Pahalta alkaa näyttää juu. Uutisista ja videopätkistä on näkynyt että alueella rytisee paikoin kovaa, tykistöllä tulitetaan ihan tosissaan. Väkisinkin siinä sitten siviilejä kuolee sivussa, mahdollisesti paikoin aika paljonkin. Putin on nyt oman politiikkansa vanki: aikaisemmat hyvinkin herkästi tehdyt interventiot saavat ihmiset ihmettelemään, miksi nyt sitä ei kuulu vaikka keinot olisi ja viattomia kuolee? Näin voi käydä kun aseellisen voiman käytön kynnys laskee liian alhaalle...eikä Venäjä ole tästä ainoa esimerkki viime vuosilta.
Tämä tietysti olettaen ettei kaikki ole osa macchiavellimaista suursuunnitelmaan Ukrainan valtaamiseksi...epäilen kuitenkin että jos invaasio oli alunperinkin suunnitelmissa, niin olisi varmaan jo tehty. Separatistit ja kansallismieliset ovat julkisuudessa purkaneet pettymystään aika negatiivisilla kommenteilla Putinista. Tietysti ei voi TÄYSIN sulkea pois että Putin odottaa mahdollisimman pitkään jotta voi sitten "vastentahtoisesti" julistaa "rauhanturvaoperaation". Vaikea kuitenkin nähdä mitä etua tällaisesta pokkapelistä enää olisi - lännen mielipide konfliktista ei tule muuttumaan vaikka Poroshenko lanaisi kaupungit sileäksi rakettitulella. Ja vaikka ATO onkin saanut paikalliset vielä Kiova-vastaisimmiksi, niin samalla heistä on tullut myös Venäjä-vastaisempia kun odotettua virallisen tahon tukea ei olekaan tullut.
Separatistien sotilaallinen murskaaminen olisi tappio Venäjälle joka on kuitenkin jonkun verran sijoittanut arvovaltaansa näiden asian puolesta. Poroshenko luultavasti toivoo "salamasodalla" saavansa separatistit niin heikkoon happeen ettei heillä ole enää sisua esittää vaatimuksia jotka aikaisemmin ovat torpanneet neuvotteluyritykset ja Venäjän interventio olisi myöhässä, kun separatistien tuho olisi jo tapahtunut tosiasia. Putinin seuraava liike tullee olemaan yritys uhkailemalla hidastaa Ukrainan sotilasoperaatiota: en usko että maajoukkoja alueelle vielä nyt tulee, mutta lentokieltoalue voi olla erittäin lähellä.
Eipä hyvältä näytä, myös Kyivpost on reagoinut uutiseen ja pitää lähdettä yleensä luotettavana. Kapinalliset ovat joutuneet niin ahtaalle, että ovat omien sanojensa mukaan lyötävissä parissa viikossa ja huutavat Venäjää apuun. Myös Venäjän mahdollisuus puuttua tilanteeseen pienee kovaa vauhtia, joten maa saattaa hyvinkin lähteä "suojaamaan" alueen suurempia kaupunkeja. Maa on kyllä nyt kuumissaan. Tätä osoittaa myös juuri käynnistetty suuri merisotaharjoitus Mustalla merellä, joka ajoittuu samaan ajankohtaan kuin jo aiemmin käynnistetty Nato-harjoitus samalla merellä.
Russian media: Moscow may send Ukraine 'peacekeeping' mission in next two days
Print version
July 4, 2014, 3:10 p.m. |
Ukraine — by
Matthew Luxmoore
Tanks with Kremlin-backed fighters outside the city of Sloviansk last month. According to Russian media, citing a Russian Foreign Ministry source, has suggested Russia is preparing to introduce "peacekeeping" forces in eastern Ukraine within the next two days.
© AFP
Matthew Luxmoore
Russia may begin a “peacekeeping” operation in Ukraine within the next two days, according to comments made on July 3 by sources close to Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
“There is such an option… The situation is complicated. Two days ago we advised (Ukrainian President) Petro Poroshenko to ‘freeze’ the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts for a few months, so that the rebels and the Ukrainian army stop fighting… Poroshenko did not accept the plan, and every day innocent people are dying,” the source
told Russian news agency Znak.
“A peacekeeping operation from the Russian side is ready: if it is launched, several Russian units will form a protection ring around the large towns, in order to ensure the safety of peaceful citizens,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
The reliability of the statement - as well as the identity of the source - remain unclear.
According to Ukrainska Pravda, its credibility is attested to by the fact that deputies of the Russian State Duma have been instructed to remain in Moscow over the following days amid the possibility of an emergency meeting being held.
Ukrainska Pravda also cites Znak journalist Katerina Vinokurova as saying information supplied by the same Foreign Ministry source in the past has always proved reliable.
The claim has provoked a strong response from Kyiv. Security Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy called it “a threat of direct aggression against Ukraine,” adding that peacekeeping forces can only be introduced under the aegis of the United Nations.
The news comes amid further reports of a military build-up in Ukraine’s east, where the government’s resumed “anti-terrorist operation” entered its third day. Parubiy denied that Russian troops had been withdrawn from the border with Ukraine, claiming that around 40,000 servicemen remain.
“The statement that Russian troops have been pulled back from the border is untrue. There was no pullback of troops, but quite the contrary, there was a [troop] rotation,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on July 4, according to Interfax.
Yuriy Stets, head of the information security department of Ukraine’s National Guard, said 20 tanks and 122 armoured vehicles from Russia have been recorded in Luhansk region.
In the meantime, further rumours of a rift between separatist forces are emerging.
Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti
reported three desertions among rebel ranks on July 4, citing an assistant to rebel commander Igor Strelkov. On the same day, a
video was posted online showing a visibly shaken Strelkov saying Sloviansk will be destroyed within two weeks if the rebel forces currently in control of the town do not receive assistance.
“If Russia does not conclude a ceasefire or intervene militarily in our name, in the name of the Russian people living here, we will be destroyed. This will happen within the week, maximum two. And the first to be destroyed will be Sloviansk, with all of its inhabitants,” Strelkov says in the video.
Also on July 4, a
statement posted on the official website of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic announced the dismissal of the LPR government, including a document signed by its leader Valeriy Bolotov.
In the meantime, preparations continue ahead of another round of OSCE-mediated peace talks, slated to take place in Ukraine between Kyiv, Moscow and representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas. The group should meet “no later than July 5 with the goal of reaching an unconditional and mutually agreed sustainable ceasefire,” according to a document signed by the parties during a July 2 meeting in Berlin.
Amid shifting dynamics in the military conflict in Ukraine’s east, rhetoric on both sides has intensified. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on July 2 demanded that the Kyiv reinstate a ceasefire abandoned by Poroshenko on July 1 and cease its military campaign.
“Again we resolutely demand that the Ukrainian authorities — provided they are still able to evaluate sensibly the consequences of the criminal policy they conduct — to stop shelling peaceful cities and villages in their own country, to return to a real ceasefire in order to save human lives,” the Foreign Ministry said.
At a press conference on July 3, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Danylo Lubkivskiy issued a stark rebuke to Moscow.
“We are warning the whole international society against becoming hostages of the alternative reality which the Kremlin is trying to impose in such a consistent and thoughtless way. There is only one voice that the world does not and cannot trust: this voice comes from the Kremlin. The world demands real actions from Russia,” Lubkivskiy said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Matthew Luxmoore can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @mjluxmoore.
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