Ukraine War Thread

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I am beginning to wonder whether the matter will descend to the "Ukraine or sanctions, choose" stage. Because the end game doesn't seem close enough and if Russia decides it's gonna get sanctions anyway no matter what it does, so might as well fuck Ukraine thoroughly so that the West wins nothing.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm beginning to wonder where is the difference between Yugoslav wars and this. Or, more recently, the Libyan and Syrian civil wars and this.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'm beginning to wonder where is the difference between Yugoslav wars and this. Or, more recently, the Libyan and Syrian civil wars and this.

The difference is that there are nukes involved.

[Vympel]

What is at stake in Ukraine

National Interest continues its impressive run of a broad range of commentary with this piece of Andranik Migranyan, "director of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in New York, which works closely with the Russian Presidential administration."

I don't know how accurately this reflects the "official" Russian position, such as it is, but its an interesting look at how someone close to the Russian Presidency views both the conflict and the way forward. Needless to say, its fraught with danger. While its abundantly clear Russia has no territorial ambitions in Eastern Ukraine (or else Russia would have used its forces outright), the chance of Putin refusing to accept a victory by Kiev's government and instead salvaging the situation (i.e. his image) by simply smashing the Kiev government's forces (oh, and the private military groups being funded by Kiev-friendly Ukrainian oligarchs - yes, those are a thing - and this article is pretty damn good too) directly is growing.

ince the outset of the Ukraine crisis, the estimates on who is winning and losing this battle have changed a number of times both in the West and in Russia. After Yanukovich fled the country in February, it seemed that the West and pro-Western powers were winning, and that, in fact, the formation of an anti-Russian Ukrainian state, integrated in the European economic and Western politico-military structures, was possible. When the sovereignty and then the independence of Crimea were announced, followed by its unification with Russia without shedding a drop of blood or using force, analysts argued that the scale was tipping in favor of Russia, that Ukraine was an existential problem for Russia and that Russia would fight for it till the end.

Since March the West has been making predictions about Putin's next steps--on how far his ambitions and claims will go, on whether there will be an incursion into the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine with their majority of Russian and Russian-speaking population, especially after the anti-Kiev demonstrations in Kharkov, Odessa, Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, and a number of other cities in the region. Or would Moscow lay a claim to the entire Ukrainian territory? Many Western analysts even argued that Putin would not stop there, but would launch an occupation of the Baltic states and NATO would not risk attempting to thwart him.

In fact, Moscow's aims and problems were clearly stated long ago.

Russia's strategic line, defined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before the unification with Crimea, was a comprehensible formula, backed by the more prudent political analysts and strategists both in the U.S. and in the West: Russia supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the federalization of the country, its out-of-bloc status, and the adoption of Russian as a second state language. In this context, Ukraine would be a buffer zone between Russia and the West. It is crucial for Russia to have a friendly country in this region of high sensitivity in politico-military and ethno-cultural terms. If this order of things had been accepted by Washington and Kiev, Crimea would still be an integral part of Ukraine, and the country would not be engulfed in large-scale civil war. Yet neither Washington nor Kiev were ready for compromises. Instead, they played a zero-sum game with Russia.

I believe Russia held all the cards in the period following the unification of Crimea. Most Western politicians and analysts were ready to close their eyes to, if not yet acknowledge, the unification with Crimea and limit themselves to only symbolic sanctions if Russia stopped and did not invade Eastern and Southern Ukraine.

Russia expected its American partners to make their Ukrainian protégés accept its conditions. Unfortunately, these expectations were not met. Washington adopted another strategic line: it pushed for a consolidation of powers in Kiev in order to check Russia's influence in Ukraine and to defeat Russia. As a result, a civil war broke out in Ukraine. Although pro-Russian forces failed to establish their dominance in Odessa and Kharkov, they succeeded in Lugansk and Donetsk, where they proclaimed independent republics supported by referendums in those new formations. The pro-Russian forces regarded themselves as the core of the future Novorossiya, aspiring to unite their republics with the other regions of historical Novorossiya: Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Nikolayev, Zaporozhie in a way leading directly to Transnistria.

Thus, the threat of a new state in the center of Europe, recognized by no one, became real, which threatened to finalize the split of Ukraine.

Understandably, in this situation, even if Russia did not get the whole Ukraine, it would have serious influence over the significant part of it: the military-industrial potential of the East and the South, created by the USSR as an inalienable part of the Military-Industrial Complex of Russia, together with almost half of the country’s population numbering Russians and Russian-speakers, who linguistically, ethnically and culturally identify with Russia. As a result, Russia would have changed its own geopolitical and geostrategic positions in Europe and in the world. In this scenario, Russia would not maintain its control over the whole Ukrainian territory, yet it would not lose anything; on the contrary—it would gain a lot.

In another scenario, if Russia preserved Crimea and the rest of Ukraine fell under the control of anti-Russian nationalists in Kiev, under the command of Washington, the outcome of the fight for Ukraine would obviously be a serious defeat for Russia. It can easily be assumed that most Russians would be forced out of the country in a short period of time, (even today, according to Russian immigration agencies, two million people have already crossed the Russian border), while the remaining Russians would be forcefully “ukrainianized.” No one has any illusions about the national-linguistic policy of the incumbent powers in Ukraine, should they prevail in the South and East of the country.

The unification of Crimea with Russia was a huge achievement; yet the loss of the rest of Ukraine would mean allowing a new frenzied anti-Russian country to be created on the borders of Russia - in line with Poland and the Baltic states - with very grave consequences for Russia. Clearly, nothing would stand in Ukraine’s way of becoming a NATO member, given the anti-Russian ideology of the current elites. By consolidating power in Kiev with the help of the West and especially the U.S., such a state would become a serious instrument for Washington for exerting pressure on Moscow.

After Putin conducted a pause following the unification with Crimea, he relocated the forces from the Ukrainian border and asked the Federal Council to withdraw the mandate of the use of force on the territory of Ukraine, thereby making clear that Russia did not plan to invade. Many analysts interpreted it as a result of the pressure of existing sanctions and the threat of new ones, which prompted Putin to limit himself to Crimea, and pass the initiative to the West in finding solutions to the crisis and surrendering positions in the East and the South of the country. Many analysts argued that Russia miscalculated its decision on Ukraine, was scared of sanctions and, as columnist of the New York Times Thomas Friedman put it, “Putin blinked”. Many in the West were under the impression that Russia was ready to yield the East and the South in the hope of avoiding new sanctions and convincing the West to lift the existing ones, close its eyes to the unification with Crimea, invite Russia back to the G8 and move on as if nothing had happened.

