As world powers focus on freezing the conflict in Syria, the war in #Ukraine
continues unabated. According to international monitoring organizations and
soldiers on the front, the fighting has reached levels not seen in months.
On Monday, three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and six were wounded,
according to a tweet from Col. Oleksander
Motuzyank, a military spokesman for the Ukrainian government. The deaths follow
a sharp-uptick in violence between government troops and Russian-backed
separatists.
The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, or OSCE,
has recorded numerous cease-fire violations in recent weeks, including the use
of heavy weapons, such as 120mm mortars and BM-21 multiple rocket launch
systems.
Heavy weapons above 82mm were banned in previous cease-fire agreements
known as Minsk I and Minsk II and are supposed to have been moved back from the
frontlines. In addition to the fighting, there has been “circumstantial
evidence” that Russia is re-arming the separatists, according to Lamberto
Zannier, the Secretary-General of the OSCE.
Zannier, speaking to the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview in Munich, added that situation in east Ukraine is at a new low point since
just before a pause in fighting in September.
The Minsk ceasefires were supposed to be implemented by the end of 2015,
but have been extended into 2016. Both the Ukrainian and Russian government
accuse one another of failing to satisfy their portions of the
agreement. Russia has yet to cede border control in east Ukraine back
to the Kiev-based government, while Ukraine’s promise of local elections in the
occupied areas remains unfulfilled.
In Pisky, a small town outside of the strategically important Donetsk
Airport in east Ukraine, soldiers there are constantly fighting from their
now-frozen trenches. According to Maj. Konstantin Bernatovich, a press officer
with the unit fighting in Pisky, their positions are hit with heavy mortars and
tanks regularly.
While both sides remain firmly entrenched and fighting is relegated to
static battles of machine guns and artillery, the towns caught in the midst of
this eerily-ancient trench warfare have become demilitarized zones
littered with wreckage and unexploded ordnance. If civilians remain, many live
underground and without electricity. From March 2015 to March 2014, 109 children were maimed because of landmines and unexploded bombs in Donetsk and
Luhansk, according to UNICEF’s most recent report on the issue. 42
children were killed.
According to the International Displacement Monitoring Center, there are
1.4 million internally displaced people within Ukraine as of August 2015. More
than 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
As the war nears its two year anniversary, the Kiev-based government
continues to face issues with systemic corruption. On Tuesday, President Petro
Porshenko asked Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to step down as the
embattled minister faces a vote of no-confidence from his parliament.
No comments:
Post a Comment