Russia doesn't seem too upset that unrest is still going on in eastern Ukraine, given that they haven't reacted to the fact that pro-Russian mobs still occupy government buildings and man road blocks in eastern Ukraine:
At least two people were killed in a gunfight early on Sunday near a Ukrainian city controlled by pro-Russian separatists, shaking an already fragile international accord that was designed to avert a wider conflict.
After the deaths, Russia questioned whether Ukraine's Western-backed government was complying with the agreement, brokered last week in Geneva, to end a crisis that has made Russia's ties with the West more fraught than at any time since the Cold War.
The separatists said gunmen from Ukraine's Right Sector nationalist group had attacked them. The Right Sector denied any role, saying Russian special forces were behind the clash.
A pro-Russian masked witness described the attack:
People jumped out of Jeeps and started shooting at us. They threw stun grenades. Our people started running in various directions as somebody shouted 'Down!'. A sniper was shooting those who tried to run into the village. The first who ran was killed by a sniper right away, then there was a second dead. There was another man who wouldn't get up, he was just lying there."
Stun grenades? Why would murderous Nazi gangsters use stun grenades rather than fragmentation grenades? The former are useful to stun people when you want to keep them from resisting while you identify threats from non-threats. Like when entering a building where civilians might be mixed with combatants.
If your have the element of surprise, you throw actual exploding grenades to kill enemies while they are least able to resist and seek cover.
But it could have been Ukrainians opposed to Russia's subliminal invasion of eastern Ukraine. Maybe the local attackers thought they brought real grenades. Maybe they really didn't want a large body count and just intended to send a message. Remember, pro-Russian separatists are refusing to stand down as they are supposed to do after the Geneva agreement was signed. The Ukrainians are defending their country, aren't they?
And it could have been Spetsnaz posing as Ukrainian nationalists who egged on the attack by locals. Perhaps the Russian special forces provided stun grenades to lower the body count of the pro-Russians and allow the road block defenders the chance to resist. The attackers might not have known they were given stun grenades.
Given Russian failure to get the Spetsnaz-organized mobs to stand down and given Russian eagerness to threaten consequences, this certainly does sound more like a Spetsnaz operation than a gang of bloodthirsty Nazis risen from Hitler's bunker to threaten holy Mother Russia in the 21st century--if I had to choose from only those competing narratives.
Although an actual pure Spetsnaz operation to kill would not have roared up to the road block to attack--everyone would be dead at the end of a pure Spetsnaz operation that dealt out death from the silent black night around the road block before any of the defenders could react.
So I'm going to go with the Spetsnaz priming both sides to get the chaos that Putin craves in eastern Ukraine--don't stand down the pro-Russian militias and encourage local Ukrainians to attack the pro-Russian militias.
The Ukraine crisis really isn't over. Remember that based on Russia's intake of new recruits and discharge of soldiers completing their term of service, we're at that beginning of a window of opportunity for Russia to invade with the maximum number of reasonably trained troops:
If Putin decides to send in his troops, he has a narrow window in which to act," Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer writes in "Foreign Policy," citing the need to seize on current troop readiness before Russia's spring draft brings in a wave of unseasoned conscripts. "The window of opportunity for an invasion will open during the first weeks of April and close somewhere around the middle of May."
If we want the crisis to end, we need to help Ukraine mount a credible resistance to a Russian invasion. I hope we are doing more behind the scenes than just sending MREs and water purifiers, and other such nonlethal help that is as much use to the Ukrainian Boy Scouts as their army.
And even if the negotiations end the crisis, the Russians will be back one day to have another go at taking more of Ukraine.
UPDATE: Have no doubt that the Russians are still stirring up Ukraine:
For two weeks, the mysteriously well-armed, professional gunmen known as “green men” have seized Ukrainian government sites in town after town, igniting a brush fire of separatist unrest across eastern Ukraine. Strenuous denials from the Kremlin have closely followed each accusation by Ukrainian officials that the world was witnessing a stealthy invasion by Russian forces. ...
“There has been broad unity in the international community about the connection between Russia and some of the armed militants in eastern Ukraine, and the photos presented by the Ukrainians last week only further confirm this, which is why U.S. officials have continued to make that case,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said Sunday.
The question of Russia’s role in eastern Ukraine has a critical bearing on the agreement reached Thursday in Geneva among Russian, Ukrainian, American and European diplomats to ease the crisis. American officials have said that Russia would be held responsible for ensuring that the Ukrainian government buildings were vacated, and that it could face new sanctions if the terms were not met.
The Russians sign an agreement to end the crisis. But they refuse to stand down the city occupations that they carried out, and blame Ukraine for failing to abide by the agreement.
But let's remember that Russia has already failed to abide by the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
UPDATE: SACEUR notes, among other things, the use of stun grenades in building assaults as a sign of Spetsnaz activity.
