Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[11B4V]

Good news, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[alfred russel]

How is it possible that a Frog is the worst dressed one at an international gathering?

I don't like the Ukrainian dude's get up. The red tie/suit look too conservative and out of date. I'd take Hollande over him.

[Tamas]

So its not even the 15th yet but apparently Putin's press guy is already saying that Russia is not a signee of the agreement but merely a overseer of it. Since they are not actually there, they cannot be expected to a) move out, and b) have the power to enforce the treaty.

[Valmy]

So its not even the 15th yet but apparently Putin's press guy is already saying that Russia is not a signee of the agreement but merely a overseer of it. Since they are not actually there, they cannot be expected to a) move out, and b) have the power to enforce the treaty.

See now that is just remarkable cynicism.  Even zombie Stalin is impressed.

[derspiess]

So its not even the 15th yet but apparently Putin's press guy is already saying that Russia is not a signee of the agreement but merely a overseer of it. Since they are not actually there, they cannot be expected to a) move out, and b) have the power to enforce the treaty.

See now that is just remarkable cynicism.  Even zombie Stalin is impressed.

Why change the story this late in the game.  If only we had that level of consistency in our own leader

[mongers]

Damn, the Ukrainians are done for now, UK is sending them 75 Saxon 'APC'.

[CountDeMoney]

So its not even the 15th yet but apparently Putin's press guy is already saying that Russia is not a signee of the agreement but merely a overseer of it. Since they are not actually there, they cannot be expected to a) move out, and b) have the power to enforce the treaty.

See now that is just remarkable cynicism.  Even zombie Stalin is impressed.

Why change the story this late in the game.  If only we had that level of consistency in our own leader

It's the immovable force of Russian stubbornness meets the irresistible force of George Costanza logic.

[Agelastus]

Damn, the Ukrainians are done for now, UK is sending them 75 Saxon 'APC'.

Well, we have to be proactive with recycling these days, you know? It's quicker, more efficient and cheaper than melting them down and making something useful out of them, after all.

[Tonitrus]

We should give them all those MRAPs instead of giving them to rich, suburban PDs who like the idea of sending armored vehicles and SWAT teams to get cats out of trees.

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/ukraine-cease-fire-fails-as-rebels-disavow-truce-at-encircled-town/515930.html

Ukraine's Rebels Violate Cease-Fire by Shelling Encircled Town

DONETSK/ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — Ukraine's rebels disavowed a new truce just hours after it took effect on Sunday, saying it did not apply to the town where most fighting has taken place in recent weeks.

Guns fell abruptly silent at midnight on Sunday across much of eastern Ukraine in line with the cease-fire agreement, reached after a week of diplomacy led by France and Germany.

But pro-Russian rebels announced they would not observe the truce at Debaltseve, where Ukrainian army forces were encircled and Kiev military said rebel attacks on the town steadily increased from mid-afternoon on Sunday.

"Of course we can open fire [on Debaltseve]. It is our territory," senior rebel commander Eduard Basurin said. "The territory is internal: ours. And internal is internal. But along the line of confrontation there is no shooting."

A statement by the Kiev military on Sunday night said the "enemy" was carrying out attacks with varied types of weapons, including Grad rocket systems, and had a plan to try to seize Debaltseve from the west.

In a four-way telephone conversation with the leaders of Germany, France and Russia's Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the position of the four at peace talks last week in Belarus had been for a cease-fire on all the front lines including at Debaltseve.

Poroshenko stressed that a withdrawal of military equipment and heavy weapons required a "full and unconditional" cease-fire under the Minsk agreement, his press service said.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, responsible for monitoring the cease-fire, said rebels had denied its observers access to Debaltseve.

Both sides blamed what firing there was on the enemy. But Debaltseve has been the focus of fighting for weeks, and it will be hard to speak of a truce if Ukrainian troops remain trapped there under fire, or the rebels press on with their advance.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday's peace deal including the truce must be implemented "unconditionally." But he made no mention of whether Moscow believed the truce applied to Debaltseve.

Town Almost Cut Off
Ukrainian forces have been holding out for weeks in the town, which sits astride a railway junction in a pocket between the two main rebel strongholds.

Rebels say they have completely encircled the town, but Ukraine says its forces have kept open a road to resupply it in the face of a Russian-backed onslaught.

Washington says regular Russian forces armed with tanks and missile launchers advanced on the town from all sides in the days before the truce.

Journalists operating on the rebel side have seen armored columns of troops without insignia arriving in the area in recent days.

In the main rebel centre, Donetsk, journalists said artillery had been exploding every few seconds in the hours before the cease-fire, but halted abruptly at midnight.

A Ukrainian military spokesman said the cease-fire was being "generally observed." Its forces had been shelled 10 times since the truce took effect in localized incidents, and no soldiers had been killed.

Poroshenko, wearing the uniform of the armed forces' supreme commander, announced the order to stop firing in a midnight televised address, but said there was still alarm over Debaltseve.

'Last Chance'
"I very much hope that the last chance to begin the long and difficult peaceful process for a political settlement will not be wasted," he said, adding, however, that if Ukraine were slapped, it would not "turn the other cheek."

The cease-fire, negotiated in all-night four-power talks on Thursday, foresees creation of a buffer zone and withdrawal of heavy weapons. More than 5,000 people have been killed in a conflict that has caused the worst crisis in Russia-West relations since the Cold War.

