if a grad rocket falls during a cease-fire…
TRANSCRIPT
If a Grad Rocket Falls During a Cease-Fire
How do you make peace in Ukraine when none of the people with guns
are listening?BYALEC LUHN-SEPTEMBER 8, 2014TSK, Ukraine Heavy
machine-gun fire rang out on Sunday morning from inside Donetsk
airport, which is held by Ukrainian government forces and has been
the scene of intense fighting over the past four months. Shortly
after came a dozen low booms of artillery fire, most likely Grad
incendiary rockets.These were the sounds of Friday's cease-fire
between Kiev and Russia-backed rebels falling apart. In further
evidence of the cease-fire's debility, homes were burning in the
village of Spartak next to the airport after being shelled.Natasha
Kravchuk was on her way to try to save her house after a neighbor
told her it was on fire. She has been living in an apartment her
children rented in downtown Donetsk in order to be farther from the
frequent shelling on the city's outskirts."Yesterday, friends
called from Crimea to congratulate us on the cease-fire, but no one
here believes in any cease-fire," Kravchuk said between sobs as she
passed through a rebel checkpoint on her way to Spartak.Both
government and rebel officials said they adhered to the cease-fire
and blamed the other side for breaking it. But the backslide into
fighting has revealed the virtual impossibility of enforcing a
truce in a conflict where both sides are made up of a motley crew
of fighting units with limited communications and an unclear chain
of command. And while the cease-fire is advantageous for Kiev, it's
not clear the rebels are dedicated to preserving it.On Friday
evening, representatives of Kiev and the self-declared separatist
governments began a truce as part of a peace plan outlined by
Russian president Vladimir Putin, but shelling resumed the next
evening near a Ukrainian military checkpoint outside Mariupol, on
Ukraine's southeast coast, destroying a fuel station andkilling one
civilian. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europereportedsmall arms, rocket-propelled grenade, and artillery
fire after rebel fighters shot at government forces in Shchastya,
north of the separatist-held city of Luhansk.The repeated violation
of the cease-fire over the weekend prompted another round of
finger-pointing in Kiev and Donetsk.A rebel commander at a
checkpoint near the Donetsk airport who declined to give his name
said the Ukrainian forces were firing on Spartak even though no
rebels were there. "We have an order not to shoot except to save
lives," he said.But a video filmed by The Associated Press
Television News (APTN) in Spartak on Sunday showed rebel forces
operating there. A local resident in the video said that the rebels
had first shelled the airport from the village, and then Ukrainian
forces fired back.This is the second truce to fall apart in eastern
Ukraine in the last three months.President Petro Poroshenko
declared a much-heralded cease-fire in June, only to withdraw it
after 10 days. His announcement was immediately followed by a
monthlong Ukrainian offensive that captured the rebel stronghold of
Sloviansk and several other cities, suggesting the government
forces had used the respite to reposition their fighters.The
Ukrainian military, inretreat for weeksand reeling from abloody
battle at Ilovaisklate last month, also appears to regard the
current cease-fire as a chance to regroup rather than a step toward
peace.Speaking on Ukrainian televisionon Friday, National Security
and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said this cease-fire
will allow the military to reposition its troops and do
reconnaissance on the location of enemy forces. "We have the chance
to deploy our forces that are now being reformed and re-equipped,
receive new arms and move into the starting position," Lysenko
said.Meanwhile, the rebels are fresh off a string of victories and
likely don't want to let the Ukrainian forces regroup. The prime
minister of the self-declared Luhansk People's Republic, Igor
Plotnitsky, who participated in the cease-fire negotiations,said on
Sundaythat the Ukrainian Army and National Guard must be withdrawn
from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, suggesting the rebels would
continue their advance. His counterpart in Donetsk, Alexander
Zakharchenko, said at a rally celebrating the victory over the
Germans here in 1943 that "we liberated Telmanove yesterday,"
referring to a town in the region that has been in contention.Both
the rebel and government forces are comprised of a potpourri of
fighting units, most of which center around an individual leader.
This has led to a chaotic command structure that makes such truces
difficult to enforce on the ground, according to Vladimir Ruban, a
former lieutenant general in the Ukrainian Army who has been
negotiating prisoner exchanges on behalf of Kiev and persuaded the
rebels to participate in peace talks."Some people aren't interested
in a cease-fire ... on both sides," Ruban said, suggesting rogue
actors may keep fighting, despite their leadership's
intentions.Slovo i Delo, anNGO that monitors Ukrainian politicians,
recently compiled a list of 37 volunteer battalions fighting on the
side of Kiev, many of which include radical fighters who say they
don't trust the military leadership.Members of the Azov Battalion,
which is defending the coastal city of Mariupol, griped last week
about the cease-fire that was then being negotiated, with one
calling it a "political game."The lines of communication between
nominally allied groups are limited. The Defense Ministryblamed the
recent massacre of volunteers at Ilovaiskon the "independence of
volunteer battalions and lack of exact coordination between them
and the military."The problem is partly technical: The Defense
Ministry said Ukrainian forces had no ability to send encrypted
communications during the battle. Apro, a militia fighter who
fought in Ilovaisk on the pro-Ukrainian side and gave only his
first name, told me they often communicated by cellphone because
his unit has a severe shortage of radios.The rebels' ranks are
equally disharmonious.The separatist military leadership is rife
withwould-be warlords.I witnessed a miniature turf war between
rival groups in downtown Donetsk in June: Fighters reportedly loyal
to Igor "Devil" Bezler, the top commander in the city of Gorlovka,
took over the regional police headquarters, killing an officer.
They vacated it after an hours-long gunfight with rebels from a
Donetsk-based unit led by Zakharchenko.In aJuly recordingof what
Ukraine's security service said was a conversation between
Alexander Borodai, then the prime minister of the Donetsk People's
Republic, and a Russian politician, Borodai complains of the chaos
caused by too many commanders and problems communicating with
certain leaders. The second half of the tape features an
expletive-filled conversation in which voices identified as
belonging to two other rebel officials complain about top military
leader Igor Strelkov.The rebel top brass has also undergone a
shake-up in recent weeks after Borodai, Strelkov, and the previous
prime minister of the Luhansk People's Republic suddenly left their
posts, confusing the situation further.Nonetheless, leaders from
both sides continue to publicly back the cease-fire, with
Poroshenko boasting in Mariupol on Monday that 20 Ukrainian
soldiers had been freed since it took effect. But while the
leadership may promise a cease-fire, the ultimate question is
whether field commanders will follow it."What cease-fire? No one is
observing it," the rebel commander in Spartak said in the
APTNvideo, before he and his men departed in a troop transport
truck and a pickup with an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back,
one fighter holding his fist up in the air in defiance.Posted
byThavam