On Thursday, Ukraine and separatists in the eastern Donbas region traded accusations of ceasefire violations.
The Donbas war has been essentially at a stalemate since 2015, but there are frequent ceasefire violations recorded by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Sometimes, hundreds of violations are recorded in one day.
The two sides often blame each other for flare-ups, but amid heightened tensions with Russia, there is more Western media attention on the conflict.
The Ukrainian military alleged forces of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) fired artillery at the village of Stanytsia-Luhansk and said some shells hit a kindergarten, wounding two civilians. For their part, the LPR and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said they were barraged with artillery by the Ukrainian military.
The DPR said they opened retaliatory fire in response to a Ukrainian bombardment to protect civilians. “In order to protect civilians, our defenders had to open retaliatory fire to suppress the enemy’s weapons,” a DPR spokesman said.
Even though ceasefire violations and conflicting accounts from the two sides are common, Western officials are trying to fit the latest flare-up into the narrative that Russia might be planning a “false flag” in the Donbas to justify an invasion.
“Reports of alleged abnormal military activity by Ukraine in Donbas are a blatant attempt by the Russian government to fabricate pretexts for invasion. This is straight out of the Kremlin playbook,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss wrote on Twitter.
There is always a chance of the Donbas spiraling into a wider conflict, especially if Ukraine launches an offensive and Russia decides to intervene to protect the Russian-speaking population in the region. No matter who escalates the war, the US and its allies are ready to blame Russia.
Front page of the Donetsk News Agency:
https://dan-news.info/en/
Also, it was pointed out by the LDPR that the increased shelling – estimated by OSCE to be over 500 incidents in one day, a massive increase over the previous day – occurred one day after Zelensky met with Ukrainian forces on the contact line.
He also was asked about dropping NATO membership by a Guardian reporter and he spent a minute delivering a rambling answer which boiled to a refusal to answer directly. I watched the video.
The west provocation of Russia into a war did not work… Now the insurgencies are starting…!
This was planned all along. More than a hear ago another NATO country, Croatia, provided consultation to Ukraine on how to perform ethnic cleansing of Donbas. During Clinton term, in 1995 a large scale polulation expulsion was performed. Technique was simple, Paramilitaries went in first — and committed acts of cruelty towards civilians, documented the attrocities and disseminated information causing a large scale panic. Protected by Clinton administration, there was no information in mass media. Only specializec circles knew of it — but public never became aware of the act.
Panic causec impossible situation to mount a defense, roads were clogged, and gleeing oeople were iccasdionally shelled just to keep going.
It is not a mystery that Biiden believes in the repeat of that syccess. And just like any effort to protect the population then was branded “greater Serbia”, today in Donbas will be branded “Russian invasion”.
Russia is certainly aware of the not so secret plan.
And certainly has a olan to counter it.
One event not being tked about is the evacuation of women with children and elderly. Ablebodied are in Donbas military.
All the details of evacuation are known. It appears that thia is the answer to possible repeat of Croatian plan — deprive paramilitaries of easy targets, move vjlnerable population to safety, and free up the territory for military operations.
Donetsk will wait until Ukrainian forces make a move,
and respond.
This time with the best of Western advice, Ukraine wants to conquer the region, arrest or kill lleaders as terrorists, and not give region any special rights.
This will be the battle within Ukraine that could stir up civil war beyond Donbas. West helping Ukraine, Russia helping Donbass.
We will find out just how good will be the “third time is the charm” effort at defeating anti-coup region.
Or will there be Minsk III?
If I were Putin, I would give the people in the Donbass an offer they couldn’t refuse by offering to give them start up money and jobs in Russia if they would re-locate there. Russia is sparsely populated for its size and could easily benefit from these ethnic Russians moving there. Let Ukraine have the Donbas and fortify Crimea. Ukraine is a failed state and an economic basket case.