With Ukraine’s ceasefire continuing to hold well, the Kiev parliament has today moved forward with a bill on regional autonomy for the east, which was supposed to be the resolution of the conflict.
Right now, it’s not clear the language satisfies anyone, with western Ukrainian hawks complaining the bill offers too much autonomy, and Russia complaining some of the terms are in violation of the Minsk ceasefire.
The bill does grant autonomy to the breakaway Donbas regions, and would allow them to restore Russian as an official language within their territories, a key demand. There are conditions, however.
The bill conditions the autonomy on holding a new round of elections to appoint regional officials, and seems designed to prevent the current rebel leaders from taking part.
The bill says the elections have to be held under Ukrainian control, and would annul the elections the region held just back in November, which put the current rebel leadership in control.
All this is "normal" : the party of war control the Rada. They first made the opposition illegal,than elected themselves under the applaus of Europ.Now they are continuying to keep their line.They refuse other ways of thinking : you can only function under ukrainian nationalism.With all this in the spring (upon arrival of new lethal arms) a 3rd war will start.Then you will find some new articles about bad Putin , his fortune, russian massive presence in Dombass region etc,…The peace can only exist if one day Europe will say to Kiev you have also made mistakes and now stop.But Europe is wrongly obsessed by bad Putin and they will never do that.So let us prepare for WW3.
I agree that unless Putin capitulates (or is overthrown), war seems inevitable. I don't see how Ukraine could make the opposition illegal, even if it had actually done so. That would violate the European Convention of Human Rights and if the Court of Human Rights condemned Ukraine for such a violation, neither the EU nor the US would be able to continue to support it. The fact that no such case has ever been brought to Strasbourg thus speaks volumes.
Elect a billionaire president and you get nothing but billionaire deceit.
Do I detect "Washington" behind this stupidity.
No, you detect Putin and his US neocon backers.
It has always been clear that Putin (and his American backers) saw "autonomy" only as a pretext for Russian annexation and by refusing to allow the Ukrainian election to take place in "Sausagestan", they made it clear that they beleived that any free and fair vote taken there would be unfavourable to Russia. The results in the unoccupied parts of the two provinces, and in the other eastern provinces, confirm that view. Indeed, the separatists didn't even dare to run candidates outside the "sausage". I don't see how such "rebels" as there may be (if any!) could be prevented from taking part in the election. Unless, of course, they're not Ukrainian citizens. Indeed, that may well be what the Ukrainians are angling for: a revelation that the supposed "rebels" are in fact foreigners brought in from Russia and not ethnic Russians from Ukraine. In any event, the more Putin runs from free and fair elections, the more he discredits himself and the more he bolsters Ukraine. No Soviet leader ever got himself into such a stupid mess!
Mar 18, 2015 Volunteer Soldiers Fighting in Ukraine
As the conflict in eastern Ukraine continues, thousands of foreign soldiers are joining the fight alongside the pro-Russia separatists of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR). While the majority of these soldiers are from Russia, a growing number of volunteers from western Europe, and even as far as Brazil, are joining the ranks of the separatist forces.
https://youtu.be/epz-eBXHKIQ
Does "limited autonomy" mean that Kiev Nazis will stop murdering women and children in the Donbass? That would be a start.