Alessian Crisis
| Alessian Crisis | |||||
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Zagorno
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Alessia
Koroszida
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Zagorno
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Alessia
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Background
Precursor Conflicts
The Alessian Crisis has a short but violent history preceding it which has allowed for the situation to boil out of control so quickly. The Catel region has long been severely affected by civil strife and war, with many of these conflicts reaching all across the region. The first conflict to be connected to the crisis was the 1971 Geresian-Zagornian war, which saw Geresian forces invade into Zagorno and seize the Mantel Strip, a vital piece of territory to mining industry that at the time, produced a large portion of Zagorno's economy. This would severely damage Zagorno until the oil reserves in Dunaroksvarpa were uncovered in the 1990s, which would rescue Zagorno from economic collapse. This war created a heightened sense of animosity between Geresia and Zagorno, both of whom began to actively sabotage one another's political ties in Catel.
Only a few years after the end of the war, in 1979, a heat wave and intense drought hit the Catel region, which began a severe famine that continues to linger to the modern day. This famine initially damaged Zagorno quite severely, and this fact aided the beginning of the Mantel Crisis, which saw Zagorno, with the backing of Nakea, Kalaria, and Nevakia, demand that the Mantel region be handed over to it by Geresia following its seizure in 1971. This demand was eventually denied in 1982, which caused the Catel War, the last major war to occur before the Alessian Crisis. This war saw over a million casualties and saw Zagorno fight many of the other Catelian nations, with the exception of Nakea and Osatia, whom both refused to get involved in the conflict as a whole. Ultimately Zagorno would claim victory, however at a heavy price. This would place the necessary seeds for the Alessian Crisis to begin over a decade later.
Ten Flags Island
The Ten Flags Island is a part of the Santa Elva island chain, an island chain stretching all along the Catelian coast. The island is heavily militarized, possessing two large airbases and a naval base, along with a long-range radar system. The island was considered very important to the Zagornian Defense Forces, which used it to keep Zagorno well-secured from the militaries of its neighbors. However, in 2020, Alessia would use its air force to threaten the garrison of the island, and with the beginning of Koroszidan armaments including GRAD rocket trucks appearing on the border, Zagorno was forced to back off and concede the island to Alessia without firing a shot, for fear of retaliation by all of Catel.
International reaction
the international community as a whole was shocked by the seizure of the island and the beginning of the crisis, however did not do much to defuse the situation as the nation of Osatia kept a firm grip of influence in Catel and did not allow the ICN to intervene in the area. This angered many other members of the ICN, however they did not have enough influence to circumvent Osatia's wishes and so sat idly by as the crisis began.
The Crisis
January 2021
After the seizure of Ten Flags Island, Zagorno realized that it was under threat politically and militarily by Alessia and Koroszida, as the two were cooperating to place pressure on Zagorno to relinquish territory and back off from many crucial areas and political points internationally. Zagorno responded in early January to the seizure of the island by sending the navy to blockade the area, declaring an exclusion zone 5 km around the island in which all unauthorized entries would be shot down. A no-fly zone was also declared by the air force, which began patrolling the area to prevent Alessian aircraft from launching sorties from the island. This was met with a public denouncement from Alessia, which declared the response to be a direct violation of Alessian sovereignity. Around this time, Koroszida began launching GRAD rockets over the border and into the city of Targu Aleta, the capital of Zagorno. Zagorno soon raised its military to DEFCON 3 and secured its borders with military assets, before demanding that the rocket attacks stop or international sanctions will come. Though it had the backing of Nevakia, the ICN refused to anger Osatia and place sanctions on Catel for the attacks, and so the attacks continued throughout January with Zagorno unable to do anything more than casualty prevention and border security.
February 2021
In early February, unmarked soldiers crossed into Alessia from Dunaroksvarpa and attacked several Alessian military positions on the border, causing several casualties and even burning down a fuel depot nearby the North Alessia National Airbase. These attacks were declared by Alessian president Tamas Anhilo to be directly orchestrated and executed by the Zagornian Defense Forces, likely using unmarked infantry and old equipment to cover their tracks. This was met with agreement by Koroszida and Geresia, both of whom began pushing for sanctions on Zagorno, to no success. Koroszidan rocket attacks intensified following the unmarked raids, and this culminated in late february as Zagorno finally declared general mobilization and demanded that Koroszida halt the rocket attacks. Although there was initially no response from Koroszida, the rocket attacks significantly decreased in intensity and frequency, however only for a few days. Nonetheless, those few days were enough for the ZDF to organize a proper defensive strategy against an attack through Koroszida and Alessia, which is currently considered one of the only reasons that a major military offensive against Zagorno has not yet begun.
In late February, two Alessian jets were shot down by Zagornian SAM sites in Port Stanley at 3:35 AM CCT. The two jets were part of an Alessian air patrol flying from Mindsvacarny Air Base to Ten Flags Island, as part of a response to Zagorno's full mobilization. After the planes were shot down, Zagornian ships appeared just outside Alessia's maritime borders, near the mainland coast, where they patrolled for several hours until 6:00 AM CCT in the morning, at which point the ships turned and sailed back to their docks in Port Stanley. This action is largely considered to have been a threat to Alessia, pressuring the ADF to refrain from deploying military assets to ten flags island and projecting to Zagorno's foreign backers that it was willing to stand against Osatia, Alessia and Koroszida's combined efforts. This encouraged Nevakia, Zagorno's main backer in the crisis, to deploy a naval task force and an air section to Port Stanley, reaffirming its stance in the crisis.