Ceasefire in Ukraine.

Despite constant provocation and aggressive acts in the form of sanctions from both the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) Russia has today succeeded in brokering a ceasefire between the Ukrainian junta and Ukraine's ethnically Russian minority. This ceasefire came into effect at 15:00 (18:00 local) today.

Unfortunately as I write this there is not yet a full text of the agreement in either Russian or Ukrainian available let alone an English translation. However it is said to be a 12 point plan which has been extended from the 7 point plan that was released on Wednesday (3/9/14)  in order to cover specific details. As such the main bulk of the ceasefire agreement seems to be as follows;

• All military advances in the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions will cease; 

This is rather self-explanatory because it wouldn't be much of a ceasefire if everyone kept fighting

• The junta's forces will withdraw from positions from which they are able to shell civilian population centres.

• The junta will ground its military combat aircraft so they are no longer able to bomb civilian population centres from the air.

These specific conditions are necessary because the junta has yet to honour a single agreement that it has made. Therefore it's forces need to be moved out of range so they don't simply start attacking the ethnic Russian population again breaking the ceasefire.

• Implement full and objective international control over the monitoring of the ceasefire.

Again pretty obvious and simply intended to make sure that both sides adhere to the other clauses of the ceasefire. There is of course some concern that over the past six months the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has seen fit to disregard the junta's breaking of previous agreements and other violations.

• Prisoner/Captive exchange via and all-in-all formula without preconditions.

Despite their previous commitments to disband all Nazi and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups the junta has in fact been creating and arming new paramilitary groups such as the Azov Battalion. These paramilitaries have been rushing to join the assault against ethnic Russian minority areas but have largely only succeeded in getting themselves in trouble. For example the Donbas Battalion was recently surrounded and overrun near to Iloviask leading to some 700 of them being taken prisoner. This clause will allow those prisoners of war to be handed back to the junta and it is believed that the 5 new clauses are intended to deal with the specifics of the handover.

• The establishment of humanitarian corridors across Donetsk and Lugansk regions to allow for the movement of refugees and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

• Direct repair crew access to damaged social and transit infrastructure supported by aid to carry out repairs.

Through the use of heavy weapons such as artillery and air-strikes the junta's 6 month offensive has taken a huge toll on Ukraine's ethnic Russian minority with up to 2,600 of them being killed and the remainder suffering shortages of food, clean water and other essentials. As a result up to 250,000 of them have become internally displaced inside Ukraine and in excess of 1,000,000 have been forced to flee into neighbouring Russia. The opening of humanitarian corridors, safe havens and repairs to vital infrastructure should allow the refugees to return to their homes. It is a standard practise when trying to counter efforts at ethnic cleansing.

Obviously if this ceasefire does hold it will only become long lasting if it is followed up by substantial political reform. The most important of these steps will the junta following through on its commitment to hold an election of October 26th (26/10/14) to give the Ukrainian people their first say in whether they want the junta to continue to speak and act on their behalf.

The international response to the ceasefire is probably best described as one of disappointment;

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has announced the formation of a "Spearhead" rapid reaction force to be based in Poland. As the name suggests the purpose of this force is to attack Ukraine and then Russia should Ukraine reject the junta. In military circles the highly aggressive first wave of an invasion force is often referred to as "the tip of the spear."

The European Union (EU) has decided to delay the announcement of fresh sanctions against Russia that had been scheduled for today. After all it would be terrible public relations to be seen to respond to the declaration of a ceasefire with fresh aggression.  However from his speech at the NATO Summit it seems clear that the UK Prime Minister believes that this delay will not last for more then a couple of days.

The response within the Ukraine to this ceasefire has been much more hostile;

The junta's self-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk aggressively rejected the ceasefire on Wednesday making it quite clear that he instead wants more sanctions against Russia until all Russians are removed from Ukrainian territory. As always with Yatsenyuk it is unclear whether by "Russians" he means Russian citizens or simply Ukrainians of Russian heritage. This split in power obviously creates worries that the junta's forces will disregard the Presidents signing of the ceasefire and simply continue fighting.

The response from the paramilitaries has been even more worrisome. Semen Semenchenko who commands the ill-fated Donbas battalion has called for the President Poroshenko - the only elected member of the junta - to be impeached and for protesters to gather in the streets of the capital to force him out of office. Fortunately so far those protests have only been able to attract around 1000 protesters but it will be interesting to see if those numbers grow as the ceasefire goes into effect.  


16:15 on 5/9/14 (UK date).