via Yahoo News.
Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Eleven Ukrainian civilians were killed and nearly 20 injured when a long-range Grad rocket apparently fired by pro-Russian insurgents hit an intercity bus in the separatist east.I've been watching this thing brew for the past couple of weeks but haven't commented on it.
Local police said the rocket appeared to have gone astray after being aimed by the gunmen at a checkpoint set up by government soldiers on the main highway connecting the rebel stronghold of Donetsk with Ukraine's southeastern coast on the Sea of Azov.
The incident was the deadliest attack on civilians since the rival sides signed a much-maligned September 5 ceasefire that only partially stemmed the fighting and did little to resolve the insurgents' independence claims.
Tuesday's strike also damaged Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's efforts to set up a peace summit where his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could personally sign a truce to try to end the ex-Soviet republic's nine-month war.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- the West's main mediator in Europe's deadliest conflict since the Balkan wars of the 1990s -- argues that such a meeting would be premature with violence still raging daily across Ukraine's Russian-speaking rust belt.
Diplomatic talks in Berlin on Monday confirmed that no summit would be held on the crisis in the short term.
Both Ukrainian military and regional police told AFP that the death toll from Tuesday's incident included seven women and four men.
The local administration said 17 others had been hospitalised near the town of Volnovakha, where the bus was hit 35 kilometres (22 miles) southwest of Donetsk.
Donetsk regional interior ministry department chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said the rocket appeared to have gone astray after being fired at a Ukrainian military checkpoint.
"It was a direct hit on an intercity bus," Abroskin told AFP by telephone.
Now things have accidentally taken a turn for the worse.
There was a small sliver of a chance for peace. Now? After this this incident? The violence will increase and so will atrocities. The fighting around Donetsk is getting nasty. It will get nastier before this is all over with.
+18
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUrE2IL5BWo&feature=youtu.be
I’m not sure that now we see Donbass campaign -2015 beginning. January and February are cold months and snowy which leads to possibility to move only on roads. Then will be Spring months – trenches will be in water . Not comfortable circumstances for a full-scale war. The bus accident is just a next bloody event in the long row and can’t be a real reason to the war re-starting.
ReplyDeleteIt's look like the only ones who want to stop this are Ukrainians... couple of dozens case fires, retreat of heavy artillery from the front lines... and seppos don't give shit about that. Still fighting over the airfield and shelling the Ukrainians. Ukrainians in respond also shell them but not in that power as they move back heavy hitters (stupid move if you ask me) They hold the airfield again... barely this time. Dudes that are fighting there... shit, they deserve the highest respect for that.
DeleteDon't you have the fell that recent "purge" of more "independent" elements of sepps were the reasons of lowering the intensity of fighting? The Kremlin first need to tight the grip of that groups and now after they did that they will move in to offensive?
@are Ukrainians@
DeleteVast majority of common people – yes, I suppose. Ukrainian oligarchs (be they cursed) surely do not.
@retreat of heavy artillery from the front lines@
I have no proofs that it was in realty (from all parts of the conflict).
and seppos don't give shit about that
“Seppos”, as you call them, a very different – with different purposes and motivation, but they all want fight against Ukrainians as I get it, but a lot of them do not want the war as such.
@Ukrainians in respond@
Not only in respond, people say Ukrainians often strike at Donetsk (with no concrete purpose) to cover their movements near the airport. War is shit, pan.
@shit, they deserve the highest respect for that. @
May be, but I don’t – they are my personal enemy, I wish they dead and pay no respect. But it don’t prevent my confess that I underestimated them, they hold well, no doubt.
@were the reasons of lowering the intensity of fighting@
May be. Putin and vast majority of our elite are very integrated in the West – sort of occupation administration (at least recently they were). So I can’t exclude anything. But it looks like Putin’s clan has tensions with military circles, who tend to organize a real army from the rebels (as a way to play new technical “toys” and prove different approaches in tactic as well). I have the feeling that a lot of militaries desire to kick Ukrainian Nazi ass, but for our thieves-oligarchs it is not comfortable.
@The Kremlin@
They have several “groups of influence” there (IMHO, of course). Only practice (specially this year) show who will win in Kremlin about this issue. If you mean conflicts among rebels – I’m sure it is not only Kremlin’s cleanings, rebels have very controversial cadre and internal tensions are predictable. It is real “window of possibilities” for Ukrainians.
Ok... this is a translation of annalists article, it have some good points. something to think about.
DeleteWith the resumption of fighting in the Donbas Kremlin wants most likely recover the "handling" of the separatist groups who "jumped each other's throats" in recent weeks in the occupied areas of Ukraine.
Stepping up the military between separatists and government forces in Ukraine raises legitimate questions about the reason for the escalation of what is taking place. You can spin on this topic only hypotheses based on the residual data at our disposal.
These indicate an two trends.
Recently, the Russian authorities actually calmed renounce of the subject "New Russia" from their controlled media space. Less frequently appears also in the rhetoric of statehood pararepublik: Donetsk and Luhansk. At the same time as rightly observed by Catherine Jarzyńska in his analysis for CES: Moscow attempts to channel the discontent in nationalist circles to support the idea of expansion in the Donbas. It is possible that a tool that will be used for the construction of a new party will facade, led by Igor Strelkov state, until recently, the undisputed leader of the troops fighting in the east of Ukraine with government troops.
These movements destabilize the Kremlin deepen separatist movement consisting of local elements, criminal, Chechen troops, Cossacks, mercenaries or regular Russian military formations. Between these groups comes to increasing friction, which even in the realm of media begins to take spectacular forms:
- With the beginning of this year. Aleksandr was killed Biednow ps. "Batman" - one of the commanders of the armed forces "Lugano's Republic of China". According to information from operating on its territory, "the prosecutor's office" had supposedly prevent misuse, and therefore it was decided that his arrest. Russian commandos made this be firing grenades in to Batman convoy...
- A few days after the incident in the video appeared on the Internet, where the Cossacks fought on the side of the Russians in the so-called. "Lugano's Republic of China" complain of corruption and plunder what it is the site and threaten its authority. Apparently it occurred to them that they did not participate in the building of New Russia, but the area managed by environmental chaos gangster.
- January 12 Niezalezna.pl portal citing Ukrainian sources said, however, that "the popular governor of New Russia," Paul Gubariow stated that for the attacks in Paris, Moscow and the Kremlin is unwilling to submit to eliminate his Russian separatists in Ukraine. This statement on the one hand may be a conflict of interests between Russia and the separatist group gathered around Gubariowa, the other on her conflicted with Chechen rebel faction.
- Also on January 12 loyal to the Kremlin "president" called. "Lugano's Republic of China", Igor Plotnicki informed about the destruction of the battalion Odessa ... by the hand of Spetsnaz (special forces probably FSB- "Vympel").
During his visit to Poland, a former adviser to Putin, Gleb Pavlovsky said that "the Russian president provoked the war, but that meant setting up mechanisms that already live their own lives (...) now wants to press the end of the war in Ukraine. He pushes, but nothing going on. Russia is in fact designed so that it produces loyalty, but not steering." (I'm not truly understand that part with loyalty but nit steering)
Perhaps the renewed fighting with the Ukrainians, which became a symbol of the collapse (due to fire) air traffic control tower at the Donetsk airport, is an attempt to recover by Putin controllability of the individual groups separatists? As long as this process does not end, any negotiations with Russian side are meaningless.