As the situation developed in Ukraine, analysts and politicians both in Russia and the West who thought that Russia, under the pressure of Western sanctions, was changing its strategy toward Ukraine and would abandon the South-East, having satisfied its appetite, were proven wrong. One may assume that it was concluded in Moscow that Russia could realize its strategic goals without a direct deployment of its forces on Ukrainian territory and that, in general, the Kiev authorities, even with the support of the West and the U.S., were not strong enough to realize their own scenario, i.e. to annihilate pro-Russian forces, consolidate their power and create an anti-Russian state, aspiring to get Crimea back and integrate more closely into Western political, military and economic structures. The new Russian tactics probably derived from the assumption that the authorities in Kiev would hardly be able to stabilize the situation: they would not achieve a military victory in Lugansk and Donetsk, which would remain huge obstacles for them and would threaten to move toward Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Odessa and spread across the entire South and East parts of the country; that the West would be unable to pull the country out of its grave economic crisis and collapse. In addition, Russia has the real power to crush the Ukrainian economy by closing its market to Ukrainian goods. Further, Europe cannot impose tangible sanctions against Russia, as, at least for now, any significant sanctions would have a negative impact on Europe itself should Russia decide to stop gas supplies to Europe in retaliation.

Thus, we can state that neither Russia nor the U.S. have given up on their strategic goals; what has changed is the tactics of achieving them. Russia has not given up its strategy on Ukraine, as far as its out-of-bloc status, federalization and friendly state between Russia and Europe. In turn, the U.S. has not given up its own strategy either, regarding the consolidation of state power on an anti-Russian basis and making the country a major forefront for Washington’s pressure on Moscow. In this situation, even Thomas Friedman had to correct himself, saying that Putin didn’t "blink" but rather just that he “winked” thus recognized that Russia didn’t get afraid of sanctions and is instead calculating possible consequences of sanctions imposed on behalf of Europe as well Washington and is in fact ready to continue the fight for Ukraine, since the future of this country is of existential importance to Russia.

Thus, Russia has secured its power to exert substantial influence on national politics in Ukraine without deploying its own military forces or waging a full-blown war with Ukraine. The U.S. faced even greater difficulties on the way of reaching its strategic goals given the collapse of the Ukrainian economy and the state institutions, as well as the severe internecine battles within the elite. In this context, it has became obvious that closer to fall and winter a social conflict might erupt in addition to the national and regional conflicts: Western aid to Ukraine has been based on a number of very severe economic measures such as reducing social spending, increasing public utility costs and tariffs on gas and other energy sources on the domestic market for individual consumers. All these factors combined could completely destroy the powers in Kiev and accelerate the disintegration processes of the country: given the chaos and uncontrollability, other regions, not only in the East and South, would look for salvation, giving up any real hope that Kiev would help them survive.

The crash of the Malaysian airplane occurred against this backdrop. The developments around this incident can prove decisive not only for the outcome of the crisis in Ukraine, but also for the relations between the West and Russia, and what is most important, the relations between Russia and the U.S.

Without waiting for the investigation of the causes of the airplane crash, Washington and many politicians and analysts in the West immediately blamed Russia, pursuing the aim of political and moral-psychological pressure on the country, thus sealing a closer cooperation between the U.S. and the EU. The whole power of the Western political propaganda machine was deployed to depict Russia as a country supporting international terrorism, and by association paint the self-defense forces in Lugansk and Donetsk as terrorist organizations, thereby mobilizing international criticism of Russia’s actions in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Those actions aimed at taking away the initiative and maneuvering power from Russia and Putin in order to voice demands that Moscow close its borders with Ukraine, stop its support of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics and militias, so that Kiev authorities could take control of those territories and consolidate their power on an anti-Russian basis. Washington threatened that should Russia fail to do so, it would be fully isolated made a pariah in international relations. Severe sanctions would be imposed on Russia aimed at completely shattering its economy and forcing it to capitulate on Ukraine. Many politicians and analysts in the U.S. demanded not only the neutralization of Russia, but also an increased politico-military support for the Kiev authorities so that they could sooner finish off the pro-Russian separatists in the East and South of Ukraine.

Russia found itself in a grave situation. Many analysts in Russia and in the West consider that Russia has little choice but to comply with Western demands and reach a solution on the Ukraine crisis by keeping Crimea and yielding the rest of the country, in the hope that, one day, things would resolve and come full circle. Even if the country incurs losses, they would be insignificant, and Crimea would be considered a substantial compensation.

In my opinion this approach is very superficial. Even if Russia agreed to those conditions and stopped its support for the militias in the South and East of Ukraine, Washington would not merely stop there and leave Russia alone. Another demand to give Crimea back and a threat of more sanctions will follow, until the complete capitulation of Moscow. If, after the unification of Crimea with Russia, the West was ready to look the other way in the event of even a direct military invasion of Southern and Eastern Ukraine so as not to allow the invasion of the whole country, it was because Russia was regarded as acting from a position of strength. It is clear that should Russia bow to the threat of sanctions and agree to compromise, it would be seen as acting from a position of weakness and that new concessions could be secured by increasing pressure. As a result, Russia would not realize its strategy, paving the way for the U.S. to realize its own, as we explained before.

And one more thing: the fight for Ukraine is not to decide Ukraine’s fate - it is to decide the future of Russia and the United States as well, and therefore, the future of the world. If Washington regarded Russia as a strategic partner and an ally in creating the new world order, it would obviously be prepared to accommodate the Russian strategy on Ukraine and thereby preserve the prospects of a constructive cooperation with Russia in many other spheres, without pushing Russia into a closer partnership with China.

The fight for Ukraine reveals the global strategy of the U.S. in the formation of a new world order, where all the leading countries have their proper places. The out-of-bloc status of Ukraine is not a part of that strategy. Otherwise Washington would have accepted the perfectly rational conditions of Russia to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. This would have been possible if Washington regarded Russia as a partner. However, Washington has come up with a different role for Russia in the world. This is why Washington considers the fight for Ukraine to be the fight for the future places of Russia and Europe in the new world order. This is why those, who say that the militia in the South and East are fighting not only for themselves, but also for Russia, are right. Washington uses the Ukraine crisis as a tool to deteriorate Russia-EU relations and ignite the feeling of vulnerability among its European partners. By creating the image of Russia as that of an enemy, the U.S. would convince Europe, that without American military support, Europe would be an easy prey for the aggressive and unpredictable Russia, preoccupied with establishing another Soviet Empire, and ready to invade the Baltic states, Poland and further west.

