Ukrainian, Russian forces take steps toward cease-fire

The forces of the Ukrainian government’s anti-terrorist operation (ATO) have begun to remove their heavy artillery from their 15-km side of the 30-km buffer zone in accordance with the Sept. 19 Minsk memorandum, reported on Sept. 22 Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council. At the same time, soldiers remain at frontline and are regrouping, he said. The separatist forces haven’t moved the frontline or expanded their territory in the last three days, he said.

Former National Security and Defense Council Head Andriy Parubiy told the 5 Kanal television network on Sept. 22 that he’s concerned the Russian-terrorist forces will take advantage of Ukraine’s unilateral removal of artillery to launch an attack on key strategic targets. They include the town of Debaltseve, the Donetsk airport and the port city of Mariupol. The Russian-terrorist forces can justify their attack claiming groups of uncontrolled Ukrainian forces still present. The Ukrainian Armed Forces leadership is taking this scenario into account, he said. “Positions are currently being prepared on where it can be withdrawn,” Parubiy said. “Until the terrorists, Russian mercenaries and Russians fire at our positions, we need to respond symmetrically, that is to say, to do the same.”

The leadership of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic has begun to fulfill the Sept. 5 Minsk cease-fire, Lysenko said on Sept. 22. “Our border guards at the frontline haven’t observed any drones in the last 24 hours,” he said. That’s evidence they’ve already begun to adhere to the cease-fire, “though they haven’t approached this on a 100 percent basis,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s state railways reported it has renewed its Kyiv-Luhansk passenger line as of Sept. 21. The train was originally composed of 10 railcars but was boosted to 18 owing to heightened demand.

Ukraine’s ATO forces used artillery fire to prevent Russian-terrorist forces from advancing towards the key port city of Mariupol the night of Sept. 22, reported this morning Dmyto Tymchuk, the head of the Information Resistance news site. “Afterwards, the enemy adopted tactics of raids committed by subunits of 10-20 individuals,” he said. “Russian soldiers moving in this direction are dressed as the local militia.”

The Sept. 5 Minsk cease-fire is “in name only” as the violence in Ukraine, including the number of artillery rounds fired in recent days, is as high as before the cease-fire,” said NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Philip Breedlove, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. A significant number of Russian soldiers have left Ukraine in the last two weeks, “which is good, except that they haven’t returned home and are still available to bring their military force to bear on Ukraine, should it be desired,” Breedlove told a Sept. 20 press conference in Vilnius. Allied forces can’t pinpoint how many Russian and pro-Russian soldiers remain activated because they frequently cross the Russian-Ukrainian border, which has been kept open in the territory they control.

The EU and NATO have evidence that Russian forces have been dispatched to Ukraine, despite the Russian government’s denials, European MP Johannes Cornelis van Baalen said in an interview published on Sept. 22 by Deutsche Welle. “We have satellite photos,” he said. “We already heard from the Kremlin that there aren’t any Russian armies in Crimea, and now they aren’t in eastern Ukraine. Yet everyone knows that’s a lie. If there aren’t any Russian armies in Ukraine, then where are the bodies of murdered Russian soldiers? From where do the wounded in the Rostov and St. Petersburg hospitals come from?”

The leaders of the U.S. and EU should be communicating with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and asking him what he needs and how they can help. “Compromises with the Russian President Putin mean that Putin triumphed,” van Ballen said. The EU can help with Ukraine’s natural gas shortage this winter by supplying liquefied gas by trucks, he said. “That can be expensive, but we’re supposed to do this when it’s necessary,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: As evident, rather conflicting accounts emerged from the previous day’s activity in the Donbas war zone. So far, we can’t say there has been significant progress in the cease-fire.  However, the renewal of the Kyiv-Luhansk train line is a hopeful sign.