Two days of meetings between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s new government and Russian officials have ended with what Ukraine is describing as an “understanding” on a peace plan for their common border.
Exactly what was understood remains unclear, as details were scant, but Ukrainian officials say that the two sides agreed on “key stages” of a plan to deescalate violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
Russia had been keen for a deal to end fighting in the area, and has been criticial of Ukraine’s interim government for invading the oblasts after protesters there declared themselves independent “Peoples Republics.” President Poroshenko, inaugurated over the weekend, also seems more willing than his predecessors to make some sort of deal.
Talks between Russia and Ukraine centered not only on the Donetsk uprising, but on the ongoing gas dispute between Russian giant Gazprom and Ukraine’s state-run natural gas company, which is billions of dollars in debt to them.
How the Donetsk region will live in peace with the rest of Ukraine if Kiev has sent war planes,tanks and troops against its own population ? What are the waranties that the ukrainian kgb will not arrest a lot of people after a pacefull agreement between parties after the conflict ? Will the forced urainization continue in this region ?The source of the conflict is 20 years of brain wash of young generations by people who hate Russia.They used school books of history issued by ukrainian emigrants in USA and Canada, people who collaborate with nazis.
For a handful of euros! Putin will "sell out" the Russian colonists in return for a deal on gas and a renewal of normal relations with the EU. There will be an amnesty but the rebels will have more to fear from their enraged neighbours, whose everyday they have disrupted, than from the police. The hardliners will probably disappear into Russia (it is perhaps with that in mind that the rebels have been trying to seize border crossings), Ukraine will issue warrants for their extradition which, their offences being political, Russia will not be required to honour. The Ukrainians won't insist, being glad to get rid of the worst of the troublemakers. As in all the former Soviet Republics, the number of "left-behind" colonists will continue to decline as the old die off and the young integrate into Ukrainian society. So things are looking up (except, of course, for the EU-haters!).
Put down the crackpipe, Michael. Almost everyone in this region has lost someone to the Kiev regime, so there is little chance of reconciliation. Your Russian "colonists" line is very offensive, as it shows you know almost nothing about this region. These people have lived there for centuries, and have little to no ethnic ties to Ukrainians from Galatia – the ones bombing their houses, schools, hospitals, orphanages.