The phantom pains of Poland and the Baltic states, where politicians have a pathological fear of Moscow, further nourish the U.S. strategy toward Europe and Russia. This strategic line aims at an increased politico-military dependence of Europe on the U.S., which could be used as a tool to put pressure on Europe and accelerate the process of creating a new free trade zone between the U.S. and the EU on more favorable conditions for the U.S. A free trade zone would bring Europe closer to the U.S. not only militarily in the framework of NATO, but also economically. And this economic potential would be of great importance for the U.S. in the realization of its more serious global ambitions in the foreseeable future. In this case, Washington does not need an out-of-bloc Ukraine as a buffer zone between Russia and Europe, since it presumably has developed a different strategic line for Russia, too. Most probably this strategic line does not see Russia as a sovereign and self-sufficient country, which can make decision of its own, in favor of Europe or China. This is why Russia must be defeated and brought back to the state of dependence on the U.S. as it was in 1990s. Washington also clearly understands that Russia must not be given the opportunity for a closer cooperation with China in the foreseeable perspective. Russian vast territories, military, scientific and technological potential and natural resources in case of Russia’s closer political and military alliance with China could seriously change the balance of power between U.S. and China. That is why Ukraine is needed as part of Western politico-military structures for a tighter encirclement of Russia so as to try and bring about regime change in Russia itself and subjugate the Russian leadership to the U.S. Integration of the European economy in a single Euro-Atlantic free trade zone would contribute to the institutionalization of an economic alliance, the united economic power of which would far surpass the Chinese economy. Yet, for the purposes of restraining the growing ambitions of China, the U.S. must have control of Russian resources, for which regime change in Russia is need. A sovereign Russia with such a powerful leader is a serious obstacle on the way of realization of the geopolitical and geostrategic goals of the U.S.

In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski recently wrote in his book “Strategic Vision”, that closer cooperation between Europe and U.S. was essential, and that Russia must be incorporated in the U.S. and European interests so that the envisioned Euro-Atlantic alliance could successfully meet future challenges. Quite obviously, the incorporation of Russia in the alliance presupposes a subordinate role for Russia, as no one intends to give it an independent position in the framework of this new world order, where the U.S. seeks to preserve its politico-military dominance using European economic potential and Russian resources. Professor Brzezinski did not give me a clear answer to my question asked during a seminar in Washington regarding the role of Russia in this context. That is why the fight for Ukraine does not determine the future of the Lugansk or Donetsk republics, nor even of Ukraine. In fact, in front of our eyes unfolds a new stage of the fight for resources, setting the stage for the future battle of giants – the U.S. and China.

Based on this reasoning, we can draw a very important conclusion.

If such a vision of American strategy is true, at the end of the day it makes no difference who rules Russia and what Russia’s viewpoint on the Ukraine crisis is. If U.S. strategy seeks to limit Russia’s sovereignty and subordinate it to Washington’s diktat, use Russia’s resources in the future collision with China and not allow any closer cooperation between Russia and China, then this strategy will continue no matter what compromises Russia is ready to make on the current stage of the Ukraine crisis. Obviously, Washington will not stop there. Sanctions will become more serious without any justification. It is always possible to find reasons to punish Russia, if one wishes to do so. That is why I think that even though the session of the Russian Security Council, held last week in Moscow disappointed many, as no sensational announcements were made, for me personally, the title of the session “Securing Russia’s Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity” was important and noteworthy. It means that Russian government understands the purpose of the U.S. strategy to limit the country's sovereignty as it was in 1990s, and to achieve this goal not through direct confrontation with Russia, but by way of some sort of color revolution. That is why I think that this session of the Security Council was a message to Washington, to indicate that their strategy is clear to Russia and that there will not be an easy victory. Russia is ready to defend its sovereignty and will not allow regime change. And this in its turn means that the stakes will become higher in the Ukraine crisis and its outcome of which will determine not only the future of the East and the South of Ukraine, but of Russia, U.S, Europe, China and the whole world.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the main point of this article.

Obviously, Washington may be ready to make compromises only under the threat of losing the whole or at least the significant part of Ukraine rather than due to Russian concerns resulting from the fear of even more severe sanctions. If Russia demonstrates any weakness or accommodation, the threat of new sanctions will not fade, but on the contrary, the scale of demands will increase.

Quite surprisingly, even among Russian liberals there are prudent people, who consider that the sanctions will not scare Russia or break its determination to continue its consistent policy on Ukraine. On the contrary, the sanctions will be regarded as an American attempt to crush Russia and will rally the people around the leader even more. As one of Russia’s prominent liberals who hasn’t lost touch with Russian soil, what is itself an exceptional case among Russian liberal circles, George Bovt writes in The Moscow Times (July 23, 2014), “The more the pressure the international community applies [on Russia – A.M.], the stronger the anti-Western sentiments will become and the higher Putin’s ratings will climb.” In this regard, he calls for the West to be sober: “There’s only one alternative: The West must urgently find a compromise on Ukraine question, recognizing that Russia’s and its interests cannot be pushed to the sidelines and that desire to deliver a humiliating defeat to Moscow can only intensify the conflict.” To call things by their names, Bovt admits in his article that the West will not defeat Russia with sanctions, and that such a policy can have serious consequences both for the West and even more so for the liberals and pro-Western circles in Russia.

Then there's this piece by Vaclav Klaus, second President of the Czech Republic, which offers up the most succint / powerful description yet of the cultural divide in Ukraine. Excerpt follows:

http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/3553

5. The independent Ukrainian state did not exist before 1991, unless we consider as such the brief period of civil war after the 1917 October revolution, when unsuccessful attempts at Ukrainian independence featured such controversial figures as general Skoropadsky, atamans Machno and Petljura, or Stepan Bandera in World War II. Their legacy (anti-semitism, affinity to German Nazis), is considered very controversial outside the nationalistic western Ukraine.

6. Older historical traditions speak in favor of strong ties to Russia – the Kievan Rus period, the acceptance of orthodox Christianity, or the tradition of the Zaporozhian cossacs who fought the Turks and the Poles and brought Ukraine of the time into tsarist Russia. The common Russo-Ukrainian experience of the Soviet times as well as World War II created strong human, social, economic and political bonds that cannot be easily replaced.

7. More than twenty years of Ukrainian independence that followed, were not enough to create a common Ukrainian identity and convince the people of this very heterogenous land that independent Ukraine is the right social formation, fulfilling their national aspirations. Such ambition is seen in especially among ethnic Ukrainians living in the west (Galicia, Volhynia) who accentuate the tragic experience of the Soviet era (deportations, gulags, famine), harbor anti-Russian feelings and wish to build Ukraine as a Ukrainian nation state. The position of a „second“ Russian state as sought by Presidents Kravchuk and Kuchma is unacceptable to them. It is no coincidence that this backward and weak western part of Ukraine was the moving force behind the 2004 Orange Revolution as well as the Maidan protests in 2014. By overthrowing Janukovych, the nationalist western part of the land assumed exclusive power attempting to disrupt the long, traditional Ukrainian ties to Russia, and replace it with exclusive orientation on the West, the EU and the United States. However, experience shows that western Ukraine is not strong enough to fulfill these plans – the economic weight of its eastern part so far prevailed every time.

