Ukraine Deal Gives Little Relief as War Set to Rumble On
Within hours of Ukraines gas deal with Russia, fighting flared up in the countrys easternmost regions, highlighting the challenges in bringing peace to the country after a year of upheaval.
While the pact brokered by the European Union is designed to keep homes warm through the winter, rebels still hold large chunks of the countrys east and are planning a controversial election for Nov. 2. Crimea remains under Russian control and the Kremlin, bristling at an EU agreement Ukraine signed this year, is testing NATO with daily airspace violations.
The next flashpoint may be the vote in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which sparked a diplomatic row between the EU and Russia. The separatists are pushing ahead even as daily clashes test a truce signed Sept. 5. The insurgents violated the wobbly cease-fire 45 times in the past 24 hours, according to the Defense Ministry in Kiev.
The separatist elections planned for Nov. 2 matter a lot more in terms of the big picture than the gas deal, Arkady Moshes, the head of the EUs Eastern Neighborhood and Russia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said by phone. The overall conflict is in a state where too many parties simply dont want to have any solution.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on his parliamentary party today to support Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister, saying the country needs to be united as never before following Oct. 26 elections.
We have to make the first proposal, to show that we take very responsibly the formation of the government and the content of the coalition agreement, Poroshenko told newly elected representatives in Kiev.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, in a statement sent by e-mail, said today that despite the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, acts of indiscriminate shelling and security incidents continue to put civilians at risk.
The approaching winter makes the situation of both residents and displaced people even more difficult, according to the statement. The ICRC remains committed to helping people affected by conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may be telegraphing his intentions with his fighter jets, which forced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to scramble its own warplanes several times this week. The alliance has tracked more than 100 Russian aircraft so far this year, more than triple the number in 2013, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said yesterday.
The airspace interceptions around Europe in the past few days show that Russia is willing to challenge NATO and has no interest in de-escalation, Stefan Meister, an analyst at the German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin, said by phone. I dont see this gas deal as a step forward.
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Ukraine Deal Gives Little Relief as War Set to Rumble On