Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Ukraine Ceasefire?

UPDATE: After a flurry of contradictory information, the Ukrainian government has confirmed that only the conditions for a ceasefire were agreed to, not a ceasefire itself. Given the Russian government's insistence that it is in no way involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, it's unclear what actual measures Russia will consider itself able to agree to.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said today that he and Russia's Vladimir Putin agreed on a "permanent ceasefire" in eastern Ukraine by telephone. A Russian government spokesman says that "Russia cannot physically agree on a cease-fire, as it is not a side in the conflict." The exact content of the conversation between the two leaders is unknown, but it there seems to have been a miscommunication somewhere. So far, the fighting has not stopped.

Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
These announcements come just as the fighting in the region was escalating, with the sudden overt intervention of the Russian military. Russian soldiers have been killed and captured, and T-72 models used only by the Russian military have been sighted inside Ukraine. The EU was about to announce a new round of sanctions against Russia, and Barack Obama is currently visiting Estonia, which borders Russia, in a show of solidarity with NATO's easternmost members. What's more, Russian representatives announced yesterday that NATO would continue to top their list of national threats, and the President of the European Council reported that Putin told him he could "take Kyiv in two weeks" if he wanted to.

The recent escalations make the agreement – if indeed there is an agreement – completely unexpected. It follows a recent open-ended ceasefire in Gaza, which led to both Israel and Hamas claiming victory (again), and which is unlikely to resolve that conflict.

It's too early for optimism. Contradictory statements have been made before last week, Putin publicly called on the separatists to allow a humanitarian corridor for trapped Ukrainian troops. When a column attempted to withdraw through the corridor, separatists fired on it, killing about a hundred Ukrainian servicemembers. This may be another case in which the actions of the parties to the conflict do not live up to their words.

Finally, a representative of the separatists has now said that "there will be no cease-fire” while Ukrainian government troops are in separatist-claimed territory. It is extremely unlikely that this one telephone conversation will amount to anything in the long run.

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