4 June 2015
Ukraine’s Fragile Ceasefire; about to change for the worse… or the better?
by Neil Tidmarsh
It’s nearly four months since the ceasefire in Ukraine was negotiated in Minsk by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany. Although fighting continues (and remains intense in places), it is mostly sporadic and localised. Outright warfare all along the front line has ceased. But various reports this week have made more than one commentator suggest that this is about to change.
The Atlantic Council, a think tank founded by five former US secretaries of state, published a report, ‘Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin’s War in Ukraine’, which presents evidence of direct Russian military intervention. The report claims that Moscow is sending soldiers and equipment into the country and establishing camps and bases along the border. It warns that Russia is exploiting the recent lull in the war to “further reinforce Russian and Russian-backed forces in Ukraine’s east and to prepare for the next stage in fighting.” Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, claimed in Washington this week that Russia is using training exercises along the border as cover to move troops into Ukraine. A reuters journalist reported that Russian troops, tanks and artillery are massing 30 miles from the Ukraine border as if for a new offensive, many with identifying marks such as uniform insignia and vehicle number plates removed. European sanctions against Russia for its interference in Ukraine are due to lapse next month, and the unanimous vote needed to renew them is less than certain; it is feared that the renewed build-up of Russian forces along the Ukrainian is preparation for the start of a new offensive as soon as those sanctions lapse. In Moscow, President Putin signed a decree making it illegal to report military casualties during peacetime; this in itself might suggest that Russian casualties are about to rise.
And yet there were other reports from Ukraine this week which also need to be considered. A Times report from the town of Shirokine, where intense fighting continues, suggests that the pro-Russian rebels there are not receiving supplies, men or equipment from Russia, and indeed feel abandoned by Moscow. Elsewhere in the country, rebel warlords who refuse to follow the official Kremlin line on the Minsk ceasefire and continue to wage war in the cause of Novorossiya (‘New Russia’ – pro-Russian Eastern Ukraine united and independent from Kiev) are being killed in mysterious circumstances. Aleksei Mozgovoi, the notorious leader of the feared ‘Ghost’ battalion, was murdered in an ambush away from the front line last week. Last January, Alexander ‘Batman’ Bednov was killed while ‘resisting arrest’ by authorities from the Moscow-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, the same fate that overtook another maverick rebel leader, Prapor, last November. The other rebel People’s Republic, Donetsk, has seen similar purges, with the removal of maverick leaders Igor ‘Strelkov’ Girkin and Igor Bezler. Yevgeny Ishchenko, the ‘peoples mayor’ of the front-line city of Pervomaisk, has also been killed in suspicious circumstances. Vague accusations against shadowy pro-Kiev groups have been made, but many people assume that the answer lies east of the border rather than west. The concept of Novorossiya is the biggest threat to the Minsk agreement and to peace in the Ukraine in general and it is suggested that Moscow regards those who pursue it as rogue elements which have to be brought into line. Even the two rebel ‘republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk have abandoned the idea of Novorossiya.
It is worth remembering that the Minsk accords were more or less dictated by President Putin. It’s difficult to see what he could hope to gain by overturning them. Moscow has to show solidarity with the Ukraine rebels to save face internationally and to serve national pride at home. But the cost of the conflict is high: EU and US sanctions; aid to Luhansk and Donetsk; weapons and supplies to pro-Moscow forces; the rising death-toll among Russian forces which is becoming more and more difficult to hide from the world at large and is beginning to cause disquiet at home. An escalation of the conflict, such as a new offensive, would only make things worse, with no conceivable benefit. An annexed Eastern Ukraine would be a massive drain on Russian resources, even greater than the Crimea, which Moscow is still struggling to support. An all-out war with Ukraine would be hugely damaging – a war which Russia would be likely to win but which would probably lead to a conflict with the west, catastrophic for all involved.
The chaos on Russia’s western border must be a massive headache for the Kremlin. The dire economic consequences in Russia and the possibility of growing unrest at home as casualties rise, must be giving the regime cause for concern about its own future. The prime motive behind Russian intervention in Eastern Ukraine is as likely to be to stabilise that chaos, establish total control over rogue elements and consolidate the Minsk gains as to try to snatch further gains by dismembering Ukraine for territorial expansion. Of course, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first could simply be a prelude to the second. But Putin is a practical and realistic operator; let’s hope that he does indeed think that Novorossiya is an impractical and unrealistic dream with an impossibly high price-tag. After all, it seems that it’s a price which Aleksei Mozgovoi, Prapor, ‘Batman’ Bednov, and Yevgeny Ishchenko have already been forced to pay.
