The Kyiv Post headline says it all: "Controversial ceasefire in Donbas war zone fails within minutes."
How Vladimir Putin must chuckle at the ease with which democratic leaders fall for his gimmicks.
Tradition is important. And the Russians don't let me down:
Putin's chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told a Russian newspaper that when it comes to "any guarantees from Russia, in this case, I don’t think we can talk about this because Russia is not a party to the conflict."
The distillation of Russia's vaunted "hybrid warfare," eh? Russia invades a country. Russia denies it invaded a country. And gullible Westerners go along with the lie.
So of course Russia thinks they can continue to get away with the big lie:
On July 9, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) arrested a group of radical pro-Russia separatists promoting the creation of the so-called “Zaporizhian People’s Republic” (ZPR). In 2014, these individuals allegedly tried to seize power in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Oblast but had to flee to Luhansk, where they began cooperating with the Moscow-backed separatist authorities of the self-declared Luhansk and Donetsk “people’s republics” (LPR/DPR). Having secretly returned to Zaporizhia, the perpetrators allegedly planned to carry out various subversive activities and distributed pro-Russia separatist materials that called for the overthrow of the constitutional order in Ukraine and the creation of the ZPR (Ssu.gov.ua, July 9).
So that didn't work out for Russia. How's that "frozen" conflict against Ukraine in the Donbas going for Russia?
[The] Russian operation in Donbas is falling apart. Morale among the Ukrainians who agreed to keep the rebellion going is bad and getting worse. More and more of the “rebel activity” in Donbas is carried out by Russians pretending to be Ukrainian rebels. The Russian government apparently believes it will ultimately win but does not have a clear idea of when or how.
Still, even if Russia's effort in the Donbas collapses, annexed Crimea is quiet enough that the Europeans would probably just pretend that never happened and move on.
Would that development that might restore economic vigor in Russia help stem the Russian population decline? Russia got a one-time boost from taking over Crimea and the eastern Donbas. But emigration and poor birth rates are emptying out Russia in an era of Western sanctions and low oil prices--and the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic isn't helping.
I'm honestly shocked that the paranoid Russians aren't discussing how this is all a Chinese plot to undermine Russia and take over the Far East.