Ukraine's Russians – members of a great cultural nation, formerly dominant throughout the region – do not and cannot share the nationalist ambitions of western Ukrainians. The disruption of close ties with Russia, generally wealthier, more successful and orderly today, is unthinkable to them. They do not see the Soviet era as an occupation by a foreign power, they consider themselves as victors of World War II, not victims. Bandera's sympathizers are traitors and fascists in their eyes, a state built on such legacy is unacceptable. Like Russians, they mistrust the West and do not want to be part of blocks aimed against Russia. Militant anti-russism of western-Ukrainian nationalists is insulting and threatening to them. Due to the Soviet tradition, this part of the population has long been indifferent to national issues. However, present developments make this group more aware of national feelings and the mood among them is more and more antagonistic in that respect.

After twenty years of independence, Ukraine is a divided country on the threshold of economic bankruptcy. It is home to two nations with different and probably antagonistic visions of the future, two nations growing apart every day. Both these nations look up to the world outside with unrealistic expectations – one to the West, the other to Russia.

[Irbis]

Hello, if you don't remember, USA and UK pushed to make Russia only ex-Soviet state to posses nukes because others couldn't be trusted with them. In case you are unaware, that includes Poland, too, soon to became NATO member country sent its uranium stockpile to Russia, and yet, you'd let fascist have access to them

Self correction here, as I remembered wrong. The shipments of ex-Soviet enriched uranium Poland got as an ally back to Russia to be reprocessed into low grade material in cooperation with USA actually continued until at least 2012, 15 years after we joined NATO, as part of ongoing anti-proliferation operation:

http://nnsa.energy.gov/mediaroom/pressr ... ctor092512

So, yeah, idea that shaky, corrupt regime that never in its history had really democratic election or rule of law should have kept fully functional nukes to spite Russia is not only really stupid, it would also prove virtually all fears and accusations Russia has about NATO, had this been common NATO opinion. Thankfully at least some people smarter than this were pushing for cooperation and disarming instead...

[cosmicalstorm]

They fired short range ballistic weapons today. Hopefully someone filmed it.

[Mange]

Are the Russians preparing a peacekeeping operation? Twitter

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Are the Russians preparing a peacekeeping operation? Twitter

It merely means that the Russians are going to show how much they give a fuck about sanctions now.

[K. A. Pital]

Are the Russians preparing a peacekeeping operation? Twitter

Very well may be. As Fingolfin said above, given that Putin tried to avoid sectoral sanctions and being locked out of Western capital markets, but got this anyway, 'all options are on the table'. Since this is basically the first time serious sanctions are introduced (locking out VTB and Sberbank may leave Russia unable to complete many projects, both internally and in international trade), no idea what the reaction will be.

[Vympel]

Foreign Policy doesn't think the sanctions are as tough as being portrayed.

The United States and the European Union unveiled new sets of economic sanctions against Russia and threatened to ratchet them up even further if Russian strongman Vladimir Putin continues to support separatists in Ukraine. Behind the tough talk, however, is a careful set of measures with so many loopholes that they are unlikely to hobble the Russian economy.

The coordinated moves by Washington and Brussels began Tuesday, when European leaders took their broadest swipe yet at key sectors of the Russian economy and announced measures designed to block Russian banks from using the continent's capital markets, curtail the export of oil industry equipment, and ban member countries from signing new defense contracts with Russia. But the EU left some loopholes large enough to send a couple of giant warships through, as the French government still plans to do. Also left largely untouched was Russia's all-powerful gas industry.

Hours later, President Barack Obama announced new sanctions designed to match the EU move, keeping Russian oil companies from buying Western firms' technology to extract its hard-to-reach deep-sea and shale oil reserves. It's unclear whether that prohibition will hit existing energy contracts.

The new European sanctions go further than ever before but still fall short of the type of "sectoral sanctions" that would block business with entire Russian industries. That reflects EU leaders' concerns that hitting Russia too hard would also hurt their own companies and industries. The arms embargo, for instance, doesn't apply to existing agreements. That means the $1.6 billion French deal to sell Mistral warships to Russia, which had come under fire from British officials last week, will be allowed to go forward, though France has said it will only deliver the first one while re-evaluating whether to also deliver the second.

That's not the only sacred cow left untouched. While the new coordinated measures target future oil production, they don't touch the natural gas business, a pillar of Russia's export economy and a lifeline for Europeans. Both the United States and Europe took steps to restrict trade in key oil industry equipment needed for extracting oil from deep waters, in the Arctic, and from shale -- all areas where Russia hopes to boost its oil output in years to come. The U.S. Commerce Department said it will limit the export of crucial oil technology to Russia, but it is not yet clear exactly what goods and services will be banned, how that will affect Russia's current oil production, or even how much U.S. and European firms will be hit by export bans on certain oil projects.

But in theory, the measures could put the pinch on Russian energy production in years to come: Russia needs to increase output by about 1.5 million barrels per day by the end of the decade to compensate for declining production at old fields. Tapping tight oil could be the key -- but that requires lots of oil-field services, such as drilling rigs, which the country does not have, despite efforts by state-owned Rosneft and others to bolster Russia's domestic oil-field services sector. Russia could also turn to other countries, such as China, for energy technology. Putin has already proven adept at finding other customers in the midst of the battle with Europe, such as a mammoth $400 billion natural gas deal with China that will diversify Russia's energy exports.

EU nations may also be able to buy certain military equipment from Russia to help maintain existing tanks and weapons bought from Moscow, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. That could keep the measures from taking too much of a bite out of the Russian defense industry.

The Obama administration, for its part, moved to shut three more Russian financial institutions -- VTB Bank, Bank of Moscow, and Russian Agricultural Bank -- out of U.S. capital markets. The move doesn't block Americans from dealing with the banks entirely, but expands an earlier list of banks that are prohibited from seeking medium- and long-term financing from U.S. investors. The targeted Russian banks now make up 30 percent of the Russian banking sector, by assets, according to an Obama administration official. The United States also added a navy shipbuilder, the government-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation, to its list of blacklisted defense companies, barring American companies and individuals from dealing with them.

Obama said the new U.S. measures would further weaken an already wobbly Russian economy. Russian economic growth was already down heading into 2014, but the combination of Moscow's foray into Ukraine and the threat of sanctions has driven economic forecasts down further. Economists say Russia could see $100-$150 billion in capital outflow this year, with growth close to zero.

