European Somalia: 30th Attempt To Impose ‘Complete’ Ceasefire In Eastern Ukraine And Why It Is Doomed To Failure

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On July 27, another “complete and all-encompassing ceasefire” between Kiev regime troops and self-defense forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (LPR and DPR) started in eastern Ukraine.

It became the latest attempt at a complete ceasefire in Ukraine’s troubled east. The previous 29 ceasefires collapsed due to two main factors:

• the inability of the Kiev regime to control various radical groups, neo-Nazi ones, that are deployed on the frontline with the LPR and the DPR;
• the unwillingness of the Kiev regime to support a political solution of the conflict with the DPR and LPR because it uses the conflict in eastern Ukraine (that it falsely calls ‘the war with Russia’) to achieve own political and financial goals, including the justification of selling of the country’s sovereignty to Euro-Atlantic structures, the mass censorship and political terror against opposition parties, media and activists inside Ukraine.

The ability of pro-Kiev forces to participate in ceasefires can be clearly seen from the recent incident near the village of Zaitsevo. On July 14, a sabotage and reconnaissance unit of the Ukrainian Army violated the ceasefire regime entering the ‘gray zone’ and preparing an attack on positions of DPR forces. However, the operation failed and at least 2 members of pro-Kiev forces (including a citizen of Estonia) died and another one received injures. After this, Ukrainian media outlets launched a propaganda campaign accusing the DPR of violating the ceasefire and Russia of ‘another act of aggression’.

The Kiev regime, this time represented by President comedian Volodymyr Zelenski, pretends that this time the situation will be different. On July 26, Zelensky held a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin discussing the prospects of the ceasefire.

“The leaders agreed on the need for an urgent implementation of extra measures to support the ceasefire regime in Donbass,” Zelenskiy’s office announced after the conversation.

“The President of Ukraine stressed the need for further practical steps in the issue of the release of detained Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea, as well as in the Russian Federation.

The parties also discussed the Law on the Special Procedure for Local Self-Government in Certain Districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions, which is being considered by the TCG political subgroup, and the Law on Decentralization, which provides for amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.”

In own turn, the Russian leader expressed concerns over a recent bill adopted by the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), which excluded the region of Donbass from regional elections in 2020 saying it undermines the Minsk agreements and puts the settlement prospects in jeopardy.

“The Russian side underscored the need to prioritise the implementation of the decisions made by the Normandy format leaders, including those that followed the December 2019 summit in Paris.

Vladimir Putin pointed out that the Verkhovna Rada’s July 15 resolution on 2020 local elections contradicts the Minsk agreements and threatens settlement prospects. He also expressed grave concern in view of recent remarks by Ukraine’s top officials on the unacceptability of some of the provisions in the Package of Measures and the need to reconsider them. The President of Russia specially noted that the position Vladimir Zelensky reiterated during their telephone conversation, namely that there can be no alternatives to the Minsk agreements, must find its affirmation in practical actions taken by authorities in Kiev,” the Kremlin said.

The comments by the Russian side, which remains the main supporter of the DPR and LPR and the only force directly opposing an attempt of the Kiev regime and its NATO backers to launch a new large-scale advance in eastern Ukraine, which in the event of the military success will inevitably lead to the ethnic cleansing of Russian population there.

An overwhelming majority of people in eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians, speak Russian as the main language, or self-identify themselves as Russian-speaking people. Since the very same moment, when the current political regime in Kiev came to power in 2014, Russian-speaking people and ethnic Russians were declared enemies of the state and ‘subhumans’ that must be neutralized or even killed in order to allow Ukraine to go forward on its ‘European way’. There is no surprise that this approach immediately led to a rebellion that turned into an armed resistance in the region of Donbass. Crimea evaded the bloodbath thanks to the involvement of Russian forces and the secession of the region to Russia.

In 2020, the ideas of ethnic cleansing of Russian-speaking population in the region of Donbass and Crimea still remain powerful in the Ukrainian political mainstream and among various radical groups and political parties that receive a direct financial, administrative support from the current regime and have access to weapons through illegal weapon trade channels from the conflict zone. The political process and constitutional reforms needed to de-escalate the situation in the east and grant an autonomy to the DPR and LPR face a strong resistance on the all levels of the governance system.

Radicals attack independent journalists, bloggers, political activists, politicians and even people that visit ‘wrong churches’. On July 23, the house of Vitaly Shabunin, the head of the non-profit Anti-Corruption Action Centre, was set on fire. The Centre said it believed the arson was “an assassination attempt” targeting Shabunin and his family. The incident happened in the village of Gnidyn outside Kiev.

Shabunin accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of doing nothing to prevent such attacks.

