BackUkraine battles flare up after army’s worst day since truce
'Uncontrolled armed groups' shelled Ukrainian army positions with Grad multiple rocket launchers in at least four locations in the past 24 hours
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Kiev: Fighting continued in Ukraine overnight between government forces and separatists one day after the country’s military suffered its worst casualties since signing a truce earlier this month.
“Uncontrolled armed groups" shelled Ukrainian army positions with Grad multiple rocket launchers in at least four locations in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military press center said on Tuesday on Facebook. On Monday, the Kiev government said nine Ukrainian servicemen were killed in attacks including an assault by a separatist tank on an armoured personnel carrier near the airport of Donetsk, the combat zone’s largest city.
The violence contrasts comments last week by President Petro Poroshenko that the worst of the war is over as Ukraine focuses on elections next month, securing gas supplies and preparing a bid for European Union membership. Russia, which denies involvement in the conflict, said it wants to normalize ties with the EU and the US after being hit by sanctions.
“A ceasefire doesn’t mean peace," Jan Techau, director of the Brussels office of the Carnegie Endowment, said by phone. “It’s a hot stalemate with skirmishes but no massive offensive. It clearly shows that there’s no solution to the conflict."
Worst violence
The violence was the worst flare-up since a truce agreement was signed on 5 September. The two sides have since agreed to establish a 30km buffer zone between government forces and the rebels and exchange prisoners.
The conflict has killed more than 3,500 people and driven at least 615,000 from their homes, the United Nations estimates.
The ruble rose 0.3% against the dollar at 1.00pm Moscow time. Russia’s Micex index rose 0.4%.
While EU countries delayed the creation of a free-trade area with Ukraine until 2016 at Russia’s urging, they have held fast on refusing to ease sanctions. The government in Moscow asked the central bank yesterday to consider providing foreign currency swaps to banks, the government said on its website. Sanctioned companies including state-run oil producer OAO Rosneft and gas producer OAO Novatek have asked for aid.
Russian economy
Russia’s economy is “not in very good shape," foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Bloomberg on 28 September. He softened his tack in comments about the US, telling Russian Channel Five television it was time for ties to undergo a “reset 2.0," a reference to a bid US President Barack Obama’s administration in 2009 to improve relations.
“We are absolutely interested in normalizing ties, but it wasn’t us who destroyed them," Lavrov told Channel Five, according to a transcript on his ministry’s website.
Still, Lavrov said Russia won’t change its stance over Ukraine to win a repeal of sanctions. Ukraine accuses Russia of fomenting the unrest near the two nations’ border to prevent it from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and the EU following the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Vladimir Putin.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the slight easing of the conflict in recent weeks wasn’t a reason to roll back sanctions.
“I don’t see any change at the moment regarding Russia’s position," she told reporters on Monday in Berlin. “Sometimes in history one has to be prepared for the long haul, and not ask after four months if it still makes sense to keep up our demands."
The up-tick in violence may indicate the cease-fire is unravelling as Russia and the separatists see its usefulness waning, said Joerg Forbrig, senior program officer for central and eastern Europe at the Berlin Bureau of the German Marshall Fund of the US.
The militants may be thinking, “It didn’t help in reducing Western pressure, so we might as well go on with what we were doing before," Forbrig said by phone. Bloomberg
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