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Fighting persists despite the two-year anniversary of the Minsk 2 cease-fire agreement.

By Benas Gerdziunas

2/21/17, 4:15 AM CET

Updated 2/21/17, 1:07 PM CET

The gut-churning bass of artillery rockets dispels the myth that a cease-fire is holding in eastern Ukraine, two years after the Minsk 2 agreement between Russian-backed separatists and pro-government forces was signed.

At least 30 civilians died when the fighting escalated again in January, following what the government in Kiev described as an unsuccessful offensive by pro-Moscow rebels on the city of Avdiivka. Ina sluggish 20th-century war of attrition, where undersupplied trenches are hit by sporadic artillery fire, graffiti on a Ukrainian soldiers helmet paraphrases the title of Erich Maria Remarques classic on the First World War: Nothing new on the western eastern front.

Civilians trapped in the fighting initially fled to safer ground in 2014. However, when their money ran out many of those families saw no option other than to return to their homes on the front line.

A Ukrainian marine, nicknamed Nightingale, walks amid heavy snowfall in Pavlopil in the Donetsk region. The OSCE has tried to maintain the Minsk 2 cease-fire deal, mostly in vain, as artillery shelling ensues daily and both sides use weapons and munitions banned by the agreement | Photos by Benas Gerdziunas

Most people went to the seaside or Kiev at the beginning, says Oksana Sidorenko, who lives in Marinka less than 100 meters from the trenches with her boyfriend and two sons. But there is no work, and local people in Kiev or Kharkiv take advantage they raise the rent costs overnight, forcing people to move back.

In Marinka, a Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk satellite town, the front line has not shifted since the war began. Daily shelling sprays shrapnel and separatist snipers continue to fire on civilians. The majority of houses here have suffered direct hits and the gas supply has been cut for three years.

With up to 5,000 people still estimated to be living in the town, a school continues to operate practically on the front line, according to its director, Liudmila Panchenko. I honestly cant remember how many times we already had to run to the basement, says Artiom, Oksana Sidorenkos son.

A lone civilian walks on a road near Marinka in the Donetsk region, which has seen near-constant heavy fighting in the last three years. With key infrastructure and transport links destroyed, civilians are often trapped between the front lines.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission patrols the roughly 500 kilometers of front line and buffer zones mostly in vain theyre often met with suspicion and outright hostility on both sides.

Visits from the OSCE are often followed by direct hits on even newly-entrenched positions, according to residents, ingraining cynicism toward lasting peace prospects and international cooperation.

During the recently-concluded Munich Security Conference, Russian, Ukrainian and European representatives reaffirmed their commitment to the Minsk agreement and signed a truce that was due to start on Monday, February 20. Nevertheless, the war continues and people on both sides of the barricades have grown weary.

A Ukrainian marine sits inside a makeshift dining hall near Mariupol in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian military has experienced significant levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, which goes largely untreated. After almost three years of trench fighting and artillery bombardments, many turn to the bottle, or worse.

Soldiers on both sides occupy vacant buildings. Looting was an issue at the beginning of the conflict, as volunteer units on both sides seized properties and everything found inside.

Nikola Chorishko, a marine, was taken prisoner in the early stages of the war, when the Ukrainian military suffered a crushing defeat in the encirclement of Illovaisk in August 2014. The tragedy, as its referred to by Ukrainians, left thousands of casualties. Freed in a prisoner swap, Chorishkoreturned immediately to the fighting.

Artiom, 14, watches a film inside his front line home in Marinka in the Donetsk region. Just 10 minutes earlier, a fragment of a shell fell in the backyard. The house is dotted with bullet holes from a sniper position directly opposite. The separatist positions are less than 300 meters away and the Ukrainian military are 50 meters away.

Marines say goodbye to comrades who will spend the night in one of the forward positions along the front line near Mariupol in the Donetsk region. We dont say goodbye before the night, says Nikola Chorishko. Each morning after the night counts.

Oksana Sidorenko, Artioms mother, sprints across a sniper corridor in Marinka in the Donetsk region. Reminiscent of scenes from the siege of Sarajevo, residents must sprint across a street, as Russian-backed separatists continue to fire from positions directly in front. So far, two civilians have been hit, two soldiers killed and many more have experienced near-misses, according to locals.

A school in Marinka, a few kilometers from the front line. With artillery shelling nearly every day, the children have to hide in the basement, or below sandbag-lined windows.

