Around Russia

Avdeevka and UN Security Council

February 1, 2017 Igor Yakovenko

On the evening of Tuesday 31.01.17, at the initiative of Ukraine, the UN Security Council gathered to discuss the situation that has developed in the east of Ukraine, where battles are going on for three days. As a result of a closed discussion, a resolution prepared by Ukraine was adopted. It expresses deep concern of the “dangerous escalation of the situation” in the east of Ukraine and contains calls to the parties to the conflict immediately to stop the fire. In addition, the UN Security Council expressed "the complete support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."

To complete the picture, one of the main bodies of the world community could, in addition, declare its decisive support for the multiplication table and Pythagoras theorem. But in the current situation, there is no need to expect something more from the UN and its main organ.

In the Ukrainian city, Avdeevka is a humanitarian catastrophe. As a result of artillery shelling, Russian terrorists killed citizens of Ukraine, and the power supply of the coke -chemical plant and the filter station were damaged. As a result, more than 15 thousand people, including more than 2 thousand children, were left without water, heat and electricity. In the frost minus 20 degrees.

Russia, of course, accuses Ukraine of violating a ceasefire. More precisely, not Ukraine as a state, but some “independent detachments that are not related to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, which, nevertheless, act with the support of the artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Armed Forces). At least, in such an ornate way, the reasons for the humanitarian catastrophe of Avdeevka described Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

To answer the question of exactly who is to blame for this disaster is quite simple if you look at the card. And here we are not even about the fact that Avdeevka, like the entire territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, is part of Ukraine. In accordance with the distinction line established by the Minsk agreements, Avdeevka is located in the territory controlled by the Armed Forces. Therefore, the responsibility for the shelling of this city and for the humanitarian catastrophe, to which these shelling led, completely and completely lies completely on the Terrorists of the "DPR" and their Kremlin chiefs.

The world press is actively discussing the question of the connection of Trump's telephone conversation with Putin and the activation of hostilities in the east of Ukraine. The question of such a connection inevitably arises, given that Trump called Putin on Saturday January 28, and the next day, on Sunday of January 29, the DPR terrorists began to iron the Avdeevka artillery. At the same time, logic warns against the temptation from a temporary sequence of events to certainly derive their causal relationship. “After this,” does not always mean “because of this”.

It is hard to believe that during a telephone conversation, Putin received good from Trump to escalate aggression against Ukraine. It is unlikely that in the first telephone conversation, the Ukrainian topic, which for Trump is generally outside his agenda, was somehow discussed. Unless it was mentioned in casual in connection with the sanctions.

But, nevertheless, this coincidence can hardly be called an accident. The reason for the tragedy of Avdeevka, of course, is not Trump’s call itself and, certainly, not its content, which is still not known about the general public. The atmosphere of expectations that arose after the election of Trump worked, and his call was a kind of crystallization of these expectations. The teacher left the class. Sheriff left the city. A cat from home - mice to dance. The election of Trump and his firm position that the United States no longer want to monitor order in the world, this is the background on which the activation of the war in eastern Ukraine was inevitable.

There is another factor about which, oddly enough, exactly wrote in the “Rossiy newspaper” the Kremlin propagandist “For smart intelligentsia” Leonid Radzikhovsky. In his author’s column dated 01/31/17, entitled “Big deal”, he tries to find options for canceling sanctions. Since Radzikhovsky is not Kiselev and writes for “smart Putins”, he tries to remain on the territory of common sense, which means he considers options for not completely abolishing sanctions, but their radical weakening. And this option Radzikhovsky considers the complete freezing of the conflict in Ukraine and “bringing“ the DPR ”to the Transnistria-2 state, which, according to the observer, can lead to the fact that the EU de facto can consider the conflict with Russia exhausted.

In my opinion, there are two mistakes in Radzikhovsky's reasoning. First. Ukraine is not only not Russia, but not Moldova. This does not mean that Ukrainians are better or worse than Moldovan. It’s just that in the public consciousness of Ukraine there is a perception of itself as a large country that has made a European choice and undergoing military aggression by the empire. Most Moldavians do not perceive Russia as an enemy, as evidenced by the choice of the extreme pro -Russian President Dodon. For most Ukrainians, Putin's Russia is an aggressor and enemy. Therefore, there will be no “complete frost” of the Ukrainian conflict, and no Transnistria-2 from the “LDNR” will not work.

The second mistake is that the situation in Transnistria, clamped between Moldova and Ukraine and does not have a common border with Russia, and the “LDNR”, which has an open border with Russia and in fact is part of it, is fundamentally different. For the leaders of the LDNR, the desired perspective is not “freezing the conflict”, but its aggravation. In conditions of frozen conflict, it is difficult to live bandits. They do not know how to deal with the economy, so they have the same chance of “continuing the banquet” - the escalation of war, new victims, the injection of hysteria in Russian news and television shows. Well, Trump, with his own course from solving European problems, turned out to be very helpful for the leaders of the separatists. Although the 45th US president is unlikely to suspect their existence.

Photo:
1. 01/28/2016 The situation in the city of Avdeevka, Donetsk region. Friedemann Kohler/ DPA/TASS
2. Ukraine. Donetsk region. January 31, 2017. Ukrainian soldier in the city of Avdeevka. The authorities of the DPR and Ukraine announced the exacerbation of the situation in the Avdeevka area and on the line of contact of the parties to the conflict in the Donbass from January 29, 2017. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine announced eight dead Ukrainian military and dozens of wounded. AP/TASS