The EU's turn toward targeting industries comes amid growing evidence that Putin is escalating his support for pro-Russian separatists inside Ukraine. U.S. officials believe that the rebels used a Russian-provided anti-aircraft missile to down a civilian airplane, killing all of the nearly 300 passengers on board. American officials say that Putin has moved 15,000 troops to its border with Ukraine in recent weeks and fired into the country from positions inside Russia.

"The package of new restrictive measures agreed today by the European Union constitutes a powerful signal to the leaders of the Russian Federation: destabilizing Ukraine, or any other eastern European neighboring state, will bring heavy costs to its economy," Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said in a statement. The details of the EU measures are expected to be published Thursday, which is when they will go into effect.

Still, the big unknown in the West's sanctions equation is how far the United States and its allies would need to go to force Putin, whose popularity has soared since the Ukrainian crisis began, to change course. The White House recognized in a briefing Monday that Putin had been "doubling down" and providing more weaponry and support to the pro-Russian separatists, a point Obama emphasized when he announced the new sanctions.

"Today, Russia is once again isolating itself from the international community, setting back decades of genuine progress," President Obama said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

Russian lawmakers were already considering countermeasures, including legislation that could bar firms from certain countries from operating in Russia, according to reports by state-owned media. The ban would target big transnational firms like Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and KPMG, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Despite the tough talk from Washington and Brussels, Obama took pains to avoid saying anything that could ratchet up tensions with Putin even further.

"No, it's not a new cold war," the president said in response to a shouted question. "What it is, is a very specific issue related to Russia's unwillingness to recognize that Ukraine can chart its own path."

MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/ AFP/ GETTY

In any event, sanctions have no chance of working in the current way they're formulated.

Making sanctions work

Sometimes one might inflict punishment for a past deed in the hope of deterring similar deeds in the future, by either the same perpetrator or someone else. If that is being done, however, the punishment is a one-off action with a definite ending that does not depend on any changes in the other country's behavior. That is not the case with these latest sanctions. Moreover, the downing of the airliner is a poor focus for that kind of punishment because of the accidental nature of the incident. The tragedy of the airliner helps to demonstrate the danger of giving lethal toys to rebels, and politically it clearly had a significant role in moving the Europeans to take stronger action against Russia, but logically and strategically the sanctions should not be thought of as a response to that incident.

Sanctions are a means of affecting the target state's cost-benefit calculus, to increase the chance that state will stop doing something we don't want it to do or to start doing something we want it to do. The first step in a successful application of sanctions is to decide what that something is. This step is more complicated than it might seem, especially with an adversary with whom we have an assortment of grievances. The change in behavior has to be important enough to us to be worth the expenditure of political capital and other costs involved in applying sanctions, but also to be a reasonable enough demand that there is a decent chance the target state will comply. The broader are our demands, the better compliance would be for our interests but the less likely compliance—any compliance—will be achieved.

Blinken's formula that Russia must “cease its support for the separatists and stop destabilizing Ukraine” is a worthwhile and reasonable demand to attach to these sanctions. The stability of Ukraine is certainly important, and Russia's dealings with the separatists appear to have a great deal to do with its current instability. As a matter of international law as well as policy importance, the demand is on sound ground. By the same token, it muddies the water and reduces the chance of compliance to talk about Russia's military deployments on its own side of the border. Those deployments might make us or the Ukrainians nervous, but they are not destabilizing Ukraine. They are taking place on Russia's sovereign territory, there is no demilitarized zone that they violate, and Vladimir Putin would be on sound legal ground to disregard any Western demands about them.

Another step is to communicate clearly to the target country exactly what is the offensive behavior that needs to be changed. Specific, observable and measurable pieces of behavior need to be identified. It is necessary to be more specific with the Russians in private than we have been in public as to exactly what “stop destabilizing Ukraine” means.

An equally important step—one far too often overlooked in much discussion of sanctions—is to communicate persuasively to the target country that the demanded change in behavior is a sufficient as well as necessary condition for the sanctions to be lifted. The leadership of the target country needs to be convinced that, after compliance, sanctions will not be continued because of some other grievance or demand. As Andranik Migranyan notes, this is a hazard in the current instance in that Putin might believe that because of Crimea or some other issue (including those military deployments in Russian territory) sanctions will be left in place. If he does believe that, he has no incentive to comply with any demand.

Finally, it is important to remember that the sanctions are only one term in a cost-benefit calculation. They make it harder for the other country to persist in behavior we don't like. Just as important is to try to make it easier for the other side to switch to behavior we do like. One thing this means in the current instance is that Putin should know that if he does comply, he will be allowed to crow unchallenged about how the West backed down from unjustified economic warfare, and that he will not have to admit anything about arming the rebels in Ukraine—but rather just to end the arming quietly.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Are the Russians preparing a peacekeeping operation? Twitter

Very well may be. As Fingolfin said above, given that Putin tried to avoid sectoral sanctions and being locked out of Western capital markets, but got this anyway, 'all options are on the table'. Since this is basically the first time serious sanctions are introduced (locking out VTB and Sberbank may leave Russia unable to complete many projects, both internally and in international trade), no idea what the reaction will be.

Putin is very silent right now. Heaven knows what he's planning/thinking/plotting...

And that typically is a bad sign...

[Vympel]

They're saying Russia has some 15,000 men on the border with Ukraine, and that forces are building up again. This could be just saber-rattling, an attempt to intimidate Ukraine and its backers into coming to terms, or it could be Russia actually preparing to intervene directly under the "Responsibility to Protect" pretext made up by US/NATO to justify its attack on Serbia.

The latter would be immensely damaging for Ukraine, Russia and everyone caught in the cross fire, but in Putin's calculus it could be deemed to be "worth it".

There's no question that those troops could easily defeat Ukraine's forces in Donetsk and Luhansk, while transparently not being enough to occupy the whole country. Defeating those forces would cripple Ukraine militarily for the foreseeable future. What it has there right now is pretty much all it can effectively muster. This would force Ukraine to accept a peace on Russia's terms. The cost would be full sectoral sanctions.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They're saying Russia has some 15,000 men on the border with Ukraine, and that forces are building up again. This could be just saber-rattling, an attempt to intimidate Ukraine and its backers into coming to terms, or it could be Russia actually preparing to intervene directly under the "Responsibility to Protect" pretext made up by US/NATO to justify its attack on Serbia.

The latter would be immensely damaging for Ukraine, Russia and everyone caught in the cross fire, but in Putin's calculus it could be deemed to be "worth it".

There's no question that those troops could easily defeat Ukraine's forces in Donetsk and Luhansk, while transparently not being enough to occupy the whole country. Defeating those forces would cripple Ukraine militarily for the foreseeable future. What it has there right now is pretty much all it can effectively muster. This would force Ukraine to accept a peace on Russia's terms. The cost would be full sectoral sanctions.

