The Situation in Ukraine is Still Complicated

• 02.26.2015, 16:40
•  Europe,  World

The Contact group on the settlement of the situation in Donbass recorded reduction of the number of calshes during the last days. They mentioned about this during their recent skype-conference. However, at the same time, the fights continue in the suburbs of Donetsk: tank shootings were heard.

On February 24 the map of the contact line and the place of troops deployment was agreed by the Joint Center of Coordination and Control in Donbass and sent to the OSCE monitoring mission. On the same day the forces of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic announced that they have started the withdrawal of forces from the established zones.

Two days ago the commander of the army of DPR Eduard Basurin announced that 96 weapons and military equipment has been removed from the zone and added that the process will continue.

At the same time authorities of LPR also announced that they have withdrawn some military equipment from Debeltseve, and the process will be finished in a few days.

The Ukrainian side refuses to start the process of troops’ withdrawal. Kiev announced that they will start the process in two days after the ceasefire is absolutely established, but according to them the situation in the eastern Ukraine is not the one to start the process.

The authorities of Luhansk and Donetsk announced that Ukraine tries to break the reached agreements. They called Ukraine to stay committed to the Minsk Agreements. "We have to turn to the Ukrainian side, also to the guarantors of the negotiation process - Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, President of France François Hollande, the President of RF Putin and call them not to let the peace agreement to break."

On February 12 "Normandy four" reached an agreement In Minsk, where it is stated that the withdrawal of the troops must start not later, than on the second day of the ceasefire and finish in 14 days. According to the agreement on the day the ceasefire will be enforced. the Ukrainian troops should be withdrawn from the de-facto positions, the troops of Luhansk and Donetsk - to the line of September 19, 2014 and the area between them should become a neutral zone.

One of the unsolved questions is the issue of Debeltseve. The city was still under the control of the Ukrainian side when the agreement was signed, but later it started to be controlled by Luhansk. This issue was discussed by "Normandy four" Ministers of Foreign Affairs on February 24, but no decision was made.

The decisions, reached during the negotiations do not always correspond to the wishes of the sides, especially that of Kiev. This is the reason why the latter uses alternative ways to break the process. The sides do not show political will to solve the crisis, reciprocal accusations and various types of announcements show that the implementation of the agreements will need quite a long period of time, and in general the peace process  is still in danger.