Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin overnight, and followed it up with a formal ceasefire proposal.
Poroshenko promised a unilateral cessation of attacks on the nation’s southeastern Donetsk Oblast, and offered amnesty to fighters who agree to lay down their arms and surrender.
The rebels aren’t buying it, at least not at this point, as many believe Poroshenko will renege on the amnesty pledge, in keeping with his past promises to punish those who have “blood on their hands.”
“Maybe there was a way back when this all just started, when the people were out here with the flags to make their point, and before the killing,” noted one separatist leader.
Still, a unilateral halt to violence could coax at least some of the rebels out of hiding, paving a way for the decentralization and reforms that the separatists were seeking in the first place.
Undoubtedly the sticking point is the part about surrendering and then be stuck living with a Kiev jackboot pressing their faces into the mud.
It is normal that people bombed by its own army don't believe Poroshenko. He should simply stop his punitive action.The separatists cannot take their land in a suitcase and leave.So they are forced to find a solution.Here Poroshenko has to restore confidence but not only : rebuild what he has destroyed.
Agreed
It is Kiev that is on the offensive. Poroshenko would have a cease-fire if the attacks and sieges (cutting off electricity and water) against eastern Ukraine cities were halted.
But neither his US-NATO handlers, the US-controlled IMF, nor his fascist "defense" minister would agree to that.
An interesting point about "decentralisation" is that nobody except the rebels and the American cloudcuckooland seems to want it. My friend in Kharkov has never heard anybody say they wanted decentralisation or any talk of "discrimination" against ethnic Russians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians. I myself saw no sign of any discrimination in Kharkov. The everyday language is Russian and the central government raises no objection to that. The children all learn Ukrainian is school, but nobody objecets to that. It seems that all the talk of dedentralisation and discrimination is just part of the neocon disinformation scam designed to carve up Ukraine, whether its people want it to be carved up or not..