Maybe they figured that full sectoral sanctions are well on the way anyway so why the hell not.

[Vympel]

Maybe they figured that full sectoral sanctions are well on the way anyway so why the hell not.

One can only hope the big kids are talking behind the scenes. There could be a massive miscalculation if they assume Russia definitely won't use force to advance its position and will simply accept the new order of things in Ukraine.

EDIT:

Merkel is pushing a pretty good deal for everyone.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 38764.html

Merkel and Putin negotiate to trade Crimea’s sovereignty for guarantees on energy security and trade

Margareta Pagano

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Germany and Russia have been working on a secret plan to broker a peaceful solution to end international tensions over the Ukraine.

The Independent can reveal that the peace plan, being worked on by both Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, hinges on two main ambitions: stabilising the borders of Ukraine and providing the financially troubled country with a strong economic boost, particularly a new energy agreement ensuring security of gas supplies.

More controversially, if Ms Merkel’s deal were to be acceptable to the Russians, the international community would need to recognise Crimea’s independence and its annexation by Russia, a move that some members of the United Nations might find difficult to stomach.

Sources close to the secret negotiations claim that the first part of the stabilisation plan requires Russia to withdraw its financial and military support for the various pro-separatist groups operating in eastern Ukraine. As part of any such agreement, the region would be allowed some devolved powers.

At the same time, the Ukrainian President would agree not to apply to join Nato. In return, President Putin would not seek to block or interfere with the Ukraine’s new trade relations with the European Union under a pact signed a few weeks ago.

Second, the Ukraine would be offered a new long-term agreement with Russia’s Gazprom, the giant gas supplier, for future gas supplies and pricing. At present, there is no gas deal in place; Ukraine’s gas supplies are running low and are likely to run out before this winter, which would spell economic and social ruin for the country.

As part of the deal, Russia would compensate Ukraine with a billion-dollar financial package for the loss of the rent it used to pay for stationing its fleets in the Crimea and at the port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea until Crimea voted for independence in March.

However, these attempts by Ms Merkel to act as a broker between President Putin and the Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko, were put on the back-burner following the shooting down of the MH17 plane in eastern Ukraine.

But insiders who are party to the discussions said yesterday that the “German peace plan is still on the table and the only deal around. Negotiations have stalled because of the MH17 disaster but they are expected to restart once the investigation has taken place.”

“It is in everyone’s interests to do a deal. Hopefully, talks will be revived if a satisfactory outcome can be reached to investigations now taking place as to the causes of the MH17 catastrophe.”

Closer trading ties with the EU have been one of the big ambitions of Mr Poroshenko’s presidency. He has been a staunch supporter of the country’s pro-European movement even though he is unaffiliated to any political party. He was one of the backers of the 2004 Orange Revolution and served as Foreign Minister under Yulia Tymoshenko.

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said they had no knowledge of such negotiations taking place. However, the spokesman said he thought it highly unlikely that either the US or UK would agree to recognising Russian control over Crimea. There was no one available at the German embassy’s press office yesterday.

Reaching a solution to the ongoing dispute is pertinent for the Germans as Russia is their single biggest trading partner. Under Ms Merkel, the Russo-German axis has strengthened significantly and, until the plane shooting, her government had been staunchly against punitive sanctions for commercial but also diplomatic reasons.

Such strong trade ties between the two countries have also served to strengthen Ms Merkel’s hand and the Russian speaker has emerged as the leading advocate of closer relations between the EU and Russia. “This is Merkel’s deal. She has been dealing direct with President Putin on this. She needs to solve the dispute because it’s in no one’s interest to have tension in the Ukraine or to have Russia out in the cold. No one wants another Cold War,” said one insider close to the negotiations.

Some of Germany’s biggest companies have big operations in Russia, which is now one of Europe’s biggest car markets, while many of its small to medium companies are also expanding into the country. Although Russia now provides EU countries with a third of their gas supplies through pipelines crossing the Ukraine, Germany has its own bilateral gas pipeline direct to Russia making it less vulnerable than other European countries.

However, Russia is still the EU’s third-biggest trading partner with cross-border trade of $460bn (£272bn) last year, and the latest sanctions being introduced by the EU towards Russian individuals and banks will hurt European countries more than any other – particularly Germany, but also the City of London.

Central to the negotiations over any new gas deal with Gazprom is understood to be one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen, the gas broker, Dmitry Firtash. Mr Firtash – who negotiated the first big gas deal between the Ukraine and Russia between 2006 and 2009 – is now living in Vienna fighting extradition charges from the Americans. But he has close relations with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders – he supported Mr Poroschenko – and has been acting as a go-between behind the scenes at the highest levels.

[Mange]

"Pretty good deal"? It's another Munich agreement and it restricts Ukraine's freedom all to much.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

"Pretty good deal"? It's another Munich agreement and it restricts Ukraine's freedom all to much.

Ukraine was never going to have it from the start.

[K. A. Pital]

Yes, it is a bad deal for Ukraine. Is it better or worse than being dismembered and torn apart by force, like Yugoslavia? Don't know. It would likely happen anyway, Vympel has too much hope for the politicians shady deals. Contradictions are rising.

[Vympel]

"Pretty good deal"? It's another Munich agreement

Its not 1938, Putin isn't Hitler, Poroshenko's Ukraine isn't Czechoslovakia, and the Crimea isn't Sudetenland. There are no historical parallels whatsoever apart from "designated enemy [Russia] is being negotiated with instead of attacked."

and it restricts Ukraine's freedom all to much.

Russia paying Ukraine generous compensation in various forms for a territory which was already an economic drain, which had no desire to remain with Ukraine, and which everyone knows should never have legally been part of Ukraine in the first place is a good outcome for them. The deal also makes the best balance between Ukraine's own economic development and the interests of the great power to the east, which simply must be respected if there's ever going to be peace. Ukraine joining NATO, which is the only "freedom" they're really losing - would not be good for anyone at all, including Ukraine.

A degree of devolved powers to the east would answer all legitimate complaints. Hardcore new Russia nationalists would not get what they want, and they'd be bereft of Russian support. The war would swiftly end.

Its the best solution, by far.

Yes, it is a bad deal for Ukraine. Is it better or worse than being dismembered and torn apart by force, like Yugoslavia? Don't know. It would likely happen anyway, Vympel has too much hope for the politicians shady deals. Contradictions are rising.

Oh, I'm not hopeful it'll be resolved this way. I just would prefer it were.

[The Romulan Republic]

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28577904

Nato 'unprepared' for Russia threat, say MPs
Pro-Russian militants sit on a tank in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine
Pro-Russian militants in Ukraine. The MPs warned about the use of irregular militias.
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Nato is poorly prepared for an attack on a member state from Russia, an influential group of MPs has warned.

