You're reading: Will They Stop Putin?

Ukraine was high on the agenda when the NATO summit started in Wales on Sept. 4, with leaders of the 28-nation alliance looking for ways to bolster Ukraine and punish Russia for its aggression.

“The leaders reiterated their condemnation of Russia’s continued flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and agreed on the need for Russia to face increased costs for its actions,” U.S.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said. “The leaders also expressed their strong support for President (Petro) Poroshenko’s efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict.”

However, as Poroshenko welcomed the news that France was suspending the delivery of the first of two naval assault Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia, the strategic Azov Sea port city of Mariupol faced artillery barrages by Kremlin-led forces.

Stopping short of promising to send weapons that Ukraine wants, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen noted that individual nations can make their own decisions about arming Kyiv.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) talks with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko during a working session on Ukraine on the first day of the NATO 2014 summit at the Celtic Manor Hotel in Newport, South Wales, on Sept. 4. The NATO summit, billed as the most important since the Cold War, got under way with calls to stand up to Russia over Ukraine and confront Islamic State extremists.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and others promised to ramp up sanctions on Russia if it continues to escalate the situation. NATO says there are more than 3,000 Russian troops as well as military hardware as part of the Kremlin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine.

A meeting of European Union ambassadors is expected on Sept. 5 to punish Russia’s energy, finance and defense sectors.

“What counts is what is actually happening on the ground,” Rasmussen said on Sept. 4. “And we are still witnessing, unfortunately, Russian involvement in destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine. So we continue to call on Russia to pull back its troops from Ukrainian borders, stop the flow of weapons and fighters into Ukraine, stop the support for armed militants in Ukraine and engage in a constructive political process.”

Russia continues denying its military is involved in the conflict that has killed nearly 3,000 people, wounded another 3,044 wounded and sent 1 million residents fleeing their homes since mid-April, according to official data.

Still, hopes for peace were also on the table, with Poroshenko saying he expects a document to be signed in Minsk on Sept. 5 outlining a stage-by-stage peace plan for Ukraine. He indicated that he will order a ceasefire the same morning if that meeting is confirmed.

Speaking in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia was ready to take practical steps to de-escalate the crisis. The Kremlin’s plan includes the “end of active offensive positions” on both sides, in reference to Ukraine’s military and the forces President Vladimir Putin denies are of Russian origin.

Poroshenko, in turn, called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and for a buffer zone to be established on the border. Ukraine has lost control of huge swaths of its eastern border with Russia because of heavy cross-border shelling and attacks by Kremlin forces inside Ukrainian territory.

Both sides have also expressed readiness for international monitoring and a prisoners’ exchange, AP reported.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk took a different tone on Sept. 3, stating that “peace we must attain through battle,” suggesting his opposition to an agreement that would create a frozen conflict in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts akin to Trasnistria, South Ossetia or Abkhazia. 

“What Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing constitutes an invasion,” said U.S. Senator John McCain on Sept. 4 in Kyiv at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

Loss of human life

The mothers of Russian soldiers and mercenaries are beginning to learn that more of their sons are fighting and dying in Ukraine.

On Aug. 20, Elena Tumanova in Russia’s Mari El Republic, received a sealed coffin with the body of her 20-year-old son Anton. The death certificate, issued in Rostov-on-Don on Aug. 13, stated that his death occurred at “the place of temporary deployment of the military unit 27777.” The cause of death is “concomitant injury. Multiple shrapnel wounds of the lower extremities with damage to major blood vessels. Acute massive blood loss.”

“His legs were torn off, obviously. The guys (from his unit) told me. But I sensed it anyway that it wasn’t all of him in that coffin,” Tumanova told Russia’s Novaya Gazeta.

She said her son, a trained soldier, could get no job in his hometown and decided to go to the army as a contractor instead to earn just over $800, brushing off the possibility that he would be sent to war in Ukraine.

During his first mission to Ukraine, his unit was disguised as insurgents, he told his mother. On the night of Aug. 12, he was sent in the second time, as a part of a column of 1,200 soldiers to Snizhne, a town 15 kilometers from the border. Later on that day, the column was shelled by rockets from Grad launching systems. “The boys told me that 120 men out of 1,200 died, and 450 were wounded. My Anton was at the front. No trenches or any protection. They panicked and tried to get out,” Tumanova says.

The woman told the Russian Novaya Gazeta that she craves to know who gave the order for her son’s unit to go to Ukraine. She thinks it could only have been given from Moscow.

