In April, Ukrainian soldier Grigory Matyash predicted that Russia would keep the war going, despite the Minsk II peace agreements.
“Does this look like a ceasefire to you?” Matyash asked a Kyiv Post reporter during a break in fighting near Pisky. “Nothing has changed. This war is still far from over.”
But the war is over for Matyash. He was killed on July 31 by shelling from combined Russian-separatist forces.
Six months after the latest Minsk agreement, to replace the first one that Russia violated as well, more than 1,000 others have been killed since Russia and Ukraine signed the “peace” deal.
And there will be many more deaths to come.
Those watching the war closely say there is no end to the conflict in sight because there is no sign that the Kremlin will drop its aggressive stance.
The summer uptick in fighting hit a peak on Aug. 12, with 152 attacks by combined Russian-separatist forces in a 24-hour period. The next day, the Joint Staff of Ukraine’s military warned that separatist forces were preparing a large-scale offensive. Vladislav Seleznyov, spokesman for the Army General Staff, told Ukrainska Pravda that the “separatists are telling the whole world that supposedly Ukrainian forces are planning an attack on their positions,” when in reality there is a build-up of separatist firepower along the entire front line.
The heightened tensions already prompted the European Union to issue a statement condemning the ongoing ceasefire violations.
“The renewed escalation of the conflict…as a result of attacks on several government-controlled areas today and in the night of 10 August on Starohnativka, violates the spirit and the letter of the Minsk Agreements,” the statement said on August 11.
The West is sticking to its mantra of being “deeply concerned,” which many in Ukraine see as nothing more than indifference that favors the Russian aggressor.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been trying to show it is abiding by the Minsk agreements – withdrawing troops from Shyrokyne and passing constitutional amendments giving the occupied territories special status.
Ukrainian soldiers sit on top of an armoured personnel carrier as they rest on the way to their military base near Artemivsk in Donetsk Oblast on Aug. 13.
But Russian-backed separatists refuse to reciprocate.
Carnegie Foundation scholar Lilia Shevtsova said Ukraine is, in essence, being held hostage by the West’s refusal to take a tougher stand.
“Ukraine cannot act alone. Washington has demonstrated readiness to press down on the Kremlin, but Berlin is still hesitating in its decision on what line to take, and I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel is still hoping for a compromise (with Russia),” she said.
Saying that “Berlin cannot admit that the Minsk agreements have failed,” Shevtsova said Ukraine has no way out of the agreements unless its international partners support such a move.
But Volodymyr Vasylenko, an expert in international law and fromer Ukrainian ambassador, said Ukraine must still take a tougher position with Russia.
“Name things by their real names. (Poroshenko) should be saying that there is no anti-terrorist operation, but a defense against foreign aggression. He should have declared a state of war, and that would clear up many things. Ukraine’s legal status would be defined. As of now, it’s blurred,” Vasylenko said.
Oleksiy Melnyk of the Razumkov Center said Ukraine hasn’t yet exhausted all of its options, however.
“Ukraine has to take all steps to declare the territories to be occupied by Russia,” Melnyk said. “That would be a positive step for Ukraine. Russia would become an occupier, and all the responsibility for the people, beginning with the economic and social issues, and up to human rights issues, would be given to Russia in all formats.”
Ukraine is also pursuing legal options.
On Aug. 12, Natalia Sevostyanova, the first deputy justice minister, announced that Ukraine hadalready prepared four lawsuits against Russia to be filed in the European Court of Human Rights.
“We wrote the claims as a chronology of the war, starting from March 13 until September of last year. Then the European Court proposed to start examining the first case and adding all the additional allegations into new cases later,” she said.
However, Serhiy Petukhov, deputy justice minister and an expert in international law, expressed skepticism about whether the lawsuits will help. He noted that Ukraine’s parliament has already issued an official resolution recognizing part of the Donbas as territory occupied by Russia, shifting responsibility for the residents there to the Kremlin.
Russia has simply ceased to cooperate with the rules and laws of the international community, Petukhov said.
Members of the 92nd mechanised brigade of the Ukrainian army pay their repects to fellow serviceman Oleg Chepelenko, a 28-year-old sniper who was killed in battle. The funeral ceremony was in Kharkiv on Aug. 12. Mounting attacks in government-held areas of eastern Ukraine violate the February Minsk peace agreement with Russian-separatist forces, the European Union said on Aug. 12.
“Russia has been violating the Fourth Geneva Convention by not fulfilling its obligations to protect civilians,” he said. “However, Russia doesn’t admit its participation in the conflict, and, likewise, it doesn’t take responsibility. There is no way to force Russia to pay pensions there or supply civilians with anything.”
International law “is built on agreement between countries,” and “there is no mandatory procedure to establish a violation,” Petukhov said.
In late July, Russia was the only country to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution to set up an international tribunal on the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, despite having repeatedly called for justice for the 298 victims and pinning the blame on Ukraine’s military.
Faced with growing evidence that Russia bore responsibility for the airliner’s crash over a separatist-held part of Ukraine on July 17 last year, the Kremlin’s strategy is to denigrate the impartiality of the Dutch-led international investigation into the tragedy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Aug. 5 that the investigation, which is being conducted in part by the joint investigative team of Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and Malaysia, was “not independent, not comprehensive and not truly international.”
Shevtsova said “Moscow is ready for escalation,” especially considering recent comments made by the speaker of Russia’s parliament, who called August “a time of conflicts.”
Timothy Ash, a longtime analyst of Ukraine, doesn’t expect a major escalation.
“I would now downplay a larger scale Russian offensive, e.g. the drive to create a land corridor to Crimea – the Russians had the opportunity therein and passed it by arguably as they simply lack the military capability,” Ash, of Nomura International, wrote. “I really doubt now that they could deliver on that. More likely is a specific upsurge of military activity on a very narrow list of targets/villages, and likely key strategic assets (bridges, railway lines, steel plants, et al), just to turn the screw again, to weaken the Ukrainian economy and undermine domestic political stability again in Ukraine, but without over-committing and risking defeat and then the need to mask a retreat.”
Thomas Grant, a Cambridge University professor and expert on international law, said the international community must face up to Russia’s occupation. “Nobody should indulge the fiction that the so-called “rebels” in Donetsk and Luhansk are a self-determination movement,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected] and Allison Quinn at [email protected]
