Russia has organized separatists into single army, Ukrainian MP says

The Russian Armed Forces have used the Minsk Two cease-fire regime to unite the armed gangs of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic under a single command, calling it the army of Novorossiya, reported military expert and MP Dmytro Tymchuk on March 10. The army, which includes Russian soldiers, operates under a single system of command and is being enhanced with military hardware and armaments, as well as military training, he reported.

The cease-fire regime was violated ten times the night of March 10 and morning of March 11, reported the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) today. Russian-backed separatists concentrated most of their activity in the direction of the city of Donetsk, the ATO reported, aiming mortar and grenade fire at towns in its outskirts. Rifle fire was targeted in the direction of the port city of Mariupol. During the day March 10, the separatists violated the cease-fire 24 times, the ATO reported. Five enemy drones were spotted in the vicinity of Mariupol, while rifle and mortar fire was directed at the town of Shyrokyno, which is 23 kilometers east of Mariupol.

The U.S. Defense Department is concerned that Russia is undergoing a strategic pause and preparing for an even greater assault on Ukrainian positions in east Ukraine, Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Brian McKeon told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on March 10. Russian and its separatists are responsible for almost all the continuing violations of the “immediate and comprehensive” cease-fire regime, he said. In recent days, Russia has supplied additional tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery and missile launchers to the separatists, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland told the hearing. At minimum, 400 Russian soldiers have died in Ukraine since the conflict began.

Ukraine hasn’t achieved progress in gaining the release of all hostages as stipulated in the Minsk Two cease-fire agreement, President Petro Poroshenko told French President Francois Hollande in a March 10 telephone conversation, reported the president’s press service. Meanwhile, the Russian-backed separatists are denying OSCE observers the ability to monitor the removal of heavy artillery from the separation line, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told reporters on March 10. The Ukrainian government is upholding its end of the Minsk Two cease-fire agreement, he said.

The Ukrainian government is undermining the fulfillment of the Minsk Two cease-fire, for which Western governments should impose sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a March 10 press conference. “The Kyiv government is trying all sorts of ways to slow the work of the Contact Group, perhaps counting on creating the latest tension,” he said.

The EU is united in the need for extending sanctions against Russia, whether in March or June, but it has no consolidated position on arming Ukraine, said on March 11 Donald Tusk, the president of the EU Council, as reported by the onet.pl news site. Arming Ukraine is still an option that’s on the table, yet no EU member-state favors a military resolution to the conflict at the moment, he said. Therefore Ukraine is justified in thinking that it’s alone in its fight against pro-Russian separatists, he said.

Zenon Zawada: The pattern of the conflict so far has shown that the Russian-backed separatists use the weeks following a cease-fire agreement to reposition and renew their forces in preparation for another advance. The Azov battalion reported on its Facebook page that intercepted communications revealed the separatists are preparing to advance on all fronts this week. We believe that’s possible and we are certain it will happen sooner or later. Unfortunately, it will take many more civilian deaths to convince the Europeans to arm Ukraine, in our view.