Putin denies Moscow is involved in fighting for territory that he calls "New Russia" but Washington and its allies have imposed economic sanctions over Russia's role in the conflict.

The United Nations was still negotiating a Russian-drafted resolution that would welcome the cease-fire agreement and call on all parties to implement it.

"We're not in a position to vote a text today," Britain's UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters on Sunday.

Malaysian UN Ambassador Hussein Haniff said he wanted the draft to reflect a resolution adopted in July, which demanded access to the eastern Ukraine site where a Malaysian passenger plane crashed with 298 people on board.

Maxim, a rebel fighter at a checkpoint on a road from Donetsk to government-held Dnipropetrovsk, said he did not expect the cease-fire to hold.

"Truce? I doubt it. Maybe two to three days, and then they will start shooting again. This is all for show. The OSCE is driving around here, so of course they are being quiet."

[Martinus]

I like how they are "Ukraine's Rebels", according to Moscow Times...

[Tamas]

Apparently the Russ... Ukrainian Separatists were scheduled to capture that town before the cease fire but didnt manage. It is cutting their rail connection to Russia proper, so they need to get it to let all the humanitarian aid convoys arrive by train.

[Syt]

I like how they are "Ukraine's Rebels", according to Moscow Times...

TBF, Moscow Times tends to be critical of Russian politics and Putin.

[CountDeMoney]

I like how they are "Ukraine's Rebels", according to Moscow Times...

TBF, Moscow Times tends to be critical of Russian politics and Putin.

It doesn't matter who reports what:  doesnt change the fact that "Ukraine's rebels" are really Russians.

[jimmy olsen]

Not good, not good at all

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/commander-of-us-army-in-europe-sees-russia-mobilizing-for-war

Commander of US Army in Europe Sees Russia Mobilizing for War
By Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal

'I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years —not that they're going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years."

So says Lt. Gen. Frederick "Ben" Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe....

    "Strong Europe!" reads a sign on one of the walls. Next to it is the U.S. Army Europe insignia, a burning sword set against a blue shield. The two signs represent the strategic framework the three-star general has introduced—building on America's decades-long role on the Continent—since taking command last year of the 30,000 or so U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe.

    The U.S. military presence in Europe is more vital at this moment than it has been in many years. American engagement is essential if the West is to deter a revanchist Russia that has set out to "redraw the boundaries of Europe," Gen. Hodges says with a native Floridian's drawl....

    The Russians have "got some forces in Transnistria," he says of the state that broke away from Moldova in the 1990s. "They've got forces in Georgia. And I think they view China as their existential threat, so they've got a lot of capacity out there." The Russian military is thus already somewhat stretched, and Moscow had to carve out from existing units the battalion task groups currently arrayed near eastern Ukraine. Yet "they are clearly on a path to develop, to increase, their capacity," Gen. Hodges says. Add to this expansion that "they've got very good equipment, extremely good communications equipment, their [electronic-warfare] capability, T-80 tanks." How long will it take for Russia to reach its desired military strength? "I think within another two or three years they will have that capacity," he says....

    Then there is the Kremlin's sheer aggressiveness, not least on the nuclear front. The Pentagon last year announced that it is removing missiles from 50 of America's underground silos, converting B-52 long-range bombers to conventional use and disabling 56 submarine-based nuclear-launch tubes—all well ahead of the 2018 New Start treaty deadline. Moscow, by contrast, has been simulating nuclear strikes on Western capitals as part of annual exercises.

    Gen. Hodges won't comment on the U.S. strategic-force posture in Europe other than to say he is "confident in that process." But he adds that the fact that the Russians rehearse nuclear-strike scenarios "shows that they're not worried about conveying a stark message like that. You know, frankly, you hear this often from many people in the West, 'Oh, we don't want to provoke the Russians.' I think concern about provoking the Russians is probably misplaced. You can't provoke them. They're already on a path to do what they want to do....

    "I've never been bashful about telling allies, 'Hey, you have a responsibility here, too. You all agreed to spend 2% of your GDP on defense. Right now only four countries are doing it.'"

    Yet the failure of many of European leaders to live up to their defense commitments "doesn't change our interest," Gen. Hodges says. "And the U.S. economic link to Europe, to the EU, dwarfs any other economic link in the world, anywhere in the Pacific, China, India, you name it. So if for no other reason it's in our interest that Europe be stable, that people make money so they can buy U.S. products. . . .

    We provide capability assurance here by being present here."

    Gen. Hodges says there is also a huge payoff in U.S. security from U.S.-European cooperation. The main lesson of the post-9/11 wars is that "we are not going to do anything by ourselves militarily," he notes. The U.S. "needs the capacity that other countries can bring." These benefits come "from a relatively small investment—I mean, U.S. Army Europe is 2% of the Army's budget and about 5% of the Army's manpower. . . . You can't sit back in Virginia, Texas or Oregon and build relationships with people here." He quotes his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell: "You can't surge trust."

    Nor can the U.S. project national power world-wide, as it has since the end of World War II, with an overstretched Army. "There are 10 division headquarters in the Army," he says. "Nine of them are committed right now. I've never seen that. I don't think at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan you had nine out of 10 division headquarters committed against some requirement." That leaves little in reserve if another conflict breaks out.