June 14 marks the deadliest day of the undeclared war between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists in the country's eastern regions after Kremlin-backed insurgents shot down a Ukrainian military cargo plane carrying 49 servicemen. All were killed.
Most of them – 40 servicemen – were paratroopers of the 25th Dnipropetrovsk airborne brigade, while nine were from the Melitopil transport brigade and the plane’s crew. An investigation is under way by the general prosecutor into terrorism.
“Terrible tragedy, 50 Ukr(ainian) soldiers killed in a plane hit by terrorists’ rocket. Lack words for condolences to families, outrage at Kremlin,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Yulia Tymoshenko, President Petro Poroshenko’s main rival in the May 25 presidential election, was faster than the incumbent president in reacting to the accident.
“I and our faction in Verkhovna Rada are waiting for the decisive initiatives from the authorities on establishing peace. I guarantee that all of them will get unanimous support on our side,” she said in a statement published on her website.
Poroshenko’s statement appeared around 2 p.m. on his official website.
The president expressed his condolences to the families of the fallen Ukrainian military and border servicemen killed during the government’s anti-terrorist operation.
“I will make Sunday the mourning day for our military men. This is a great loss not just for the families of the dead, but the whole country. Ukraine is in sorrow, but we decisively continue to fight for peace,” Poroshenko stressed. “All those involved in the cynical terrorist act of such a magnitude, will inevitably be punished. Ukraine needs peace. But the terrorists will get an adequate response.”
Poroshenko also ordered a National Security and Defense Council meeting and instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to provide assistance to the families of the dead.
Radical Party member of parliament Oleg Lyashko wrote on Facebook that he had been planning to fly on the IL-76 plane that was shot down.
“Later I urgently left for Mariupol to participate in the operation of liberating the city from terrorists. And this is the only reason why I wasn’t on the plane that terrorists shot today near Luhansk,” Lyashko said.
“I’m not going to stop unless we free Ukraine, my native Luhansk from the terrorist contagion,” he added.
Former defense minister Anatoliy Grytsenko, who also ran for president on a military-centered platform, also reacted to the event on Facebook.
“It’s another, unfortunately, very hard and tragic lesson – for those in Ukraine and the world – who still try to calm Putin’s aggression with negotiations and don’t want to realize that it’s not a struggle of the country’s eastern region population for decentralization… It’s a real war of Putin, who wants to destroy Ukraine!” he said.
When asked by the Kyiv Post whether the event will spur the U.S. and E.U. into more action and harsher sanctions against the Russians, including providing Ukraine with military aid, Hrytsenko replied simply: “It must.”
Also succinct in a response to the tragedy was Lesya Orobets, a lawmaker and former Kyiv mayoral candidate. “Find and punish them,” she wrote on Facebook, referring to the pro-Russian insurgents who downed the IL-76 overnight.
Halya Coynash, a human rights activist and journalist, expressed frustration over the West’s refusal to stand up to Russia.
“High-ranking European Union and United States officials will again acknowledge that the surface to air missiles that killed these men could not have been obtained at the local supermarket, that yes, Russia appeared to be implicated. They will express deep concern and warn of ‘additional costs’ in the event of “failure to de-escalate,'” Coynash said. “A diplomatic ritual repeated again and again, unlike the lives lost, with the bottom line appearing to be that they have no intention of incurring any ‘additional costs.’ The danger is enormous and the costs of not stopping Russia inevitable. The damage to the West’s moral authority is here and now, and also immense.”
“This is war,” says Oleksiy Haran, political science professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. “We have to be decisive and destroy the terrorists.”
“I think, Poroshenko understands the situation very well and will do the necessary steps,” he adds. Besides, Haran thinks it’s time to introduce martial law – and not only in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but nationally.
Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary general of the Council of Europe who previously kept the neutrality towards the conflict in Ukraine, said that the Council of Europe is shocked by what happened in Luhansk.
“I’m shocked and deeply disturbed by the news about tragic deaths in Ukraine,” he mentioned on June 14. “Terrorists will not succeed through such a meaningless murder… President Poroshenko may count on our support.”
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who has been actively tweeting about Ukrainian events since the beginning of the EuroMaidan Revolution in November, wrote: “Horrible crime by pro-Russian separatists with the shooting down of transport plane in Eastern Ukraine. Sincere condolence to all affected.”
William Hague, Great Britain’s foreign secretary, said in his June 13 statement on the eve of the event in Luhansk, that the entry into the sovereign territory of Ukraine of three Russian tanks days earlier is completely unacceptable.
“Russia needs to commit to defusing tension. This means securing borders, withdrawing all military forces, and preventing further violence in eastern Ukraine. I urge the Russian leadership to work with President Poroshenko to restore stability and to regain the trust of the international community,” he emphasized.
“The Russian leadership should be clear that the international community stands ready to impose further sanctions if Moscow continues to provoke instability and does nothing to stop further violence,” added the top British diplomat.
Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Council wrote on Facebook: “Amid the massive presence of Russian weapons and well trained Russian fighters, Ukraine today has lost 49 of its bravest. Putin, the cynically evil sponsor of terrorism, will pay for his crimes. Phase 3 Sanctions now. An international tribunal later.”
Timothy Ash, an analyst for Standard Bank in London, wrote a note commenting on the incident on June 14.
“The loss of a large transport aircraft, perhaps with large numbers of Ukrainian troops on board, will refocus attention on the fact that Russia does not seem to be doing very much to moderate the insurgency,” he said.
“The comments from US officials are now quite specific, and I would expect the focus to return to sanctions next week,” he adds. “Russia may try and deflect this risk by offering language which might imply a willingness to engage in peace talks, but I think the US will now call for specific actions from Moscow to de-escalate rather than mere rhetoric. Little seemed to have been achieved from the D-Day meetings between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Poroshenko, and in the week or so since. Cynics might argue that this just turned out to be a photo opp for President Putin to affirm his position as the man that holds the key to peace in Ukraine, and a leader that has to be party to any end game deal over Ukraine,” concluded Ash.
