Ukrainian Crisis Approaches Boiling Point

The crisis in Ukraine has continued to get even hotter over the past week despite attempts by diplomats to secure a peace deal.

Eastern Ukraine has a large proportion of ethnic Russians, and many Ukrainians who are supportive of Russia. This is why the Kremlin has moved its focus from Crimea to the rest of eastern Ukraine. The series of events which resulted in Crimea joining Russia has begun to play out across the east. Armed men have taken numerous government buildings, erected Russian flags and demanded that they be allowed to join Russia. Just like the armed men in Crimea they are too well-organised to simply be pro-Russian locals. Rather, they are mostly members of the Russian armed forces. Of course Russia denies that the militia are connected to the Russian military, but they made the same statements about the militia in Crimea and have since admitted that they were actually Russian soldiers.

Yet, as I have said in my previous posts, these areas are not like Crimea. They are not majority Russian and hence the Ukrainian government will put up more of a fight for control of the region. Already Kiev had sent troops in to take some key positions back from the Russians.

Despite the chaotic situation in the east, there did seem to be some hope that a peaceful solution might actually be reached! The governments of Ukraine, Russia, the US and EU reached an agreement in Geneva. The agreement called for the dissolving of all illegal military groups, amnesty for all anti-government protesters and that the militias that have taken control of government buildings must leave them. Unfortunately that deal seems dead in the water as one of the spokesmen for the separatists has said that they are not bound by the deal.

This all plays perfectly into Putin’s hand; he gets to look like a sensible diplomat whilst continuing to destabilise eastern Ukraine through these separatists. If you want any more proof that Putin is planning on take eastern Ukraine, all you need to do is watch the press conference he held earlier this week in which he referred to the eastern parts of Ukraine as “new Russia”! If that isn’t a clear sign that he plans to go even further into the territory of Ukraine, I don’t know what could be!