The Commons Defence Committee said the recent Ukraine conflict showed "serious deficiencies" in Nato's preparedness to counter threats - and "radical reform" was needed.

The MPs said the risk of a conventional assault remained low - but warned over methods such as cyber-attacks and the use of irregular militias.

Nato said it would study the findings.

The committee called for changes including:

Establishing a continuous presence of Nato troops and military equipment in "vulnerable" Baltic states, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
Adding unconventional threats such as irregular militia and cyber-attacks to Nato's Article 5 commitment for all members to come to the aid of a member which is attacked
"Dramatic" improvements to existing rapid reaction forces.
Large-scale exercises involving military and political leaders from all Nato states
The MPs also warned Nato "may not have the collective political will to take concerted action to deter attack".

And they said public opinion may not support the use of military force to honour Article 5 commitments in a confrontation with Russia.

"Nato is currently not well-prepared for a Russian threat against a Nato member state," the report said.

"A Russian unconventional attack, using asymmetric tactics - the latest term for this is 'ambiguous warfare' - designed to slip below Nato's response threshold, would be particularly difficult to counter."

'Too complacent'
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.
Defence Select Committee chair Rory Stewart and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon discuss Russia's threat to Nato member states
Tory MP Rory Stewart, who was elected chairman of the committee in May, said: "The risk of attack by Russia on a Nato member state, whilst still small, is significant. We are not convinced that Nato is ready for this threat.

"Nato has been too complacent about the threat from Russia, and it is not well-prepared.

"Even worse, the nature of Russian tactics is changing fast - including cyber-attacks, information warfare, and the backing of irregular 'separatist groups', combining armed civilians with Russian Special Forces operating without insignia," said Mr Stewart, a former soldier and diplomat who has worked in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We have already seen how these tactics have been deployed by Russia and its proxies in Ukraine to destabilise a Nato partner state, annex part of its territory and paralyse its ability to respond."

Typhoon jet
Typhoon jets have already taken part in exercises in eastern Europe
The report said that while Nato had not seen Russia as a territorial threat for 20 years, recent events meant it was "forced to do so".

"Events in Ukraine this year, following on from the cyber attack on Estonia in 2007 and the invasion of Georgia by Russia in 2008, are a 'wake-up call' for Nato", it read.

"They have revealed alarming deficiencies in the state of Nato preparedness, which will be tough to fix."

The committee also called on the government to show leadership when it hosts a Nato summit in Wales in September.

The report added: "The UK government should take the lead in ensuring that the Nato summit addresses these threats in the most concrete and systematic fashion."

'Adapt to change'
Mr Stewart said the government should ring-fence defence spending to at least 2% of GDP (the overall size of the UK economy).

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told BBC Radio 4's Today that the government had committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence "at the moment" and he hoped that would continue when the next government-wide spending review takes place.

He said that the UK was committed to taking part in large scale exercises in Europe.

Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said: "As early as March, the Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Russia's military actions in and around Ukraine a wake-up call for the alliance and for the wider international community.

"He has also made clear that Nato must adapt to a changed security environment and that the Wales Summit in September will be an important milestone in that process.

"Nato has already taken measures to reinforce collective defence, especially for our eastern allies, with more planes in the air, more ships at sea, and more exercises on the ground.

"All 28 allies are contributing, and the United Kingdom is playing an important role in policing Baltic airspace and planned exercises in Poland."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which was formed in 1949, is predicated upon a series of collective security guarantees between its members.

The alliance has expanded widely in the past 15 years, admitting states that border Russia and three - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - which were once part of the Soviet Union.

'Future threats'
Earlier this week, it emerged that the UK is to send a "full battle group" of 1,350 military personnel to take part in Nato manoeuvres in Poland to support allies in eastern Europe.

It is the UK's largest such commitment to the region since 2008.

Labour said the report underlined Nato's position as the "cornerstone" of UK defence policy and the "sole organisation for collective defence".

"The government must demonstrate UK leadership on the international stage at the upcoming Wales summit," said shadow defence secretary Vernon Coaker.

"Recalibrating Nato as a military and political alliance to deter future threats must be a priority for this government which has failed under David Cameron to think strategically about future UK defence capabilities."

The proposed changes related to Article 5 are terrifying. They would make it far easier to start World War III.

[K. A. Pital]

Cyber-attacks as a casus belli? Just what the fuck are they smoking?

[The Romulan Republic]

It would have to be an extraordinary cyberattack to be worth a war, much less a nuclear war.

Edit: I'm very anti-Putin and I think this sounds idiotic.

And I stupidly edited out the first part of my post. Sorry.

[Siege]

"A Russian unconventional attack, using asymmetric tactics - the latest term for this is 'ambiguous warfare' - designed to slip below Nato's response threshold, would be particularly difficult to counter."

And there's a good reason for that. NATO exists to respond if one of its member countries comes under military attack - actual attack, that is, not simply some hacker banging on its digital doors. Article 5 not activating in case of cybercrime or sponsored militia activity in a non-NATO country is a design feature not a deficiency, and changing this would be an apalling case of mission creep.

NATO is a joint defense organization not a 'push around people we don't like' organization. It should stay the fuck away from situations it has no business interfering in.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, it's not even 'push around people we don't like'. It is more like lowering the war cause threshold so low that you could start a war over almost anything. That flies in the face of mutual defence with strict rules (such as invasion of a member state's territory), and makes debacles like Iraq easier to happen.

But... *suspiciously* Maybe that's what they want?

[bobalot]

Enmity and Civilian Toll Rise in Ukraine While Attention Is Diverted

DONETSK, Ukraine — One was a retired cook. Another installed alarms in cars. Another was a cleaner in a grocery store who had gone out to buy ground beef to make her son meatball soup.

With international attention focused on the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the deaths of these three civilians — some of the roughly 800 who have been killed in the battle over eastern Ukraine — have gone virtually unnoticed by the outside world.

The Ukrainian military’s advances to reclaim territory from rebel control have come at a steep human cost. According to a United Nations count released on Monday, 799 civilians have been killed since mid-April, when Ukraine began to battle insurgents here, and at least 2,155 have been wounded.

The killings have left the population in eastern Ukraine embittered toward Ukraine’s pro-Western government, and are helping to spur recruitment for the pro-Russian militias. In time, even if the Ukrainian military routs the rebels and retakes the east, the civilian deaths are likely to leave deep resentments here, and could complicate reconciliation efforts for decades.

The rising toll of the conflict in eastern Ukraine — the first open hostilities in Europe in 15 years — is a direct consequence of the nature of the war here. Much of the fighting takes the form of low-tech airstrikes and artillery fired at a distance from aging weaponry, tactics that can inflict significant harm on civilians. (In comparison, 330 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, the United Nations said. There are no estimates for rebels.)

