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Monday, 05 March 2018 13:28

RUSSIA BREAKS LATEST CEASEFIRE, ATTACKS EUROPE'S DEFENDERS AT SHCHASTYA (MEANS 'LUCK'), UKRAINE

Michael MacKay, Radio Lemberg, 05.03.2018 
 
A ceasefire was supposed to start at midnight today, March 5. Russia and Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had agreed that hostilities would cease along Russia’s invasion-of-Ukraine battlefront in Donbas. The language of the ceasefire agreement was emphatic: the parties agreed that this was to be a comprehensive, stable, and permanent ceasefire. The ceasefire was the latest in a long string of ceasefires that Russia has agreed to and violated since the second Minsk Agreement was signed on 11 February 2015.
 
Russia always makes a point of breaking ceasefires minutes after they are supposed to take effect. In today’s violation, the 2nd Army Corps (Luhansk or so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic”) of the Russian armed forces – one of two army corps that are invading and occupying Ukraine in Donbas – attacked the town of Shchastya which lies in free Ukraine. At about 1 a.m., the Russians attacked Europe’s defenders at Shchastya with grenade launchers, mortars, and other weapons. Shchastya is to the north of the Siverskyi Donets River, which marks the dividing line between the Russian invaders and the Ukrainian defenders in this part of the battlefront. Shchastya is 24 kilometres away from Luhansk city by road, but that is in peacetime: the bridge and road is blocked by the Russian invaders of Ukraine and the city of Luhansk is occupied by them.
 
After attacking Shchastya, the Russians attacked positions of Ukrainian defenders near the village of Troitske in Luhansk region. Russian armed forces fired 82 millimetre calibre mortars in this attack.
 
Russia made two attacks to break the ceasefire before 8 o’clock in the morning. The day is not over, and it is already shaping up to be a typical day of Russian shelling and shooting across the battlefront in the Luhansk, Donetsk, and Mariupol sectors of Russia’s invasion of Europe in Ukraine.
 
In both these attacks by Russia, Ukrainian defenders did not shoot back. Also in keeping with the usual practice of the past three years, the Ukrainian armed forces will observe a strict ceasefire regime which will be one-sided. Soon, the violence of Russia’s attacks will directly threaten the lives of Ukrainian defenders and Ukrainian civilians, and the Ukrainian armed forces will shoot back. As has been the pattern, Russia is attacking with Minsk-proscribed weapons; when Ukraine shoots back in defence it will be with Minsk-allowed weapons.
 
The pattern of Russia promising peace and delivering violence is infuriating. It is wrong that the Putin regime gets away with it. The Western press mostly reports statements from the Putin regime from Moscow, and mostly ignores actions of the Putin regime in the Russia-invaded and occupied areas of Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas. There is widespread reportage that the ceasefire “took effect” at midnight but an embargo on the news that Russia violated the ceasefire at 1 a.m.. The worst offenders among the Western press remove Russia from the war altogether, and propagate the Kremlin lie that Russian soldiers are “pro-Russian separatists.” The heroic restraint and fortitude of the Ukrainian armed forces in observing the ceasefire one-sidedly goes unnoticed by the Russo-centric Western press.
 
Putin wants war. He will use his army to kill and maim and destroy until Ukraine is wiped out as a free and independent nation. Ceasefires are just another tool of sabotage and disruption for the ex-KGB man Putin. The lesson that other Western countries should take is this: Putin will never stop until he is stopped. When Russia violates ceasefires it must be punished. At the very least, sanctions on Russian individuals and entities for starting a war in Europe and waging it for over four years must be increased. Ukraine is Europe’s shield against Russian aggression, but it must be backed up by firm and decisive action by other countries.
 
Stop Putin. Defeat Russian aggression against Ukraine. Restore peace to Europe.
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