26 June 2014
The Russian Federations Council, considered to be the upper house of parliament, voted on June 25 to cancel its approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request to authorize the use of Russian Armed Forces on Ukrainian territory. In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin called it a positive step. At the same time, the Ukrainian government is expecting further steps from the Russia, such as support for the Ukrainian peace plan, providing active monitoring of the border, arranging for the release of hostages and halting the flow of arms and fighters into Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered several proposals to improve the functioning of the trilateral contact group to resolve the Donbas conflict during a June 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among her proposals was to make Viktor Medvedchuk an intermediary in the contact group to ensure its activity, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. She also proposed creating a monitoring system of roadblocks and border posts involving the OSCE, exchanging lists of hostages and the Russian government calling for their release. She also suggested renewed talks on June 26. All the call’s participants agreed to her proposals, said the Ukrainian president’s press-service.
During the call, Poroshenko said the terrorists were responsible for 52 incidents in violation of the ceasefire that he declared on June 20, resulting in 18 deaths and 27 injuries. He called for real steps by the Russian government to support the further stabilization of the situation in the Donbas region and for concrete steps to halt the flow of arms, fighters and equipment across the border. He also called the decision by the Russian Federations Council to cancel permission to use Russian armed forces in Ukraine “a positive signal on the road to fulfilling the peace plan.”
Putin needs to publicly call for pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine to lay down their arms and use all measures to halt the flow of arms and fighters through the Ukrainian border, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the June 25 meeting of NATO foreign affairs ministers in Brussels. The next round of economic sanctions against Russia is developed and ready but won’t be applied yet, he said, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. Yet the decision not to apply them can be canceled in ten minutes if the Russian side doesn’t create conditions to implement the Ukrainian peace plan, he said. At the same meeting, NATO decided to create three trust funds to support Ukraine’s security sphere and improve its defense potential, Klimkin said.
Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a resolution on June 25 to technically enhance the state border with Russia, the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency reported on June 25. More details weren’t available because the resolution was classified as secret.
Pro-Russian terrorists continued to attack Ukrainian soldiers on June 25, government reports said. In the Donetsk Oblast, six soldiers were injured by fire from two tanks and four soldiers in another location were injured by machinegun and rifle fire, said Oleksiy Dmitrashkivskiy, press officer of the Anti-Terrorist Operation. Pro-Russian terrorists shot up a Luhansk Oblast mine on June 24, killing one worker and injuring another, reported the State Mining Industry Oversight agency. The two workers exited a building after the dispatcher called for workers to go inside, prompting the shooting.
The Russian government has transferred Mig-29 destroyer planes to within 30 kilometers of the Ukrainian border and has activated planes on reconnaissance missions in the vicinity of the Luhansk Oblast, reported on June 25 Volodymyr Chepoviy, the spokesman for the Information Center of the National Security and Defense Council.
Zenon Zawada: The Ukrainian public is disturbed by Merkel’s support for Medvedchuk’s involvement in the talks, a sentiment that is quite justified. Medvedchuk is a direct agent of Putin, who is widely suspected of plotting against the Euro-Maidan protest (if not sanctioning the violence directly) and openly supports federalizing Ukraine. Therefore, his presence merely adds to the Russians’ ability to steer the talks towards their desired outcome rather than finding a constructive solution (which we believe is unlikely, regardless). It’s not clear if Merkel made this recommendation to appease the Russians or if she genuinely believes his presence will be constructive, which would be a failure of German foreign policy.
Another reason for Medvedchuk’s presence not being constructive is that the terrorists won’t pay much attention to him. To a partial degree, they are acting independently from instructions from the Russian government, plundering and terrorizing the local population in between their political declarations, which are themselves unclear and disorganized. The terrorists aren’t knowledgeable or experienced political players, but thugs and criminals who are incapable of even adhering to a weeklong ceasefire. The Russian government is aware of this, having dispatched many of these men itself, and is using the negotiations to achieve its strategic geopolitical goal of federalizing Ukraine.