In a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch documented four instances of the use of unguided Grad rockets, which killed at least 16 civilians in and around Donetsk in nine days. While both rebels and Ukrainian forces use the rockets — descendants of World War II-era weapons — the investigation “strongly indicates that Ukrainian government forces were responsible” for the four attacks.

“Using these kinds of weapons in populated areas is a violation of the laws of war,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “International allies of the Ukrainian government — the United States, the European Union — should condemn this use and urge the government to stop.”

Ukraine’s military strongly denies responsibility for any attacks that have caused civilian deaths. Vladislav Seleznyov, a military spokesman, did not comment on the report itself, but he said that soldiers were under orders not to harm civilians.

“We are prohibited from using artillery in residential areas,” he said. “Yes, we have these weapons,” he said, referring to Grads, “but we never use them in civilian areas. No way.”

But the military’s campaign against the rebels has increased the likelihood of civilian casualties given how deeply the rebels have embedded into the civilian population.

As Ukrainian troops inched toward Donetsk and Luhansk in recent weeks, two regional capitals with a combined population of 1.5 million, residents feared the worst, looking to what happened in Slovyansk, a small city to the north that the military took by pounding rebel positions and flattening the neighborhoods where the rebels were.

Those fears were soon realized. One of the main rebel bases in Luhansk is in a military recruitment office next to the main bus station, and it drew intense shelling, leaving power lines scattered like string over the shrapnel-torn pavement.

And in Donetsk, where Ukrainian troops have pressed forward from the north and west for weeks, the Marinka, Petrovsky and Kuibyshevsky neighborhoods have come under heavy rocket fire. The barrages against all three areas, according to Human Rights Watch, originated from positions held by the Ukrainian military. Mr. Seleznyov said he could not comment on specific events.

On July 21 in Kuibyshevsky, in a leafy area near a dental office and a library, Sergei Yakshin, 41, the man with the alarm business, was walking to his car. He never made it. A rocket exploded nearby, killing him and another man instantly. A short walk away, a different rocket hit Valentina A. Surmai, a 72-year-old pensioner who worked at a local grocery store to support her blind husband. The cook, Alla A. Vasyutina, 60, bled to death in her kitchen after a piece of shrapnel penetrated the wall of her house.

“She wanted to make us soup,” said Ms. Surmai’s son, Sergei, standing in his underwear, his eyes red. “I told her, ‘Mom, don’t go out,’ ” he said. He barely recognized her body in the morgue. Half her face and her left side were gone.

Her death enraged Mr. Surmai. “If they give me a gun, I’m ready to go fight,” he said. “After this, it’s either us, or them. There’s no choice now. We have to go to the end.”

A friend of Ms. Surmai’s, Alexandra Rud, 74, said she, like her friend, hated the rebels, but she blamed the government for Ms. Surmai’s death.

“I want to shout to the whole world,” she said, her voice shrill, as artillery boomed in the distance. “Stop it! Get out! Leave us alone!”

The violence has rearranged habits and daily routines. Konstantin, a morgue worker in Luhansk who refused to give his full name for fear of exposing himself and his family to attention, said he and his wife now sleep on a mattress stuffed into a small underground space in a garage used for repairing cars. Teatime chatter was about what survival supplies to put in their cellars, which now double as bomb shelters.

Anatoly Leonidovich, the head doctor at the Luhansk morgue, said that after a particularly vicious battle two weeks ago, he received 15 bodies, all but one twisted and torn, consistent with artillery wounds. The next day, he was still getting calls.

“Who are you looking for?” he said, speaking into a Soviet-era telephone. “Is he civilian or a rebel?” he asked. (Rebels collect the bodies of their comrades and do their own paperwork, he said.) “Ah yes, I have him. Sklyarov, Vladimir, year of birth, 1973.”

Establishing responsibility for civilian deaths has been difficult. The shelling in Luhansk, for example, touched off ferocious arguments: Supporters of the government in Kiev accuse the rebels, while those who favor Russia blame the Ukrainian forces.

“Idiot!” shouted a stout woman with fiery red lipstick. She was glaring at Boris Besarab, a bespectacled security guard in a Luhansk neighborhood called Peaceful that was hit on July 14. He had been explaining why he believed that the angle of impact meant that rebels had fired the shell. “Take your glasses off,” she fumed, stalking away. “This is why Ukraine is going to hell!”

The local disputes mirror those on a larger scale, with Russia and Ukraine blaming one another for attacks that kill civilians. Civilian deaths have been at the heart of Russia’s narrative against Kiev, though rarely mentioned is the fact that rebels cause them too.

In one case, Ukraine claimed that Russia carried out an airstrike on an apartment block in the city of Snizhne, suggesting that a plane traveled from across the border, more than 12 miles to the south. But the angle of the 10 holes punched by the bombs and the direction of the damage indicated that the bomber was flying from west to east. Some residents suggested that the target might have been a rebel base just a quarter of a mile away.

War is as much about perception as reality, and in some ways truth is powerless against what people want to believe. Most people interviewed at attack sites accused the Ukrainian forces, a pattern that bodes ill for Ukraine’s government as it tries to put the country back together again.

“Look, there’s your Poroshenko!” yelled Viktoria Y. Iotova, referring to Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, and pointing to 14 Lenin Street in Snizhne, where at least 11 civilians were killed.

“Who will answer for these human lives?” she added as she began to cry.

Piles of personal items were strewn through the streets around her. A sewing machine lay between a teacup and an old Samsung laptop. One wall of a corner apartment remained intact, shielded from the blast wave. It told of life before the bombs: potted plants on a shelf, a red teakettle atop the cupboard and a neatly ordered spice rack with two rows of six jars apiece.

There, amid the debris, a 4-year-old boy, Bogdan Yasterbov, was trapped. As a yellow crane lifted concrete blocks from the wreckage, local residents sat in shock, and the blue-eyed Bogdan screamed. It took hours before anyone heard him.

Then, as a cellphone video shows, red-faced rescue workers noticed him and yelled: “Children! Be quiet!”

Men began digging. Bogdan came into view, face down in a pocket of space under the rubble.

He was carried out and laid on a stretcher, limbs limp. His bright blond hair was darkened by the dust.

Bogdan survived, but his mother, Daria, did not

Source

Looks like the Ukrainian military is mostly responsible for the deaths of 800 civilians and injuries to 2000 civilians. But these people are generally pro-Russian or against the Kiev government so the EU and the West don't give a shit.

[Thanas]

So there is now evidence of what people have been saying a long time, that Russia is firing into Ukraine to support rebel positions.
Link

As to the Merkel-Putin plan, let's hope it does not have to come to this. So far, the Ukraine is winning, they isolated Lugansk.