Ukraine’s separatist eastern rebels have agreed to a new round of peace talks aimed at ending the ongoing conflict, but the ceasefire that has made room for those talks may not survive tomorrow at this point.
Both sides agreed to a weeklong ceasefire last Friday, and with the ceasefire set to expire at 3 pm Eastern tomorrow, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko insists he is undecided on allowing any extension.
Previously, Poroshenko had suggested he was open to the extension, something pushed by the EU and Russia in trying to broker the truce. Some 5,000 eastern Ukrainians, mostly ethnic Russians, have fled across the border into Russia now, fearing the resumption of fighting.
The US, which never really embraced the ceasefire in the first place, continues to demand Russia forcibly disarm the ethnic Russian rebels, allowing the Poroshenko government to reconquer the breakaway regions.
Europe is so involved that they totally ignore refugees (they are not Kossovars) running to Russia.No Red cross no observers,no aid.Only bad Putin is helping them.
How Russia can disarms opponents to Kiev ? By invading ukrainian territory ? Good idea.
Poroshenko does not control all pro Kiev militaries.There are some private armies paid for instance by Kolomoyskii.Who gonna disarm them ?
What is wanted of Putin is that he prevent supplies reaching the rebels from Russian territory. If he is unable to seal off his own country's border and prevent its territory being used to fuel a rebellion in another sovereign state, then the Russian Federtation is falling into anarchy and will probably start breaking apart. That Russians are fleeing out of Ukraine is in fact good news. It means that many people see the rebellion as a failure and those who have been too closely associated with it think it's wiser to disappear. They're probably right! In European nationalism (something colonial peoples like the Americans never understand!) , land belongs to the ethnic group which is in the majority. Language is secondary. We Irish are native speakers of English but that doesn't mean that we want to be re-annexed by Britain! Thus, Crimea belongs to the Russians but the rest of the country belongs to the Ukrainians. A handful of Russian colonists tried to take from the Ukrainians land which was rightfully theirs. They failed and that failure has logical consequences. The Nazi failure to colonise eastern Europe forced 8 million Germans to flee for their lives in 1945 even though the individuals concerned might never have themselves done anything wrong. That is the "ius soli" of European nationalism.