Donbas citizens say buffer zone will stop occupation by militants
As an international mission arrived in Mariupol on October 2nd to begin work on establishing a buffer zone between the Ukrainian army and pro-Kremlin militants, observers and citizens welcomed the effort and expressed hope that it would calm tensions in the region.
Comprised of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, the mission will delineate the boundaries of a 30-kilometre buffer zone that is intended to separate the positions that the two sides occupied when the Minsk Protocol was signed on September 5th.
“A mission is now analysing the situation and monitoring what happens in the boundaries of the conflict zone. We have provided them transport and housing but they are not able to accomplish 100 percent of their work because of ceasefire violations by militants in certain areas,” Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, told SETimes.
Parties of the conflict agreed to withdraw weapons with calibres greater than 100 millimetres and remove mines so the buffer zone could be defined and all agreements could take effect.
“We are ready to take away heavy equipment beyond the 30-kilometre zone and execute all agreements, but we can’t do it while militants are shelling our positions,” Lysenko said.
During the truce, the Ukrainian side has reported that about 70 Ukrainian soldiers died and militants violated the ceasefire. There was intensive shelling of Ukrainian military positions at the Donetsk airport.
“The first thing we have to provide is the so-called artillery silence: 24 hours we have to hold on when there will be no artillery firing,” President Petro Poroshenko told journalists last week.
Mykola Sungurovsky, director of military programmes at the Razumkov Centre, a public policy organisation, told SETimes that it is important for the mission of defining the buffer zone to cover the entire perimeter of the boundary, rather than selected individual areas.
“The main thing now is to separate the troops and provide thorough monitoring of the situation, and that requires a lot of efforts,” Sungurovsky said.
Experts say it was a positive development for the Special Joint Centre on Control and Co-ordination of issues related to the ceasefire to start its work last week in Debaltsevo with representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE.
The Trilateral Contact Group issued a press statement reporting “a certain progress with regard to the de-escalation of the situation in the region of Donbas” and expressing hopes that “the Joint Centre will ensure effective control and verification by the OSCE of the existing agreements on compliance with the ceasefire regime, the withdrawal of illegal armed formations and their equipment from the territory of Ukraine, as well as the establishment of an effective control over the Ukrainian-Russian border.”
“There is a small possibility the truce will last while Russian troops and weapons are in the [territories] controlled by militants,” Sungurovsky said. “As the army conducts rotation, losses from the Ukrainian side are much less.”
Tamara Fedorova, a citizen of Starobelsk, located 60 kilometres north of Luhansk, expressed hope that the situation in the Donbas region will soon improve.
“Sounds of artillery explosions did not reach our town even during the most intense phase of the conflict, but we have a direct connection with Luhansk so we didn’t know how the next day would turn for us,” Fedorova told SETimes. “Now everything is more or less calm, schools continue their work and direct railway connection with Kyiv is resumed from the town of Rubezhnoye.”
Fedorova said creation of the buffer zone represents a chance to stop militants’ occupation of Donbas.
“When Ukrainian soldiers appeared in the suburbs of our town we didn’t feel tense,” she said. “They dug in, but the fighting didn’t reach our town, and I hope that with the establishment of a buffer zone fighting and shelling won’t reach us in the future.”
How effective will the buffer zone be in reducing tensions in Donbas? Share your thoughts in the comments section.