Minsk ceasefire talks fail as separatists keep attacking forces, civilians

The Jan. 31 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group to de-escalate the Donbas warfare and fulfill the September Minsk ceasefire accords failed to produce any results, reported afterwards Leonid Kuchma, the former president of Ukraine and Ukraine’s representative in the talks. They were undermined with the absence of the signatories of the Minsk documents Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnytskiy (the “official” leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics), the ultimatums of their representatives Denis Pushilin and Vladyslav Deynego, as well as their refusal to discuss the ceasefire plan and removal of heavy artillery, Kuchma told the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency.

The representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic will only fulfill the conditions of the Minsk ceasefire accords if they’re changed in their favor, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Dmytro Kuleba told Ukrainian television on Jan. 31. They demanded that the separation line be moved to include the territory currently controlled by the separatists, rather than what was achieved in the September Minsk ceasefire accords, he said. They also wanted Ukraine to engage in a unilateral ceasefire and “demanded that they will press forward and no one would stop them,” he said. “The three key positions voiced by the representatives of the terrorist organizations don’t conform to any agreements and the main thing is they’re oriented towards ruining the mechanisms that were achieved in September,” Kuleba said.

President Petro Poroshenko called for an official reaction from Russia on the work of the Trilateral Contact Group being undermined during a telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, the Ukrayinska Pravda news site reported on Feb. 1. “Poroshenko, Merkel and Hollande expressed their disappointment with the Trilateral Contact Group failing to achieve progress during its last meeting in Minsk,” the president’s press service reported. They called for an unconditional and immediate ceasefire since the conflict is escalating, along with civilian deaths. They called for a return to call of the points of the Minsk ceasefire accords, which are the only basis for a peaceful handling of the situation in Donbas.

Pro-Russian terrorists spent the weekend on the offensive, shooting at the positions of Ukrainian armies and receiving replacement military units from the Russian Federation, reported on Jan. 31 Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council. They tried to take control of Vuhlehirsk, a town in the Donetsk region. In this attempt, pro-Russian separatists used more than 15 tanks, heavy artillery and land mines against Ukraine’s Armed Forces, reported on Jan. 31 Semen Semenchenko, the commander of the Donbas battalion. As of the afternoon of Feb. 1, the pro-Russian forces controlled parts of Vuhlehirsk.

Vuhlehirsk is also a tactical location to launch a further incursion in the direction of Debaltseve, a key transit hub that the terrorists also spent the weekend trying to capture but failed. Pro-Russian separatists have bombarded the residential areas of Debaltseve with artillery fire, killing 12 civilians, reported on Jan. 31 Viacheslav Abroskin, the head of the police administration of the Donetsk region. They also targeted for attack vehicles carrying refugees being transported away from the city, he said. Ukrainian forces successful rebuffed the separatist onslaught, which consisted of 3,500 soldiers, 35 tanks and about 90 armored vehicles, reported on Feb 2 Dmytro Tymchuk, a military expert with the Info Resist news site.

Zenon Zawada: We don’t think the separatists would have demonstrated such hubris this weekend without Moscow giving them some basis for their confidence. So the Russian government, as widely expected, wasn’t the least bit intimidated by sanctions being extended and expanded last week. Nevertheless, the sanctons were a necessary step in demonstrating some kind of resolve by the West. Unfortunately for Ukraine, no creative solutions have been proposed to stop Russian aggression beyond a military solution, which remains beyond bounds for the West and the Ukrainian leadership. To us, it’s an impressive feat that the Ukrainian army has demonstrated such successful resistance against one of the world’s fiercest armies, testifying to the resolve of the Ukrainian people to defend their values. The success of this resistance will be dependent on Western support in the future.

Meanwhile, the warfare at Vuhlehirsk and Debaltseve has a negative implication for Centrenergo (CEEN UK), the power generator whose one of three thermal power plants, Vuhlehirsk TPP, is located between the two attacked cities. There is no official info on the plant’s damage, while reports in online social networks indicate that the plant’s main building was attacked by rockets, without major damage to its production equipment. The plant’s outdoor equipment (power transformers) has been reportedly damaged.