US officials continue to talk up weapons shipments to retaliate for “ceasefire violations” in the Ukrainian Civil War, but while everyone wasn’t paying attention something strange happened, the ceasefire started working.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed in comments today that violence has dropped dramatically, and that there are “not many question marks” remaining on the ceasefire.
Even Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is now conceding that the rebels did indeed withdraw their heavy weaponry, as required by the ceasefire, from the frontlines. The Ukrainian military had previously claimed the rebels were lying about the pullback.
Though far-right paramilitaries on the side of the Ukrainian military and some small factions of the rebellion continue to say the ceasefire doesn’t apply to them, the ceasefire is clearly holding, and violations are becoming less and less common. There’s a palpable opportunity for both sides to reach a settlement now, and less and less excuse not to do so.
That can only mean one thing, the US must send weapons and mercenaries. See if they can get a war re-started.
Yes Rick, the US will do whatever it takes to get those arms to the Ukraine – business is business.
Both sides may recognize that there's no military solution to the crisis, but what even the general contours of a political "settlement" at this point could be completely escape me.
There certainly is a military solution (which Putin will lose) but everybody hopes Putin will capitulate without it being necessary to go down that road. The has always been a deal on the table: Putin abandons Donetsk and Lugansk and negotiates a deal with Ukraine over Crimea. Without the railway line, the Ukrainians have Putin by the throat and I imagine that their price for handing over Crimea will be lots of cheap gas. Whatever happens, any peaceful settlement will be a massive defeat and an enormous public humiliation for Putin and will probably end his political career. His elderly supporters want to exhume the Soviet Union and hsi failure to deliver will cause them to turn on him. Essentailly, they have mad the same mistake as the German elite after 1918. They want to reverse the defeat of 1991 and, as In Germany, they just created a bigger problem than they already had.
Yes, there is a deal on the table. If Putin the Poopyhead will lead Russia to commit national suicide and hand over the keys to the Kremlin, then Uncle Sam promises that only "democratic" capitalists will "liberate" Russia's resources.
Somehow I don't think Vlad the Bad will take the offer…
Naturally, AIPAC/Beltway warmongers won't get it that there's no military solution. Neither they nor anyone they know will be doing any of the killing or the dying. As far as this forthcoming glorious Ukrainian victory, it will resemble the recent noble triumph at Debaltsevo, yes? It has been widely speculated that as a result of that glorious battle, that not only the regular Ukrainian forces but their closely allied Swedish and Chechen militias are as likely to stage an assault on Kiev as on Donetsk. Meanwhile, doing his best impression of a leader of the American Democrats, Putin is refusing to fully commit to a fight against the bared-teeth gang of the U. S. Right, hoping to appease them with half-measures. If the Russians had "invaded" Uktraine as our warmonger peers have been asserting for months, Russian tanks would be parked in the Maidan right now. No such "aggression"happened, it was about as truthful as Saddam's nukes.
But, but, but … what about all those Russian tanks and thousands of Russian troops that Ukraine said were there; did they pull back also? Haven't heard a word about them.
(sarcasm)
The interesting point is whether the ceasefire will last beyond the end of the month. Remember that all this started when Victoria Nuland tried to use Putin as a "useful idiot" to influence the European Parliament election in favour of far-right political parties, in particular neocon useful idiot Marine Le Pen. On 22 and 29 March, France will hold departmental elections and the ceasefire may just be intended to get Putin out of the news so as, once again, to influence the elections in favour of Le Pen. Le Pen herself has jumped on Putin's bandwagon (just as her far-right predecessors jumped on Hitler's in 1940) with far more enthusiasm than was wise and has had to admit receiving money from a Russian bank which was thrown out of the Czech Republic for illegal funding of political parties. It's easy to imagine that her backers might want to nullify the "Putin Effect" until the election is over. Thus, if the ceasefire survives into April, we can start to hope that Putin is definitively defeated. As long as the ceasefire lasts, Putin is stuck with this ridiculous "sausage" of land, surrounded on three sides by the Ukrainian army and with no hope of expanding it in any direction. So he has no choice but to capitulate and withdraw or fight it out and, of course, the more he defeats the Ukrainians, the more he forces the US to intervene. In other words, Putin can't win without losing!
You seem like the kind of guy who has probably already purchased his eventual burial plot.
And arranged to have "he lived a rich fantasy life" inscribed on the tombstone.
An attitude adjustment comes by thought — not by action
With both sides of this Civil War being controlled by the richest billionaires in Ukraine, with the only issue being will the Russian or EU economy bring the most wealth to those who hoard most all the wealth, one has to wonder how this will impact the only permanent solution?
For a society where no one desires to be rich, where everyone is eager to pass their excessive wealth down to a lower class where it belongs, the exact opposite of this is all we can expect from a force driven conclusion.
More importantly, it is clear from the reports on Colonel Cassad’s Web site (the one in English) that the Ukraine military are NOT pulling back their heavy weapons. What they are doing is pulling them back under the cameras of the OSCE, then telling the OSCE they can no longer follow the convoy, then driving in a circle to a nearby position and repositioning the artillery.
In other words, the “truce” is a scam, just like the one in September. The Ukraine government continues to plan for a resumption of hostilities. Since the Ukraine government is operating under the direct control of the US, you can expect a resumption of hostilities as soon as the Ukraine can replenish its forces on the front lines.
In addition, the Minsk agreement called for the removal of all foreign forces from the conflict. The US plan to send “advisers” and “trainers” (now currently on hold) would directly violate that agreement. The fact that the US would announce that – even if subsequently putting it on hold – clearly shows the US couldn’t care less about the Minsk agreement and fully intends to restart the war as soon as feasible.