New Ukrainian law may provoke more war
2015-03-19
Posted by: badanov
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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Three days after the deadline that said Ukraine must pass a law governing a "special status" for some regions in southeastern Ukraine, Ukrainian president Piotr Poroshenko signed a new law which Russian backed rebels say violates the latest ceasefire, known colloquially as Minsk II, according to Russian language sources.
As the March 15 deadline loomed -- then passed -- Donetsk president Aleksandr Zakharchenko said that "nature loves threes", implying that Donetsk and Lugansk rebels may be planning a new defensive aimed at destroying concentrations of Ukrainian troops and supplies similar to the recently concluded Debaltsevo operation. The Debaltsevo operation, like the Ilovaisk operation which was concluded last August, was the second battle of rebel troops against Ukrainian who were surrounded and destroyed.
The Debaltsevo battle ended with Ukrainian dead numbering into the thousands, and captured ammunition and fuel supplies numbering into the thousands of tons, essentially wiping the equivalent of three combat brigades from the situation map as the Ukrainian general staff in Kiev simply sat by and watched.
The new law, designated as Law 256-VIII "On Amendments to Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine", says that local elections will be conducted under the auspices of the Ukrainians, and that "special status" will be granted only after those elections are held.
According to a news account which appeared in regnum.ru, the new law violates the Minsk II agreement because "special status" was not granted immediately after the ceasefire, and that the Ukrainian constitutional reform has not been addressed, which would make Ukraine a federation, similar to how Russian governs its regions.
A federation reform would give the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk autonomous status without giving them independence, or without driving them into becoming part of the Russian Federation.
Throughout the war, those three possible outcomes -- autonomy, independence and joining the Russian Federation -- have been the subject of intense online debate amongst supporters of the two breakaway republics. Since many supporters of the rebels' efforts in Donetsk and Lugansk are Russian and nearly every military commander in Donetsk and Lugansk are either Russian or Russian prior service military, it seems that moving into the Russian Federation is the preferred status, despite the rebels' protests about Ukrainian "provocations".
Since the new agreement went into force last February 12th Donbas rebels have been making much of their efforts to move heavy weapons back from the line of contact, while Ukrainian forces continue to keep their artillery sited where they can hit rebel positions.
Three main points along the line of contact have been the most active, with Shirokino being the most active of all.
Since before the end of the Debaltsevo operations, according to rebel media, Ukrainian artillery have been pounding rebel positions in and around Shirokino, oftentimes for hours.
Shirokino is a Sea of Azov coastal town between Mariupol and the Russian border. It has been in rebel hands since last fall.
Since it is a forward zone of rebel troops, it has been the focus of Ukrainian artillery fire, even during the current ceasefire. Mariupol is also a forard zone for the Ukrainians, but rebel claim as many as 300 fighters have infiltrated into the city, and have been awaiting orders since February 25th.
Fighting in Shirokinio has intensified since then, in one instance, with Ukrainian forces rolling in tanks to within 400 meters for rebel positions, and using them to cover infantry, who then deploy heavy machine guns and are supported by artillery fire.
On Tuesday Donetsk Ministry of Defense spokesman Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin said that a Ukrainian tank opened fire on a truck destroying it and killing two militia.
Rebel media also reports that Ukrainian medium and heavy artillery have been hitting some sectors of Doentsk city, including the Kievskiy district, as well as the Krasnogvardeysk district of Makeyevka, and in Spartak and Peski, which is north of Donetsk city.
Much of the Ukrainian artillery has been hitting residential sectors in Donetsk, but no civilian casualties have been reported owing to the fact many of those districts have been abandoned because of artillery fire.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. Click here for a list of stories in the The 2014 War in Ukraina category.
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Click here for a list of stories in the The 2014 War in Ukraina category