The eastern Ukrainian ceasefire continues to hold, nearly a week in, and President Petro Poroshenko is now promising to make good on proposals for increased autonomy for the eastern region if the rebels agree to an end to the rebellion.
The rebels appear divided on whether or not to trust this offer, and some are still pushing to secede outright. Though dubbed “secessionist” rebels, many only wanted increased autonomy in the first place, and it is unlikely that enough will continue to push for secession to keep the war going.
The clearest sign that Ukraine is moving toward the end of the war is the change in their fanciful narrative about the “thousands” of Russian troops milling about the rebel east, which they continue to insist are at every battle but mysteriously have never been photographed or even seen by media outlets.
Poroshenko now insists the Russian troops are leaving as mysteriously and as invisibly as they arrived. Their departure, as with their arrival and literally everything else they supposedly did, could not be confirmed.
Poroshenko lies so consistently until it makes you assume he graduated from US Lying School.
Yes, and likely Poreshenko will be unable to make the ultra right allies inside his government accept autonomy in the east.
More importantly, his puppetmasters in Washington won't allow it.
We don't see everything that is going on behind the scenes. Remember not even a month ago, Poroshenko announced early parliament elections when the Rada nixed a law naming the Luhansk and Donetsk republics "terrorist organizations". There have been rumours out of Kiev that Tymoshenko is on Petro's tail, and Kolomoyski's star continues to rise. It looks Petrushenko may be fading and the deal with the "separatists and terrorists" may be an attempt to curry favours with the richest oligarch of them all, Rinat Akhmetov, whose money is in Donbas and who has most to lose in the continued warfare. Akhmetov was Yanukovych' supporter and has strong influence in the Party of Regions.
The Western allies created this problem by disposing the legitimate govt of Yanukovych. They put in a govt which are hostile to the Russian speaking people in Ukraine. They also invited some Nazi element into their govt. Hope they learn their lessons well.
Dos he have any other alternative? NO, we said it from day one, Kiev losing the people uprising in Eastern Europe and Kiev have lost the war. The only thing that Kiev government, supported mainly by that Ratt Mussen head of NATO, have done is their destructions left by their inhuman bombing, people houses, apartments, factory's, hospitals, day care, elderly homes and infants home and killing children's.
The people of eastern Ukraine will rebuild, as when Hitlerism bombarded Russian cities as people of Russia defeating fascism, rebuilt their country, this is 2014, there is no room for Neo, old and ok'd fascism, nor there is any room for ISIS.
The western and certainly US (Camp Bondsteel) excuse for snatching Kosovo from a Serbia it has belonged to since time immemorial, was that too much blood was spilled. The ukraine has only been "independent" for 20 years and are about to implode, into a backward Nazi and extremely violent fascist west, a Novorossiyan east & south and Hungary and Poland will possibly also claim certain parts as well. There is no way the US can keep this together by force any longer.
The ukrainian Nazi junta has been calling the Russophone south "subhumans", "vermin", "insects" and "cockroaches" and has deliberately been killing them, mostly urban civilians by the thousands, unspeakable crimes against humanity, as well as destroying it´s infrastructure. Tymoshenko in a telephone conversation with another fascist even suggested wiping them out with nukes or dirty bombs. There has been flowing more blood than in Kosovo and quite understandably at this point, Novorossiya want nothing to do with the western supported genocidal freaks, certainly does not want to have their neck under their boot.
The west has already, by not overtly sending weapons and support, considered the ukraine a lost cause but will continue the war if for no other reason but to keep the Russians busy and at least get something for Hunter Biden to frack…
I interpret the ceasefire as a deal between Ukraine and Putin to allow the latter to withdraw his undercover troops and the contractors' mercenaries. Such local "rebels" as there are have thus been left in the lurch by ol' Vlad. Even if there actually was any demand for more autonomy in the east, which my friend in Kharkov says there isn't, everybody knows that Proroshenko cannot simply grant it. Constitutional changes have to go through the Ukrainian parliament to be elected on 26 October. If the rebels obstruct the election, that will just mean that their ideas won't be represented in parliament. Proroshenko has cornered the rebels beautifully. Splitting them into autonomists and secessionists is also a good idea. Now that Putin has pulled the plug on them, taking his heavy weapons with him, they must be running out of just about everything. A few diehards will flee into Russia, with a "good riddance" from the Ukrainians and the rest will just go home, hoping they won't be hounded out of town by their enraged neighbours. As for Vlad himself, he has fled eastward, taking his army to the Altay and himself to Mongolia and keeping a low profile. Essentially, the Ukrainians have won the fight.
Or maybe Poroshenko's neo-nazi forces were getting their butts kicked…and it was bad publicity.
Michael, are you a Bill Kristol disciple?
You ignorance is astounding as normal.
The so-called 'Russian troops' are actually Ukrainians from Ukrainian troop units based in Crimea. They saw what the US-sponsored Nazi regime intended to do and took up Russia's offer a pay rise to Russian levels, along with pension and other benefits. So Putin is actually telling the truth when he says there are no Russian troops in Ukraine. However, no one asked if there were Ukrainian troops working on the anti-fascist side.
Porky has lied about everything else, why no this too.