Ukrainian Cease Fire In Jeopardy

Over the past few days, Ukrainian forces repelled an attack by approximately a thousand pro-Russian separatist fighters in the town of Maryinka, outside of Donetsk. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe claims that separatist rebels initiated the battle, while separatist officials and Kremlin spokesmen state that the rebels defended themselves from a government offensive. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reports that around twelve separatists were captured, including one Russian citizen. Fighting in Ukraine has resumed lately due to failure to fulfill political components of the Minsk cease-fire agreement signed in February, as well as extant cease fire violations. Ukraine’s government demanded that the separatists withdraw all fighters and weapons from Donetsk and Luhansk, and that control of the eastern borders be put back under Kiev’s control in order to prevent the flow of fighters and weapons from Russia. Russia has been supplying the separatist forces with weapons and “volunteers” for quite some time, despite official denials from the Russian government. The separatists made counter demands for the promise of local elections and political autonomy.

Amid reports of a Russian military buildup on the border of Ukraine, President Poroshenko warned of the threat of a Russian invasion during a televised news conference June 5th, and promised the return of Crimea to Ukraine. Poroshenko also stated his plan to continue to work with Western nations to uphold economic sanctions on Russia, referring to the upcoming G7 summit on June 7-8, and discussions in the EU over whether to extend sanctions against Russia. The current EU sanctions are planned to expire in July. Meanwhile, the Kremlin states that the Ukrainians attacked rebel positions at Maryinka to deliberately sabotage the cease fire before the G7 meeting in order to increase sanctions on Russia.

President Obama will encourage the other G7 leaders to maintain sanctions on Russia at the meeting in Germany next week, as well as discuss aid to Iraq in their conflict against Islamic State. Even so, the sanctions have done little to stop Russia from fomenting separatism in the ethnically Russian eastern part of Ukraine and President Obama continues to refuse to send weaponry to the Ukrainian government. In the meantime, observers at Maryinka report that the separatists moved heavy weapons such as tanks and mobile artillery to the region before combat broke out. The terms of the Minsk cease fire restrict the presence of such weaponry in eastern Ukraine.

British think tank Chatham House recently released a report arguing that Russian expansionism presents a clear and existential threat to the European Union. The report states that the Russian government is fully aware that the EU is unwillingness to use force to stop them from creating a buffer state in the Ukraine and is even going so far as to consider the possibility of limited use of nuclear weapons as an instrument of foreign policy. To effectively counter Russia, European nations must be willing to present a strong military deterrent, to defend the Ukraine as a sovereign state, remove Russian leverage in the energy market, and to be able to communicate to the Russian people that they would be better served as allies to a “rules-based” Europe.