Gun battles broke out in the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk today, as military forces, backed with artillery fire, attacked rebel position in the capital of the rebel-held region.
There were reports of fights as well as car chased at several points in the capital throughout the day, and civilians fled their homes amid the intense shelling by Ukrainian forces.
The Ukrainian military has promised to crush the rebellion in what it is calling a “anti-terrorist” operation, and seems to be nearing a victory, surrounding the last few rebel strongholds and shelling the areas for days before finally pushing in.
Ukrainian officials are planning a meeting with Russian officials next week in Minsk, and Russia is expected to push heavily for an end to the civil war and a negotiated settlement with the mostly ethnic Russian rebels.
Russia has been pushing for a settlement for months now, complaining of the growing humanitarian crisis, which has displaced over a million civilians, many of them fleeing into Russia to escape the offensive.
The US has opposed negotiated settlements in the past, demanding the rebels surrender to the pro-West Ukrainian government before any negotiations are even considered.
What gives the US the "right" to demand anything. This is none of America's business.
These where yesterday´s spiced "news" from a particularly nasty and violent Nazi-cult regime in Kiev that enjoy´s an elevated status to the US, almost in par with occupied Palestine, israel and that is immense given the importance of this region for US pipelineistan games .
The real news, however, is that the junta lost 400 KIA and 700 WIA yesterday and counting, and that is only in the area around Donetsk. a major defeat, bearing in mind that the "elite" of the ukie military where defeated in the southern cauldron. These "ukrainian forces" are poorly trained and ill-motivated conscripts and soldiers with the lowest level of morale acting as cannon fodder for Right Sector death squads and mainly Polish, Lithuanian and US mercenaries. These are now being blown to pieces by Novorossiyan Grad´s and responds by committing horrendous crimes against humanity by bluntly hitting Donetsk with all they got.
For a more up to date report, check out Brad Cabana´s twitter account @Rock Solid Politics
and an Interview with Sergei Glaziev the Russian advisor to Vlad. Putin on why the US are risking a WW3 here, (MUST SEE!)
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/08/intervi…
Putin knows perfectly well what the deal is: he will be (tacitly!) allowed to keep Crimea if he backs off from the rest of Ukraine and seals the frontier so that the rebellion ceases. Otherwise, everything is on the table: Crimea, Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia. Since Putin wants to make it appear that he has "won", he will bluff and bluster but will ultimately accept the deal. No Soviet leader ever got himself into the mess Putin has got himself into!