“He hasn’t done anything about it so far,” he said. “People are being maimed and killed. And no one is held responsible for this.”

On July 13, members of the “National Corps” political party (created on the basis of the “Azov Battalion” neo-Nazi group) attacked a house of the head of the opposition Shariy Party in Kharkov. According to the head of the party, Anatoly Shariy, the attackers were armed with firearms and injured at least 2 people.

According to Shariy, on June 24, members of the “National Corps” attacked and beat an activist of the Shariy Party in the same city – Nikita Rojenko. After the attack, the man was in critical conditions.

On July 26, Ukrainian radicals and supporters of the government-backed ‘independent’ Orthodox Church of Ukraine seized churches of the canonic Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy) in the villages of Novojivotove, Zabolotsy in Volyn Region. Police and local authorities in fact support the seizure of canonic churches of the Moscow Patriarchy across the country violating the people’s freedom of faith.

The aggressive minority of religious and political radicals, including open supporters of neo-Nazy-styled ideology, with help from the government terrorize the peaceful population. At the same time, political parties and pseudo-church organizations created to support this terror receive money and support from Kiev and its Western backers.

Moreover, on July 26, Ukraine officially confirmed that it was discussing the norms of the document with Russia. Moscow could be interested in this topic only in in the context of the autonomy of Donbass. Thus, it is theoretically possible that the final version of amendments to the Constitution will mention of the special status of the region. Coupled with the fact that Ukraine declared additional ceasefire measures, something that Kiev has been diligently avoiding for several months, the sitaution is becoming interesting.

During the past months, top Ukrainian officials regularly criticized the Minsk agreements, proposed to withdraw from them or revise them to meet the vision of the situation by the current regime. The core of the contradictions over the Minsk deal is simple. Kiev seeks to gain control over the border with Russia and the entire territory of the DPR and LPR before the implementation of the political part of Minsk (which comes first in the deal). In practice, this will mean the surrender of the DPR and LPR to pro-Kiev forces, the ‘neutralization’ of DPR and LPR resistance by force (likely with a direct help from NATO) and mass killings and terror of local population by pro-Kiev radicals.

The DPR, LPR and the population of the breakaway republics are apparently not interested in this scenario. Russia, for which the advance of Kiev forces in eastern Ukraine will mean millions of refugees and a humanitarian catastrophe on own border, also cannot allow this.

As to European backers of Kiev, they seem to be also not happy with attempts of the Poroshenko and then Zelensky administrations to speculate on the escalation scenario to gain additional funding and political support from the European Union. This is especially clear from actions of leaders of leading European states like France and Germany. Meanwhile, the European bureaucracy affiliated with the Washington establishment play into the hand of the Ukrainian ‘instigators of war’. These forces are not interested in the settlement of the conflict in eastern Europe because they use it as a pressure point in their efforts to suppress the resistance of leading European states amid the crumbling dominance of globalists.

These contradictions in the motivation of the supporters of the Kiev regime at the heart of conflicting signals sending by the Zelensky administration and the Ukrainian Parliament. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the influence of the US, especially its neo-liberal part of the elite, is especially strong in Ukraine. So, peace-making actions of Germany, France and Russia face a strong local and international resistance.

Zalensky and his team already demonstrated that they are not planning to really fulfill their promises about the need to put  an end to the conflict in the east by peaceful measures. Even if the Zelensky administration sheepishly introduce amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine allowing the political de-escalation of the conflict in Donbass, the law will likely face a backlash in the nationalist-dominated Parliament and protests by radicals. It’s highly unlikely that the presidential administration will have a will and be able to overcome this resistance. Instead, it will likely use this to justify the further sabotage of the Minsk agreements.

Thus, the Zelensky administration will get an opportunity to try to please both its European and US backers:

• In negotiations with Germany and France, the Zelensky team will claim that it was not able to push forward the political settlement due to a ‘strong popular resistance’ in the Parliament and on the streets;
• In negotiations with the Washington establishment, it will insist that it sabotaged the deal to support interests of the US in the region.

As to Russia, Kiev will continue crying foul about the ‘Russian aggression’ simultaneously attacking civilian areas in the region of Donbass and persecuting people in the government-controlled area because of their ‘wrong’ political or religious views. There are little or almost no chances to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine as long as the political regime created in the country after the 2014 coup remains in power. Zelensky, who posed as a peacemaker during his presidential campaign, appeared to be just Poroshenko 2.0. If the current course of the development of Ukraine as a state is unchanged in the next years, the country will be doomed to remain the eastern European version of Somalia. In fact, it may appear that there are more chances that Somalia will achieve the permanent stability and security on its territory than Ukraine under the leadership of the current regime.

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