Situation in Avdiyivka factory town stabilizes

The situation in Avdiyivka, an embattled factory town in Donetsk Oblast, stabilized this weekend, news reports said. State bodies are returning to work as usual, with schools opening today, the Donetsk regional military-civilian administration reported. Natural gas and heat supply have also been restarted. Most of the town has had electricity service restored, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko confirmed on Feb. 5, and he declared that the Russian government failed to create a humanitarian catastrophe.

Amid the reports of life returning to normal, 94 shooting incidents – injuring five Ukrainian soldiers – were reported this morning by the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation for the last 24 hours. Shooting was reported in three other fronts, including Mariupol, where shootings reached 72 on Feb. 3. “It can be said with certainty that fighting activity occurred along the entire front line, which hasn’t been observed since 2014,” said a Defense Ministry spokesman.

Zenon Zawada: It’s hard to say what has caused the relative calm. No reports have been confirmed of top U.S. officials, including the president, communicating with the Russian leadership following Trump’s Jan. 28 phone call with Putin. On Feb. 2, Trump signed an order correcting a technical matter that enables the Russian FSB to accept payments for licenses for exporting technology. Yet it’s unlikely to have influenced the fighting. The potential remains for another escalation, based on the reports of ongoing fighting.