Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Minisk agreement is worthless. The civil war in Ukraine is escalating.

The rebels are entering Ukraine from Crimea. These were suppose to be issues settled without deaths. There is no intentions by rebels to have peace. Russia signed the Minisk agreement as if it had the ability to leverage peace, but, it is not happening.

January 24, 2015 

Fifteen people were killed in shelling (click here) in the east Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, Ukraine’s interior ministry said, an attack Kiev blamed on separatist rebels and the Russian military.
A witness described the shelling to Reuters as enough to knock the paint off his house.
The deaths follow the separatists’ rejection of more peace talks and as fighting surged to its most intense in months. The United Nations said on Friday 262 had been killed in the previous nine days.

Government-held Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, lies on a coastal route from the Russian border to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine last March.
The city council said rockets fired by rebels from long-range GRAD missile systems struck a multi-story building and caused fires to break out....

The conflict is taking on a two front offensive. Europe was a signator to the Minisk agreement, it has an interest in the disintegrating agreement..

January 24, 2015
...Its symbolic importance (click here) made the airport a key target for the separatists. After a holiday lull they began pounding again in mid-January. The Russian media soon aired footage of rebels raising their flag above the rubble, so Mr Poroshenko ordered a counter-offensive. But on January 22nd reports emerged that the airport had fallen under rebel control. Shelling continued around it and over Donetsk, with 13 people killed at a bus stop on the same day. Fighting has spread all along the front line: Debaltseve and several towns north of Luhansk have been under intense fire. In these circumstances, the Minsk peace deal struck in September seems largely notional. A summit of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France has been cancelled. In Kiev a bombastic Mr Poroshenko has promised to recapture the south-eastern region. Russia’s deputy foreign minister warned of “irreversible consequences” if Ukraine sent troops into Donetsk city.

One senior Ukrainian government official says negotiations are losing their meaning: “We sit and talk for hours about nothing.” Mr Poroshenko says 9,000 Russian troops are active inside Ukraine. Russia, as usual, denies this. Mr Poroshenko’s figure may be exaggerated, but big rebel attacks cannot happen without Kremlin support. “There is a difference between [Russia’s] political statements and reality,” one Donetsk rebel concedes...'

It would seem to be the case. Such talks are suppose end war, not direct it. If Europe is to settle these aggressions, NATO enters the picture. What amazes me is the demands of Russia to remove Star Wars satellites from their border while they escalate hostilities with former Soviet states. If Russia was sincerely interested in peace along it's borders there would be a valid and enforceable peace, not continued escalations of aggression and death. Either Moscow has control of it's military arm or it doesn't. The Russian military is basically overseeing a conflict with Ukraine, in that is the power to end the conflict as well.

How many Ukrainians are going to die before this ends? What is Moscow's estimate? Endless? Generational?