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Cease-Fire Crumbles in Eastern Ukraine
At least eight civilians were killed (Reuters) after a mortar shell fell in a residential area in the eastern city of Donetsk on Thursday, just hours after the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France met and produced an agreement (WSJ)
on a "buffer zone" to separate the warring factions. While neither side
claimed the attack, fighting has intensified in recent days as
pro-Russia separatists dislodged Ukrainian forces from the strategically
important Donetsk airport (Guardian) Wednesday night and launched a new offensive in Luhansk (NYT).
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, speaking to the World Economic
Forum in Davos, said that some nine thousand Russian troops were currently stationed (BBC) in Ukraine, a charge that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied.
Analysis
"As we have learned from the past year,
in Ukraine, Russia is willing to do severe damage to its international
standing; absorb the economic body blows of U.S. and EU sanctions; and
spend significant treasure and blood to prevent the Ukrainian military
from achieving victory in the East," write Samuel Charap and Tymofiy
Mylovanov in the National Interest.
"Europe
needs to wake up and recognize that it is under attack from Russia.
Assisting Ukraine should also be considered as a defense expenditure by
the EU countries. Framed this way, the amounts currently contemplated shrink into insignificance," argues George Soros in the New York Review of Books.
"One reason why the crisis in Ukraine has proved so difficult to overcome is that its roots stretch far outside the country’s borders.
Finding a genuine solution will require the resolution of a dispute
between Russia and the West that dates back to the 1990s, before Russian
President Vladimir Putin came to power," writes Christopher Granville
at Project Syndicate.
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