Kremlin escalates conflict in Donbas
Despite Kyiv’s efforts to resume negotiations and settle the conflict in Donbas peacefully, the Kremlin continues stimulating separatists and efforts to escalate the situation in eastern Ukraine, preventing the country’s movement toward the EU and NATO, political analysts said.
In mid-January, pro-Kremlin separatists intensified attacks on Donetsk airport using heavy artillery, particularly Grad multiple rocket launchers. Ukrainian armed forces tried to fight back, launching a counter attack to release the approaches to the airport and take away the dead and wounded.
Separatists managed to reach the new terminal building and blew it up. However, the Ukrainian army claims to hold favourable fighting positions near the airport and is continuing the battle.
At the same time, shelling intensified along the front line, harming civilians. On January 22nd shells hit a bus stop in Donetsk killing nine people. The leaders of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) accused a Ukrainian subversive group of the strike since the bus stop was out of reach of the Ukrainian army.
A car camera captured the shelling moment in Mariupol. [YouTube]
On January 24th, Grad rockets hit a market and several houses in a residential area in the east of Mariupol, a Kyiv-controlled biggest city in the region, killing 30 and injuring about 100 people.
The same day a DPR leader Alexander Zakcharchenko said that an offensive on Mariupol had begun, adding that there was no better way to pay respect to those killed in Donetsk. However, later he denied there were plans to attack the city.
According to an OSCE report, the offensive was launched from the territory controlled by DPR. Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council decided to file a lawsuit in the Hague Tribunal against pro-Kremlin separatists for “crimes against humanity.” The US and EU strongly condemned the attack, blaming Russia for supporting proxies, while the Kremlin laid the blame for the escalation on Kyiv. The UN Security Council, Council of Europe, OSCE Permanent Council as well as Ukraine’s parliament called for an extraordinary session.
Military experts also said Debaltseve, an important railway junction, Avdijivka, and other cities of strategic importance are in danger and new attacks on Mariupol are possible.
Ukrainian and NATO officials have reported an increase in Russian troops and equipment in Donbas. On January 20th, two Russian battalion tactical groups entered Ukraine’s territory in the direction of Luhansk through an uncontrolled section of the border. Each group consisted of about 400 people, Ukrainian officials said, adding that there are more than 9,000 Russian troops inside the country and about 50,000 on a build up along the border.
Russian troops are equipped with heavy weapons, including tanks, artillery and armoured vehicles, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a January 21st speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“If this is not aggression, what is aggression?” Poroshenko said.
Political analysts said Ukraine is on the verge of full-scale hostilities across the whole front line. Taking Dontesk airport was important for the separatists as a symbolic act since the Ukrainian soldiers, who had been holding it for 242 days, are considered heroes for their courage and perseverance.
Igor Koziy, a military expert at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Co-operation, said he does not rule out other motives.
“It is possible that the attack on Donetsk airport is just a distraction,” Koziy told SETimes. “If you look at the map, you can see how much the area controlled by separatists and Russian military to the south of Donetsk expanded over the last few days. It’s like a carcinoma. I’m afraid we cannot rule out new attacks on Mariupol and the attempts to break a land corridor to occupied Crimea.”
The escalation jeopardised progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements, political experts said.
Dmitry Peskov, chief spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, blamed Kyiv for aggravating the situation, adding that Putin had written a letter to Poroshenko offering “a concrete plan for removal of heavy artillery.”
In response, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out that pro-Kremlin separatists seized more than 500 square kilometres of territory since signing the Minsk Agreement on September 5th. According to the Minsk Agreement, the airport should remain under control of the Ukrainian military.
Kyiv insisted on the necessity of fully implementing the entire package agreed to in Minsk, including access of humanitarian aid to civilians, progress in the release of hostages and resumption of control over the Ukrainian-Russian border.
“The logic of the peace plan of Ukraine’s president as well as the logic of the Minsk Agreements is not like a restaurant menu from which you can pull out one or two points, and then ignore even them. It is the all-encompassing logic of how we could come to peace,” said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.
According to political analysts, the new offensive supported by the Russian army could be regarded as a “coercion to negotiate” under a new format. Something similar happened after Ukrainian armed forces’ heavy defeat at Ilovaisk in August, said Olexiy Holobutskiy, deputy director of the political research organisation Situations Modelling Agency.
“In my opinion, the goal of Russia is clear. Putin wants to ensure that Donbas remains a part of Ukraine but under the political control of the Kremlin,” Holobutskiy told SETimes. “They want to force Kyiv to resume funding for the uncontrolled territories. If they succeed, movement of the country toward the EU and NATO will be blocked. Since neither Ukraine nor the EU perceives such position, Putin hopes the war will make them more manageable.”
Economic deterioration in Russia could also be driving the Kremlin’s actions in the Donbas region, political analysts said. A steep decline in the price of oil and the plummeting value of the ruble forced Putin to emphasise geopolitical risks and raise the stakes, said Volodymyr Tsybulko, an expert with the Kyiv-based Politics Centre think tank. “Resources are exhausted much faster than the Kremlin expected, so Putin acts,” Tsybulko told SETimes. He added that Putin “does not need the Norman format,” under which the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have been meeting in an effort to find a political solution to the conflict.
“[Putin] is interested to bring the US and Great Britain to the negotiations to secure a new world order,” Tsybulko said. “But his desire is divorced from reality. I think that world leaders will ignore it.”
According to experts, one of the factors that may affect the outcome of the new escalation in eastern Ukraine is the combat capability of the Ukrainian army and whether it will be able to hold the front line.
What steps should Ukraine’s Western allies take to help resolve the conflict in Donbas peacefully? Share your thoughts in comments below.