A primary school student sits in a half-empty classroom. At the outbreak of the war, attendance dropped to less than 50 percent, but as families move back, numbers are returning to pre-war levels.

Yura Nogin repairs war-damaged buildings in Marinka, where he now lives with Oksana Sidorenko, whom he met while serving with an artillery detachment in the town.

An apartment block destroyed by artillery fire in Marinka. A U.N.-funded program tears down badly-damaged apartment blocks to be rebuilt, while those with only moderate damage are refitted by local construction crews.

The front line town Avdiivka has been the epicenter of a recent escalation in fighting. At least eight civilians died here in January alone, as the humanitarian crisis worsened with heating and electricity cut off. Temperatures dropped to -8 degrees at night in unheated buildings. This hole was left by artillery fire in 2014, and a home of a local man who didnt want to be named was completely destroyed in February.

A painted gate reads People live here, near Avdiivka. Houses still occupied by civilians mark their front gates a pattern visible all along the front line.

Excerpt from:
Ukraine: not quiet on the Eastern front - POLITICO.eu

Ukraine has called for reform of the United Nations Security Council's structure to prevent Russia from using its veto power on the council to obstruct actions involving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

"We need urgently to reform the Security Council in order to remove the veto power abuses," said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who chaired a meeting of the council on unresolved conflicts in Europe on February 21.

A provision of the council's charter requires that "a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting" when the council acts, but it has been "blatantly ignored," he said.

Russia used its power, for example, to block an initiative to set up an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for downing Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2015 over the war zone in eastern Ukraine, killing hundreds of people.

The council should be able to address "bloody conflicts" regardless of whether one of the parties involved is a permanent council member with veto power, Klimkin said.

"It is imperative that clear proceedings are introduced for the proper implementation" of the council's abstention requirement, he said.

Russia, which maintains that it has no troops in Ukraine despite evidence to the contrary, has previously rejected as unacceptable any curbs on its veto power.

Read this article:
Kyiv Urges Reforms To Stop Russia From Vetoing UN Action On Ukraine Conflict - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Dmytro Firtash arrives at court in Vienna on Tuesday. His arrest is separate from the extradition ruling. Photograph: Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters

Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash has been detained in Vienna on a European arrest warrant, a spokeswoman for the citys prosecutors has said on Tuesday, minutes after an Austrian court granted an extradition request from the US.

The spokeswoman said Firtashs detention was technically separate from the extradition ruling as it was based on a Spanish request for his arrest for which she could give no details.

She said it was too early to tell how the implementation of the European arrest warrant would impact on the decision to extradite Firtash to the US over bribery allegations which he denies.

The extradition approval on Tuesday overturned an earlier ruling that had said the US request was politically motivated.

Firtash is a former supporter of Ukraines ousted president, Viktor Yanukovich, and made a fortune selling Russian gas to the Kiev government.

[The appeal against the previous ruling] has been granted, the judge told a courtroom packed with journalists and Firtashs family. This does not mean that somebody is being prejudged as guilty, but rather that it will be decided in another country whether they are guilty or innocent.

The judge said that since the previous Austrian court ruling, the US had offered further documents, based on witness statements, to strengthen its case against Firtash.

A US grand jury indicted Firtash in 2013, along with a member of Indias parliament and four others, on suspicion of bribing Indian government officials to gain access to minerals used to make titanium-based products.

Speaking before Tuesdays verdict, Firtashs lawyer, Dieter Bhmdorfer, reiterated the accusation that the US was driven by politics in the case.

We must not allow Austria to become a stooge for the political world power the USA, Bhmdorfer told the court, adding that Firtash was a victim of a US strategy to minimise Russian influence in Ukraine.

Washington welcomed the ousting of the pro-Russian Yanukovich amid mass street protests in February 2014 and has backed his pro-western successor, Petro Poroshenko. Yanukovich now lives in exile in Russia.

The Austrian judge dismissed Bhmdorfers charge and said Firtash would get a fair trial in the US.

Firtash, whose business concerns in gas trading and chemicals thrived under Yanukovich, has not returned to Ukraine since his initial detention in Vienna in March 2014.

His star has waned under the current administration partly due to his exile, but Firtash retains influence thanks to his part-ownership of Inter, a top Ukrainian television channel, and his gas distribution and fertiliser businesses.

He is Ukraines 16th richest man, with an estimated wealth of $251m (202m) as of 2016, according to Forbes Ukraine.

