The Worst Battle in Ukraine Since the Ceasefire

• 06.04.2015, 14:45
•  Europe,  World

Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russia separatists fought their worst battle yesterday. The rebels holding two large regions of eastern Ukraine lost at least 15 fighters in the battle for government-controlled city of Maryinka after the 12-hour battle. Maryinka is a strategically located town 9 miles west of Donetsk which, in the pre-conflict period, had a population of about 9,900. The city has been devastated by months of heavy fighting.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, declared that Russia had violated the Minsk peace accord by ordering the attack after negotiations foundered. "Russia yesterday broke up the trilateral meeting and today gave an order to its terrorists to begin a military operation," he said. "This is another challenge for the world community".

In Moscow, the Kremlin immediately took the side of the separatists, accusing the Ukrainian armed forces of carrying out provocative actions.

"In Moscow we are deeply concerned by the provocative actions of the Ukrainian armed forces, which are provoking the situation, as far as we can see," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared after the tragedy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in his turn, declared that those responsible for the fresh fighting were trying to halt progress in internationally-brokered peace talks.

The European leaders and diplomats, mainly those in France and Germany, as Euronews reports, who are trying to work with Russia and Ukraine to broker real peace are too much disappointed with Wednesday's violence which shook the already fragile cease-fire.

As for the interested American side, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf blamed Moscow for the violence. "Russia bears direct responsibility for preventing these attacks and implementing a ceasefire," the Washington Post reports.

The Package of the cease-fire, known as the Minsk II agreement, was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass. The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) first of all envisions an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments like tanks and launchers to create a security area in the region.

Despite the existing agreement, the Ukrainian military acknowledged it had used heavy weapons in the latest fighting. "For the purpose of appropriate response, we were forced to use heavy artillery," military spokesman Oleksiy Mazepa said.

The constitutional reform and decentralization of power in Ukraine are also among the document’s key provisions, TASS reports. The Package of Measures stipulates the holding in districts with a special status of local elections, agreed with representatives of the region and corresponding to OSCE standards.

However, the fact is that more than 6,400 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since April 2014, when separatists opposed to a new government in Kiev, and when Crimea became part of the Russian Federation. It seems that despite of many promises, none of the sides commits itself in fulfilling the Minsk agreements and putting an end to the situation in Ukraine, which destructed not only that country, but also brought a great tension in the whole world.