“If I saw Putin standing next to me, I would ask him: ‘Did you give that order? Answer honestly.’ I thought there were no Russian soldiers there. And the boys say it’s not going to be over any time soon. Why does anyone have to go there? Let them work it out on their own.”

An official from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has estimated that some 2,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives on Ukraine’s territory. The ministry created anonymous hotlines for the mothers of Russian soldiers who may be looking for their sons if they suspect they are serving in Ukraine. Their numbers are +380800501482 and +380968878094.

The Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said on Sept. 4 that wounded Russian servicemen are now being flown to the military hospital in St. Petersburg “because military hospitals in Rostov-on-Don and other cities in the south of Russia are overfilled.”



Russia made substantial gains over the week, taking control over much of southeastern Luhansk Oblast, breaking the encriclement of Donetsk, and advancing upon the coastal city of Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Azov Sea whose takeover may enable Russia to create a land corridor to Crimea, the peninsula that it annexed in March.

Elena Vasilieva, coordinator of Inter-Regional Coordination Center “Forgotten Regiment,” a non-governmental organization created by and for former service men and women, said that on Sept.2 alone 14 or 15 Kamaz trucks filled with dead soldiers crossed the border from Ukraine to Russia.

Russian authorities continue to insist that there are no Russian soldiers on Ukraine’s territory. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Sept. 3 that “Russia is not a party of the conflict in Ukraine.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman even ridiculed the NATO satellite images that proved the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine. “The phrase ‘NATO published satellite shots of Russian troops’ presence in Ukraine’ has become as common in recent months as the famous ‘British scientists have discovered’,’ Russian news agencies quoted spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

Despite the denial, the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine is causing anxiety among the population. Soldiers’ parents are planning a demonstration on the Red Square on Sept. 12, Vasilieva said.

EU sanctions
Meanwhile, European Union ambassadors on Sept. 4 debated scaling up existing sanctions on Russia. Some of the proposals, obtained by the Kyiv Post, stem from an Aug. 30 emergency session of the European Council, and includes the possibility of suspending the 2018 World Cup in Russia and states the objective of also “strengthening the ban on investment in Crimea.”

It favors deepening existing measures that were adopted in late July for the sake of expediency and impact in lieu of expanding their scope to new sectors.

“It reinforces the point that EU sanctions are directed at promoting a change of course in Russia’s action in Ukraine and are not a tit-for-tat against Russia’s restrictive measures against the EU,” the document argues.

Federica Mogherini, the Italian foreign minister appointed to become the next EU foreign affairs chief, earlier this week told the EU parliament that the sanctions would be adopted by Sept. 5.

In particular, the most significant sanctions ban European banks to grant syndicated loans to their Russian counterparts. Currently, only new stock and bond issuances are prohibited for Russia’s large state-owned banks, including Sberbank and Gazprombank. Debt financing furthermore will be banned for defense companies and to “companies whose main activity is the exploration, production and transportation of oil and oil products and in which the Russian state is the majority shareholder or holds a controlling stake.” Bond maturities are also reduced from 90 to 30 days for Russian banks on European markets.

The EU capital markets restrictions effectively catch up with what the U.S. has done when it included Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, on its sanctions list.

In defense, a retroactive clause would be presumably included related to the import and export of arms to Russia. Current measures only apply to new defense contracts. “This inconsistency could be remedied in the revision of the texts,” the proposals state.

France already went ahead on Sept. 3 to halt delivery of the first of two $1.6 billion helicopter carriers that Russia had ordered, one of which is to be stationed in occupied Crimea.

Also in defense, any Russian buyer would now be banned from purchasing certain dual-use goods – products that have both civilian and military purposes. At present, the restrictions ban EU exports “for military use of for a military end-user.” New categories include: “special materials, quantum key distribution systems, some machine tools, and high-performance computers and electronics.”

Sensitive technologies, especially on cutting-edge oil exploration projects would be prohibited. Earlier sanctions require “prior authorization for the sale, supply, transfer or export to entities established in Russia” for deep-water oil exploration and production, Arctic oil exploration and production or shale oil projects in Russia.

The proposals also recommend coordinating efforts with G7 nations to suspend Russia’s “high-profile international, cultural, economic or sports events (Formula 1 races, UEFA football competitions, 2018 World Cup, etc.)”

It concludes by leaving the option open on widening the scope of and deepening existing sanctions “in the event of major escalation”.