Read more from the original source:
Austria grants US request to extradite Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash - The Guardian

Lopaskine village, Novoaidar district. The firewood is distributed to the population free of charge. CC BY-NC-ND / ICRC / G. Poshtarenko

In the Luhansk region, foresters take great pride in regenerating forests, helping protect the environment and provide firewood for the local population. Through a programme that also creates jobs and clears the region of landmines, the ICRC lends a hand.

Oleksandr, a forester from Pishchane forest in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, proudly shows photos from the 1920s: the yellowed black-and-white photos show foresters planting young pine seedlings. One of these is his grandfather, who also worked in the Luhansk region. Working in the forest in the steppe-like region is similar to being a sailor thousands of kilometres away from the ocean, but Oleksandr is proud of his profession because local forests protect agricultural land from the dry winds that used to raise sandstorms here.

However, when the armed conflict broke out here in 2014, people paid less attention to the forest. "Back then thousands of hectares of forest burned, there was no one to put out fires, as shells in the forest made it dangerous to reach the fire source", said Oleh, a forester from Stanytsia Luhanska Forestry and Hunting Department.

According to preliminary 20142015 estimates, at least half of the 30,000 hectares of forest inspected suffered damage. If left without proper care, the forest in the steppe area that is prone to dry winds quickly becomes infested with insects that threaten the work of several generations of foresters in the Luhansk region. Alas, with State funding for forest management reduced, the Forestry Department lacks adequate resources of its own to restore regular forestry services.

A programme launched recently by the ICRC has become the first step towards restoring forests in the affected areas of the Luhansk region. As part of the programme, the ICRC pays to have dry and burned trees cut and processed for firewood, which is distributed to the population free of charge. In 2017, the ICRC will help prepare 8,200 cubic metres of firewood, allowing around 1,500 households, as well as outpatient clinics and rural health posts in Novoaidar, Popasna and Stanytsia Luhanska districts of the Luhansk region to survive severe winter.

Forestry, Stanichno Luhansky district. Working brigade cleaning the area from dead wood. CC BY-NC-ND / ICRC / G. Poshtarenko

The programme has generated plenty of work that will continue until 2018. Indeed the amount of work created has even compelled the Forestry Department to recall previously dismissed workers. Today, 25 employees work at 28 sites, clearing damaged trees from the forest. To facilitate the project's implementation, and at the request of the Forestry Department, mine-clearance specialists cleared some mine-infested forest areas. In future such areas will no longer be a danger to be avoided, but rather a place where hundreds of tired citizens can find peace and calm, away from hustle and bustle of the city.

A few kilometres from the forest, evidence of reforestation is already there for all to see: a new forest, similar to the one that the region's first foresters planted nearly a century ago. "A few weeks ago there was a damaged forest in this area of 5.3 hectares," said forester Oleh. "Our foresters removed it and prepared the land for planting, and we managed to plant pine seedlings from our forest nursery here before the cold weather".

Spring will bring new work: thousands of hectares of forest have burned in the two years since the conflict began, and the effort to clear the land will go on. "If you do not remove the deadwood, clear the roads, and take fire prevention measures, in the summer heat the forest will start burning again", Oleh explained.

The villages of Lobacheve, Lopaskyne and Pishchane have received firewood. Next will be Triokhizbenka and other villages. In spring, when the planting season returns, the noises in the trees will be a reminder that future crops are safe from dry steppe winds. As foresters talk in their businesslike manner and make plans for the future, anxiety fades. "We will keep restoring the forest as long as we can", they say confidently as they slowly make their way out of the frosty forest, the snow already creaking under their feet.

Continue reading here:
Ukraine: Foresters keep alive a century-old tradition - ICRC (press release)

BRUSSELS -- EU ambassadors are expected to agree to extend asset freezes imposed against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and 15 of his associates for another year according to EU sources.

The sources told RFE/RL on February 21 that the decision was expected on March 1. It would then be approved by EU ministers at a meeting on March 3.

The asset freezes were first imposed by the EU after the fall of the Yanukovych regime in February 2014 and targeted people that Brussels believed had misappropriated Ukrainian state funds and assets. They have been prolonged annually ever since.

Viktor Yanukovych's son Oleksandr is included on the list, as are former Prime Ministers Mykola Azarov and Serhiy Arbuzov, former Justice Minister Olena Lukash, and former head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriy Klyuyev.

Several people on the list, including Viktor Yanukovych, challenged their inclusion at the European Court of Justice in 2016, but the court struck down the complaints and maintained that the reason for their listings were lawful.

Read the original:
EU To Renew Asset Freeze Against Ukraine's Ex-President - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty