22 September 2014
The bilateral contact group in Minsk signed a memorandum on Sept. 19 to implement the ceasefire protocol reached two weeks earlier. It consists of nine points, said former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who has represented the Ukrainian government. They include extending the ceasefire and halting the movement of military units and militias. Both sides must withdraw their high-caliber weaponry to at least 15 kilometers from a front line, creating a safety zone no less than 30 kilometers wide. Military aircraft and drone flights are forbidden, with the exception of OSCE aircraft. All foreign military formations and mercenaries must be removed from Ukraine, mining is forbidden and all planted mines must be removed. OSCE observers will be posted along the entire Russian-Ukrainian border, the memorandum stated. The participants of the contact group are Kuchma, three Donbas separatist leaders, Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov and Heidi Tagliavini, the OSCE ambassador.
A mass of further agreements will be needed to implement the Minsk agreements, requiring years of work by the Ukrainian government, Russian Presidential Administration Head Sergei Ivanov said in an interview published on Sept. 21 by Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Resolving the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region is a titanic task that will take at least a year, he said. Important steps have already been taken to halt military action, he said, adding that he hopes wisdom in the Ukrainian government will avoid the urgings of the “very strong” war party. Ivanov said. The laws approved on Sept. 16 by the Ukraine parliament offers the impulse for the further development of peaceful dialogue, he said.
The Russian-terrorist forces have yet to begin fulfilling the Sept. 19 Minsk memorandum, reported the morning of Sept .21 Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. The outskirts of Mariupol were being shot up the same morning, reported the 5 Kanal television news network. Explosions were audible from the city’s eastern district. Russian-terrorist forces spent the weekend actively shooting at Ukrainian positions, particularly around the key port city of Mariupol (population 458,500), which lies outside the self-governing zones, various news reports said. The forces are accumulating artillery and fighters in the direction of Mariupol, reported on Sept. 20 Dmytro Tymchuk, the head of the Information Resistance news site. They also continued their attempts to storm and capture the Donetsk airport and have been actively planting mines.
Russian military experts have arrived in the Donbas region to prepare for combatting Ukrainian artillery armies, Tymchuk reported on Sept. 20. Russian soldiers are setting up training camps for local residents and are widely disguising themselves as separatist militia fighters. In response to attacks on Ukrainian positions, up to 20 pro-Russian fighters were killed and a Grad anti-aircraft system and four mortars were destroyed the anti-terrorist operation press center reported on Sept. 20.
The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has been violated 480 times since it was declared on Sept. 5 in Minsk, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations Yuriy Sergeyev told the Security Council on Sept. 19. That caused the deaths of 100 Ukrainian soldiers and 138 wounded.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power called upon the Russian Federation to remove its Armed Forces from Ukraine and halt its support for illegal armed formations in the eastern regions at the Sept. 19 meeting of the UN Security Council. She cited the concession of the Ukraine’s parliament creating self-governing zones in several districts of eastern Ukraine. She also called upon both sides to release hostages, to provide conditions for the OSCE to perform its work and for Russia to close the border and surrender its control to the Ukrainian government.
Russian Armed Forces have yet to leave Ukrainian territory and the ceasefire regime isn’t active, said on Sept. 20 Philip Breedlove, NATO supreme allied commander of Europe, as reported by Agence France-Presse. The number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine declined during the last week, he said without offering a precise estimate, but remain prepared to return to Ukraine when necessary. The same day, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said there aren’t any Russian forces on Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletey signed on Sept. 19 an agreement with the Polish and Lithuanian governments creating a common brigade, LitPolUkrBrig. The creation of the brigade was reached in at the NATO summit in Wales and is aimed at modernizing the Ukrainian army, said Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski before the signing the ceremony in Warsaw. The brigade will be a part of a system of peacekeeping forces that will share experience, knowledge and skills and support the cooperation of the Ukrainian army with the world’s Armed Forces. Poland’s contribution will be between 3,000 to 3,800 soldiers, Ukraine will contribute 545 and Lithuania will offer 150-350 soldiers.
Zenon Zawada: The Sept. 19 memorandum is merely the latest in a series of vague agreements between Ukraine and Russia that raise more questions than they answer. The most glaring example is the lack of clarity of where the front line from which weaponry is supposed to be withdrawn by 15 kilometers on either side. Flexibility is needed in reaching such agreements but excessive amounts can undermine their effectiveness.
Unfortunately, we don’t see much success in implementing the ceasefire, particularly when the conflicting sides can’t even establish basic facts, such as the Russian military presence in Ukraine. Ivanov’s rather pessimistic outlook is further confirmation that warfare will continue at its current spurts, though we see escalation in the coming weeks.
We’ll be convinced of the commitment of the Russian and Russian-backed separatist forces to the ceasefire if casualties are reduced to no more than a handful per week by the end of the month. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said his government will give the Russians until the November G20 summit in Australia to play its role in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.