13 October 2014
This week will be decisive in the fate of the Sept. 5 Minsk ceasefire protocols, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Oct. 10. “We seem to have agreed about everything with the Russians,” he said. “The next week will show just how genuine these agreements are, whether they’re able to subdue the bandits that are shooting up peaceful villages on either side of the front, and whether we’ll help the Russians in this.” Enforcing the border will be critical to the ceasefire and the Ukrainian government has already received drones from Austria for this task, with more to be supplied by France and Germany.
The bilateral removal of heavy artillery from the front line of conflict may begin on Oct. 16, said on Oct. 11 Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the self-declared prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “Starting today, a silence regime is supposed to begin,” he said, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. “If it will be upheld for five days, then the removal of heavy artillery by both sides will begin.”
The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine expects this week will prove decisive in the fate of the Sept. 5 Minsk ceasefire protocols, said on Oct. 11 spokesman Andriy Lysenko. Their fulfillment still requires an end to shooting, the release of prisoners, the removal of heavy artillery and the establishing of control of the Russian-Ukrainian border. The Ukrainian government will remove its heavy artillery from the frontline only after analogous moves from the separatists, he said.
The Donetsk People’s Republic will hold its local elections on Nov. 2, said Roman Liagin, the self-declared head of its election commission., the Ukrayinska Pravda news site reported on Oct. 12. Meanwhile, President Poroshenko said the same day the local elections will occur on Dec. 7 in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions should the ceasefire succeed, under the oversight of the OSCE and international election-observing structures.
A group of up to 100 armed Russian mercenaries have arrived in Donetsk after receiving training in Crimea and Russian-terrorist forces are recruiting former police officers to storm the Donetsk airport, reported on Oct. 13 Dmytro Tymchuk, the editor of the Info Resist news site. He reported arms and hardware arrived in Alchevsk in the Luhansk region. Russian-terrorist forces shot up National Guard roadblocks on Oct. 12 using Grad rapid fire rocket launchers, reported on Oct. 12 the press service of Hennadiy Moskal, the Luhansk state oblast administration chair. “The fighters aren’t upholding any ceasefire agreement,” he said. The rockets were fired by the Donskiy Army, acting independently from the Luhansk People’s Republic, the press service said.
Removing Ukrainian forces from the zone of the anti-terrorist operation is not under consideration, Poroshenko said on Oct. 12. Instead, Ukraine’s military hardware factories are working 24 hours for the first time in decades to produce new units and repair what has been damaged. Output at the Kharkiv-based Malyshev factory that produces contemporary armored vehicle and tank hardware will grow to record levels in November, Poroshenko said on Oct. 11. The factory makes the most modern armored vehicle and tank hardware in the world, he said.
Zenon Zawada: Putin’s transfer of Russian military units away from the Rostov Oblast isn’t reason to believe that he won’t continue to support the Donbas separatist forces with arms and hardware. So we can’t place too much hope in Poroshenko’s claims that a true ceasefire is on the horizon, particularly when previous such assurances have proven hollow. While the rest of Ukraine’s southeast coastline looks safe from Putin, Donbas is vulnerable in the short to mid-term.