29 August 2014
The Russian government is responsible for the latest wave of violence in Ukraine and will pay “an additional price,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in an Aug. 28 statement. He said spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who agreed with his view. Russia’s actions in the latest week are an extension of what it has been doing for the last several months, he said. “Together with our allies in the European Union, we will move towards additional measures as we don’t see from Moscow any actions to resolve the problems in southeastern Ukraine,” he said, declining to answer a question on whether that includes arms shipments.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will meet with Obama on Sept. 18, the White House website reported on Aug. 29. “President Obama looks forward to discussing with President Poroshenko efforts to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine as well as our continued support for Ukraine’s struggle to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the White House said.
Following Obama’s statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the “militiamen” to create a corridor for the surrounded Ukrainian soldiers to leave the wave zone in order to avoid “senseless deaths,” as well as offer medical aid to injured soldiers. The Russian government is also ready to offer more humanitarian aid to Donbas residents, his statement said, who are suffering a catastrophe. “Again I call for the Ukrainian government to immediately cease its military action, cease firing, sit at the negotiating table with the representatives of Donbas and resolve all the problems that have accumulated, exclusively by peaceful means,” he said.
The U.S. government is considering additional sanctions against Russia for its role in the latest warfare in Ukraine, said on Aug. 29 U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The U.S. has additional instruments and sanctions that it could apply after consulting with its NATO partners, she said.
Poroshenko canceled a scheduled working visit to Turkey on Aug. 28 and called an emergency meeting of the National Security and Defense Council after reports confirmed the Russian Armed Forces invaded the Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian government will work to achieve the status of a major non-NATO ally with the U.S. government, said on Aug. 28 Mykhaylo Koval, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. The U.S. Congress has already granted such status to Israel, Australia, and the Philippines, which are major allies outside of NATO, the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency reported. Poroshenko earlier voiced his support for such status.
NATO member-states will be able to sell Ukraine the necessary arms for its defense if the request is made at the Sept. 4-5 summit in Newport, Wales, said on Aug. 28 Stanislaw Koziej, the lead of National Security Bureau of Poland, as reported by the UNIAN news agency. “It depends on whether Ukraine’s president will request something like this at the meeting of the Ukraine-NATO committee,” he said. Individual NATO members can sell Ukraine arms without gaining the agreement of other members, though such a decision should be each in cooperation, he said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for Western governments to freeze Russian assets and bank accounts until the Russian government removes its armies and military hardware from Ukraine on Aug. 28. “Sanctions haven’t delivered any results,” he said. “In such conditions, the single element of restraining Russian aggression should be the consideration of applying sanctions on freezing all Russian assets and halting all banking transactions of the Russian Federation in the EU member-states, the U.S. and G7 countries,” he said. Besides an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Yatsenyuk also called for emergency meetings involving the EU foreign ministers council.
As of Aug. 28, the U.S. government confirmed at least 1,000 Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory, Russian non-government organizations estimated about 15,000 and the Russian government confirmed 10, reported Evgen Vorobiov, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw. NATO has estimated more than 1,000 Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory, according to Western news agencies, as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Aug. 28.
About 60 Russian tanks have driven to within 20 kilometers of the port city of Mariupol (population 458,500) in the Donetsk region, the TSN television news network reported, citing reports from Ukrainian soldiers and intelligence. They arrived from Novoazovsk, which was taken over by Russian forces on Aug. 27. The town of 12,000 sits on a key roadway between Crimea and Russia. The tanks have already attacked a roadblock, forcing its defenders to retreat. They are also being repainted to disguise their Russian origin. Ukrainian soldiers said they believe the Russian army is trying to secure a transportation corridor between Crimea and Russia, which would require an invasion and occupation of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
More than 3,000 demonstrators gathered in the city center of Mariupol on Aug. 28 (population 458,500) in the Donetsk region to voice their support for the Ukrainian government and their opposition to the Russian invasion. Mariupol is home to the steel factories Ilyich Steel and Azovstal that belongs to Metinvest, Ukraine’s biggest steel holding company, though their workers didn’t formally support the demonstration.
The Dnipropetrovsk State Oblast Administration is implementing its Plan B for the war that includes the leadership of the neighboring Zaporizhia region, Deputy Head Gennadiy Korban told the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. “We technically have assumed protection of this region because it’s weaker and we see that an invasion could occur along the Zaporizhia line, above all,” he said, adding that his administration would also take curatorship of Mariupol. He warned the Russian government it will receive thousands of corpses in return should its forces enter the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions “so that all Russians finally come to their senses and soberly look at the leadership of their country,” he said.
Zenon Zawada: The Russian military is moving far quicker than the Western and Ukrainian governments are reacting, enabling Putin to achieve his geopolitical goals. In his decision to escalate the war in Donbas, Putin is clearly intending to create a frozen conflict zone in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which is entirely realistic, in our view. Taking control of Mariupol is critical in accomplishing that goal. Russian peacekeepers would eventually be dispatched as an occupation force. The implications would be dangerous for the Ukrainian economy. We also can’t rule out that the Russian army will be used to achieve a land transportation corridor between Russia and Crimea, which would mean a massive escalation of war.
Putin’s calls for a ceasefire and negotiations are the peak of political cynicism, considering that he could have pursued such opportunities at Poroshenko’s request at the Minsk summit on Aug. 26. The Russian president’s actions this week have largely ruined all remaining strands of trust that he held with Western leaders. Needless to say, his actions are posing a serious threat to European and global security.