RAIL HUB FALLS TO REBELS
Ukraine’s Poroshenko out of options
The sight of exhausted Ukrainian troops abandoning the town of Debaltseve betrayed how quickly and completely the Minsk ceasefire agreement has unravelled.
Only last Thursday, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, hailed a “glimmer of hope” when all parties promised to silence the guns and, most importantly, freeze the front line.
Yet the separatists have simply grabbed more of Ukraine, continuing the pattern whereby they advance, field by field, town by town, regardless of any ceasefire.
How much further will the rebels go? And what can Ukraine do in response?
On the face of it, the rebels’ leadership has already answered the first question. Their stated aim is to capture all of the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. If so, their advance has much further to run. Further up from Debaltseve lie towns such as Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, which the rebels controlled at the outset of their rising last year. These could be the next dominoes to fall.
But this is not quite inevitable. The separatists might decide that Debaltseve’s fall leaves them with enough territory and a defensible front line. There would be a powerful military argument for halting their spear point while they hold the advantage.
Who will take this decision — the rebels in Ukraine, or President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin? Last summer, Russia sent thousands of troops over the border to halt a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Most of those forces have since left. Today, Russia does not have infantry battalions in eastern Ukraine, but “hundreds” of special forces soldiers from the Spetsnaz and GRU military intelligence, according to Douglas Lute, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. They operate advanced weapons and run a “parallel chain of command” stretching back to Moscow. These operatives amount to Russia’s instrument of control. Now that a choice must be made — consolidate or advance — Putin could use them to enforce his will.
Whatever the decision, Ukraine can do precious little. President Petro Poroshenko now finds himself in an impossible predicament. Whenever Ukrainian forces have gained ground, Putin has sent combat troops to rescue his friends. Even without deploying, Russia can always compensate the rebels for their defeats.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has a regular army of only 64,000 soldiers. Unable to recapture the lost territory, Poroshenko’s only option is to reach an agreement with Putin that would at least prevent more of Ukraine from being swallowed up.
Yet, time and again, Putin simply breaks the deal. With the collapse of the second Minsk accord, Poroshenko has run out of options.