mine) from their clutches.
Once again set in Tsiara, this operation saw Russian Special Forces active for the first time, training the rebels and conducting clandestine surveillance operations to support their espionage network in Moldistan.
NATO and the Moldistan Defence Force made a joint attack on the Gorazh Mine and after a hard fight, managed to re-capture it. The MPF leader, Nikolay Jakov, was reported killed in a US airstrike after being lured into the open by the promise of a pay-off from village elders.
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| Russian SPETSNAZ in Tsiara Village |
Operation Gate Guard
Forced to abandon all thoughts of the mine for now, the MPF rebels regrouped in their forest hideout in the "Badlands" and plotted to attack the two airports in the capital, Krasvin. Hoping to make a tactical strike to surgically separate Gretsky from his incoming foreign reinforcements, the rebels made a simultaneous two-pronged attack on both the civil and military airports.
This operation followed the fortunes of the attack on the military airbase. Government forces were stretched to defend such a large airfield, but they managed to rescue their billeted pilots from being captured as the rebels swept in. The rebels soon had the airfield under their control and managed to severely damage the runway with demolition charges. Fortunately, the government command had the foresight to protect all their aircraft in hardened bunkers and try as they might; the insurgents were unable to breach them. The Moldistan Air Force was therefore largely unaffected.
Eventually, having achieved their objective and made their point, the MPF retreated, allowing the government to take back their critically damaged airfield.
The raid on the civil airport was less successful as the rebels were unable to penetrate the outer perimeter and were quickly driven off.
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| Rebel Mortar Attack on the Airbase |
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| Clashes on the Runway |
Operation Serpents Nest
After the bloody battle at the airfield, the rebels retreated to the village of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi, nestling on the edge of the "Badlands", the forest home of the MPF.
Using an old insurgent’s trick, the MPF began hiding in plain sight, sheltering among the villages' civilian population where they licked their wounds and regained their strength.
Realising that it’s only a matter of time before they rose up again, Gretsky considered the MPF situation a "ticking time bomb" and he decided that something had to be done (and soon).
Although no stranger to genocide and tempted as he was to raze the village to the ground with an artillery barrage, he was conscious that his government was being watched by western human rights organisations. Foreign aid workers and UN observers were everywhere in the district.
Gretsky needed rid of the Serpent which is the MPF, but was wise enough to know that he needed to wield a tactical scalpel on this one. He needed troops who would go in to the Serpents Nest and cut off its head. He needed troops that could separate rebels from innocent villagers and avoid war crime accusations from the West.
When the MPF started hijacking UN aid convoys, it gave him the excuse he needed.
He ordered a Forward Observation Base (FOB) to be constructed just outside the village, in order to protect the convoys. Fort Gretsky, as it was known, was the ideal location to observe all village movements and send out recon units.
However, the rebels started to make fools out of the Joint Task Force (JTF) stationed there. Although the JTF was made up of Moldistan Defence Force (MDF), NATO and United Nations personnel; experienced and credible forces, they were soon out of their depth.
Firstly, key members of the MPF were spotted, but the JTF were unable to capture them. Then the FOB was attacked by the rebels and was over-run several times with little resistance.
Confusion and chaos reigned as the fighting raged in and around the village and there were civilian casualties caused by both sides. The JTF were filmed shooting down a villager when inexperienced soldiers thought his mobile phone was a firearm. The MPF threw a grenade into a house killing a young baby and its parents. These were just singular examples of atrocities caused by both sides in the conflict. Neither the UN or the Red Cross could stop the bloodshed. All they could do was to evacuate the villagers in an attempt to reduce the civilian casualties.
The JTF tried three times to systematically search the village for weapons and each time met fierce resistance from embedded insurgents. Eventually, the MPF decided to withdraw to their hideout in the Badlands, before the village became nothing more than a smoking ruin, something not in their best interest.
This enabled the JTF to seize control of Stariye Kverno-Korsevi and the villagers to return to their homes. As a parting gift, the MPF left anti-personnel mines planted in the village, another contravention of international agreements.
The media ran the killing of the man holding nothing but a mobile phone as front page news for a day or two and the soldiers responsible were returned to Europe to face criminal charges.
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| JTF War Crimes |
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| Fort Gretsky |
Operation Nutcracker
