For months now, the restive eastern reaches of Ukraine have known relative peace. On Tuesday, February, 18, that stability was shattered. At least one person died as fighting flared-up between government troops and Russia-backed separatist rebels. Under such febrile conditions, knowing who fired first shot is never easy, and each side blames the other. Efforts are underway to dial down tensions, but peace looks to be a long way off.

What Happened?

With little warning, rebel forces shelled Ukrainian troops stationed on the front line. One soldier and four rebel fighters were killed in the ensuing violence. That, at least, is Kiev’s account of events.

Separatist groups offer a different story. According to them, government forces tried to break through their lines before getting caught in a minefield, rebel leaders said soon after the news broke.

Whoever instigated the fracas, it’s in both parties’ interest to see relative peace restored. For six years the war in eastern Ukraine has rumbled on, claiming at least 13,000 lives and displacing many, many more. 

Zelensky’s 2019 Election Win Hinged on Ending the War

Ending the conflict was key to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s election success last year. On Tuesday, after meeting with security chiefs, his message was clear: the peace process must continue.

Zelensky’s determination is well-founded — his efforts in recent months have led to a number of breakthroughs. Kiev-Moscow relations have improved significantly since he took office, with he and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin holding regular phone calls.

Late last year the pair negotiated the return of seized Ukrainian ships and brokered two major prisoner swaps. But news that high-caliber weapons — presumably Russian in origin — were used by rebel fighters in Tuesday’s skirmish is a reminder of the two leaders’ differences.      

It’s also worth remembering that in December, when Putin and Zelensky met to thrash out a ceasefire, no progress was made on two of the peace process’s most contentious issues: when local elections will be held in the east, and when Kiev can retake control of the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Zelensky Has Reason for Confidence

Still, developments elsewhere will give Zelensky fresh confidence. Now that Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings — which hinged on the President’s relationship with Zelensky — have concluded, Kiev can be hopeful of renewed US support. 

Having Washington (and the West more generally) onside would certainly strengthen his hand in negotiations with the Russians, experts believe. 

“[The recent] aggression must be condemned by [the] US and EU, and Putin must understand that only path to better West/Russia relations runs through Ukraine,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General. 

But with an election on the horizon, Trump might feel that the situation in Ukraine is simply too toxic to be involved with. Where does that leave Zelensky? Dependent more and more on the help of European allies. 

Who Can Zelensky Trust to Help Ukraine?

France, however, is keen on tightening relations with Russia and cannot be trusted to take a firm line with Putin. Likewise, Germany’s Angela Merkel is determined to see completed the Nordstream 2 project — a pipeline that channels Russian gas into Europe via the the Baltic Sea. And Britain, wrapped in the upheaval of Brexit, is too preoccupied to play a meaningful role.     

And so it must fall to Zelensky himself, a man who this time last year was a television comedian. Facing off with Putin will not be easy, but with peace as the prize he must push on.

L'articolo Violence Flares Up in Eastern Ukraine proviene da InsideOver.

They say that in those instances your entire life flashes before your eyes. They say that time slows down, as if in slow motion, and that the moments become drawn out and filled with thoughts. They say that you are left with just a few seconds for one last prayer, that you have time to dedicate a thought to your loved ones or utter a last minute useless curse. In actual fact the truth is more lackluster: suddenly you hear a high-pitched whistle, your head turns to the sky ad you realize that everyone around you is screaming with terror. You don’t have time to realize anything because two seconds later the explosion knocks you over.

We spent a night in Spartak’s separatist trenches, in the northeastern outskirts of Donetsk, under the bombings of Ukrainian heavy artillery. We spent twelve hours filming the true entity of this forgotten war which Europe continues to ignore but which every day regurgitates death, horror, destruction.  We stared directly into the face of what nobody wants to see and we are here to recount it.

Donbass: The War continues. Why is no one talking about it?

Man has a great attribute: the ability to adapt to any situation – even war.   Spartak’s shack is constantly under the fire of kalashnikovs and automatic weapons, but after half an hour you beign to get used to it, whether you like it or not.  In this area artillery follows the logic of a table tennis match: one side shoots first, then after

a few minutes’ pause, the other side shoots back.  In the middle of the table, ground soldiers huddle up to their posts. Theirs is a rat’s life: their chow consists of a bowl of “kasha”, a tasteless buckwheat porridge. To relieve sleepiness and exhaustion soldiers often resort to amphetamines, while all alcohol is strictly prohibited. Going out on patrol, guard duty on the front line, sniping beyond the trenches, scrambling to shelter: this is the daily routine amongst the rubble in Spartak.  The commander confesses to us: “If it were up to me, I would assemble my men this very night and I would lead them to assault the Ukrainian trenches. I might die, but at least I would die like a man and not like a rat”.

Talking to the soldiers is no easy feat: we do what we can with the aid of a small pocket dictionary. None of them speak English and obviously we only know a few words of Russian.  One of them shows us a photo of his newly born son. His hands are blackened by earth and soot, as are those of all his comrades. The smell of gun powder hangs in the air, the awful stench drilling up your nostrils and into your brain. It is hot, all the men smoke nervously.  One of them tells us about two of his colleagues who died down here only a few nights ago. Miming an explosion with his hands we understand that the youngest had his belly wrenched open and bled to death, his guts splattered on his boots. “Apocalypse”, he smiles and pats us on the shoulder. Well, we certainly can’t say he’s wrong.

As night falls, the situation becomes even more tense. The table tennis match picks up rhythm: the snipers slowly return to their shelter. The heavy artillery steps in,

making the walls tremble, filling the air with shards and chewing up corpses till they are unrecognizable. Then comes the true exterminator: a gunshot is nothing compared to a 152 millimeter grenade. Suddenly a dialogue from an old Kubrick film, “Paths of Glory” comes to mind: “Tell me this,” one soldier asks another, “Aside from the bayonet what are you most afraid of?” “High explosives!” he replies. And the other, “Exactly! It’s the same with me! Because I know it can chew you up worse than anything else!”  Today finally we can grasp the full meaning of that line: it is before our own eyes.

At around nine in the evening, we put on our helmets and bullet proof vests to go out on patrol towards the remaining trenches. The route is very short. We walk in pitch black, tripping over the rubble, taking the dug-out path in single file. We hear the bullets whistling past our heads while the militiamen next to us repeatedly recite their litany. “No lights, sniper, no lights”. We reach a sort of observatory, on the first floor of a rundown building. The scene we are faced with is both wonderful and terrifying: the entire horizon before us is lit up to daylight by endless bursts of lightning. They look like fireworks but obviously they are something else: a blazing shower of bombs falling ceaselessly on the tragically torn area of Donbass .

When at war, the black of night is a strange travelling companion. Soldiers love darkness because it protects them from enemy eyes. But at the same time they fear it: anything can surface from obscurity, and in general it is nothing good.  The blackness was unexpectedly slashed open at fourteen minutes past ten at night, as we sat at the garrison desk, interviewing one of the militiamen. All of a sudden the air was pierced by an extremely powerful hiss. We saw the face of the boy opposite us distorted into an indescribable grimace of terror.  We jumped to our feet and lunged over the bunker threshold. As we toppled down the concrete stairs, an unimaginable blast pounded our ears. The air moved bringing with it a powerful shower of incandescent shrapnel.

It is absolutely impossible to describe the moments that followed. The bombing lasted a total of three hours,until half past one in the morning.  We saw some of the militiamen burst into tears. Others crouched on the floor, as if seeking protection in the most remote underground corners. Some screamed, while others more just stared into emptiness.

Fortunately our video camera remained on, allowing us to record the daily tragedy of thousands of young men like us, in the eternal trenches of Donbass. The following morning, as we finally surfaced into the sunlight we discovered that our stronghold had been showered by a barrage of 152 millimetre ammunition.  One of the shots had landed only ten metres from us carving out a hole at least two metres wide in the tarmac. We picked up the shards: some of them were as big as our fists

As we walked back home, ironically shrouded in the early morning light, we thought back to the famous words by Ernest Hemingway: “They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”. The young men of Spartak have probably never read “For whom the bell tolls.” But maybe they don’t need to.

Photos by Alfredo Bosco www.alfredobosco.com

L'articolo Under Ukrainian Bombings proviene da InsideOver.