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The Never Ending War

Sep 8, 2015 | Newpathway, Featured, The View From Here - Walter Kish

The on-going war in Ukraine has unfortunately become a rather predictable routine. Each morning I peruse the Crisis in Ukraine: Daily Briefing put out by the UCC. I scan through my automatic Google Alerts on Ukraine. On Facebook, I read the latest post on the various groups I belong to – Euromaidan News, Canadian Group 4 Democracy in Ukraine, Ukrainians in North America, Ukrainian Scholars on Social Media, and several others.

The news is always the same. Each day the Russians and their Donbas cohorts routinely flout their Minsk II commitments and bomb, shell and fire into Ukrainian positions, typically killing a number of Ukrainian soldiers and maiming many others. Large convoys of military supplies cross into Ukraine from bases in Russia’s Rostov region, keeping the Russian mercenaries well stocked with instruments of death and destruction.

Each day, the Ukrainian politicians loudly denounce the blatant Russian aggression. Each day western politicians strongly urge “both parties” to respect the Minsk agreement. Unsurprisingly, each day, the Russians pay no heed. And each day more people die, both military and civilian on both sides of the front lines.

We all know about the Ukrainian dead and wounded. In this modern day of ever-present mobile technology, the tragic pictures and stories are widely disseminated throughout mass and social media.

The same cannot be said of the other side. In the areas under Russian control, news is tightly censored. There are no official casualty statistics put out by the Russians, since, as they would have you believe, they are not really there. What stories the Russians do disseminate are typically carefully crafted “atrocities”, which the western media are usually able to debunk as fake.

Which is not to say that there are no innocent victims on the Russian side – in a war characterized by massive shelling and counter-shelling there are bound to be civilian victims of collateral damage. Of course, it doesn’t help that the Russians and their terrorist local allies deliberately place their artillery and rockets near schools, hospitals and other civilian buildings were people are likely to be present.

So when is it all going to end? Probably not anytime soon. As I have written in previous articles, Putin miscalculated when he invaded the Donbas, anticipating an easy victory much along the lines of his takeover of Crimea. It is obvious that is not going to happen in the Donbas. The Ukrainian military has greatly increased its presence in the area, and stabilized its lines of defence.

To capture further territory, Putin would have to commit large forces from his regular army, which he is very reluctant to do, as such a move would more than likely significantly escalate the sanctions against Russia by the rest of the world, bringing his regime down in the process.

I believe that Putin has temporarily reverted to plan B, which involves maintaining a low grade war in the Donbas in an effort to wear down Ukrainian morale as well as the Ukrainian government and military, while at the same time increasing the level of sabotage and terrorism in Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine. His focus now is more geared to destabilizing the Ukrainian government and forcing a change to one that would be more to his liking.

I believe we are likely to see many more such violent terrorist incidents as happened before the Verkhovna Rada last week. Putin and his FSB minions are experts at engineering such events and will be putting on a full court press to try and divide the Ukrainian populace and its political structures, thereby rendering them more vulnerable to manipulation by his agents and supporters in Ukraine, of which I am sure there is no shortage.

The coalition of forces that currently form the government in Ukraine will be under severe pressure to maintain their unity in the face of a determined propaganda assault, accompanied by selective subversive terrorist acts, the funding of opposition political forces, and diplomatic pressure by Ukraine’s many so-called allies to cede even more concessions to Russia in order to resolve the current crisis.

It has become obvious that the Europeans, the U.S. and other western countries have no stomach for a prolonged conflict and their commitment to Ukraine’s independence is limited. They just wish the whole thing would just go away.

To win this brutal game, the only option Ukraine has is to remain committed and united. It must demonstrate the resolve and determination to keep fighting and yield no more ground or other concessions to the Russians. Putin is counting on Ukrainians to crumble if he keeps up the pressure. It is up to Ukraine to prove him wrong.

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