Is this really suprising?
Ukraine's rebels disavowed a new truce on Sunday hours after it took effect, saying it did not apply to the town where most fighting has taken place in recent weeks.
Guns fell abruptly silent at midnight across much of eastern Ukraine in line with the ceasefire agreement, but the pro-Russian rebels announced that they would not observe the truce at Debaltseve, where Ukraine army forces have been encircled.
And even as Putin stood on stage with the Europeans for the photo ops and hand shakes for the latest truce, Putin's army was taking a direct hand in the fighting:
Washington says Russia's regular military, armed with tanks and missile launchers, carried out an operation in the days before the truce to encircle Debaltseve.
Reuters journalists have seen armored columns of troops without insignia arriving in the area in recent days.
Putin's armed forces are the key to secessionist capabilities. Without the Russians, the actual local secessionists would collapse, as they were doing back in August.
Yet the Europeans pretend that we can negotiate with Putin over this.
Good God, people, do you realize that Putin is trying to portray himself as the good cop in a "good cop/bad cop" routine with those hand puppets?
The only thing that is going to get Putin to stop attacking Ukraine is a Russian soldier body count so high that he can't hide it any more from his own people.
We should be providing whatever information we can to the Ukrainians so they can target the Russians more effectively.
UPDATE: Shocking, no?
Rebels in eastern Ukraine refused to allow monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to reach the encircled town of Debaltseve after a ceasefire took effect on Sunday, the head of the OSCE mission said.
"Rebels" refused? We can see Putin's lips moving! Don't pretend that the so-called rebels are preventing peace for our time from breaking out.
