Ukraine a powder keg for a great war

Editorial Page Writer Sohrab Ahmari examines the merits of the Ukraine-Russia cease-fire brokered by European allies. Photos: Getty Images

Trying to resolve conflict ... German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at peace talks in Minsk this week. Picture: AFP. Source: AFP

Russian-backed separatists cover their ears as they fire a mortar towards Ukrainian troops outside the village of Sanzharivka, northeast of Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine flew to the Belarus capital for crucial peace talks Wednesday as fighting still raged in eastern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Maximilian Clarke) Source: AP

IN the cluttered corridors of Kalimina Central Hospital in war-torn Donetsk, Doctor Andrey Igorevich stands as the epitome of what European leaders sitting around a table 1200km away in Belarus this week have been trying to resolve.

The chief of surgery in the hospital in the capital of the Russian-backed Ukrainian rebels, patches the wounds of the soldiers and civilians endlessly being wheeled into his white-walled theatres with seemingly no end to the conflict that in less than a year has claimed the lives of at least 5400 people, wounded 11,000 and displaced an estimated 1.5 million others.

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No sides ... Chief of surgery Andrey Igorevich at Donetsk Kalinina Central Hospital says he treats all wounded. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: Supplied

But he is resolute in his stance, he makes no distinction between the uniforms of those brought before him whether they be militia, Russian or Ukrainian soldiers.

Indeed there has already been occasion where bloodied rebels have been in wards side by side with injured Ukrainian troops who get bandaged up just enough to be moved out of the rebel territory across newly war-defined borders of Ukraine, to west of Dnipropetrovsk.

"I will treat them all, they are all the same here, I make no distinction," Igorevich says with a shrug.

Casualties ... A wounded Russian-backed separatist is helped into a hospital in Stakhanov, near Debaltseve. Picture: AP/Maximilian Clarke Source: AP

And that is the conundrum that faced the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine as they met in the Belarussian capital Minsk to thrash out another peace deal and make a distinction between the Ukrainian men and women who live in the east of the country and want to remain Ukrainian and their neighbours, friends and relatives who have donned other uniforms and want to live under Kremlin rule.

They are the same people and speak the same language, indeed most speak both Ukrainian and Russian, but they want different seats of power to improve their lots.

This weekend though most agree Europe stands on the brink of war amid talk of boundaries being redrawn, NATO forces bolstering border defences of West-backed nations and the United States and Britain threatening to supply "lethal defensive weapons" to the outmatched Ukrainian defence forces.

Doing all they can ... European leaders are trying to resolve the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine before a world war breaks out. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

But in the face of crippling economic sanctions, including more to be imposed from next week, global condemnation and various agreed peace accords Russia's pursuit continues unabated and in so doing exposes different doctrine among Western Allies.

In France's traditional role as global diplomat, its leader Francois Hollande joined Europe powerhouse German leader Angela Merkel to appeal directly to Russia's Vladimir Putin to order the withdrawal of his thousands of troops and heavy armaments deployed to east Ukraine. A similar conditional ceasefire deal made in Minsk last September failed spectacularly with hundreds of square kilometres of territory subsequently seized by the Russian-backed rebels beyond agreed lines.

Ongoing fighting ... A woman walks past a destroyed bus in Donetsk where shelling hit a central bus station and killed at least four people. Picture: AFP/ Vasily Maximov Source: AFP

The latest deal has raised the prospect of a 50km to 70km wide demilitarised zone and will force Kiev to offer greater autonomy to the east of the country, more than was previously on offer prior to the annexing of Ukraine's Crimea by Russia last March.

For his part, Putin is still insisting Ukraine be federalised. It's all tinkering about the edges of the central issue however, which remains Russia's desire, or specifically Putin's desire, to throw away post-Communist agreements and reform the Soviet empire with satellite states. He did it in Crimea last year and in 2008 with the now Occupied Territories of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and now wants east Ukraine from this hybrid war.

Destroyed ... Homes and buildings continue to be destroyed in the conflict as well as a rising death toll. Picture: AFP/ Dominique Faget Source: AFP

Heavy artillery ... A man walks past an unexploded rocket in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region. Picture: AFP/ Volodymyr Shuvayev Source: AFP

It's takeover by stealth, backed by propaganda and newly created alliances designed to subtly fracture traditional political lines of the West, such as Putin's renewed "trusted partnerships", as he calls them, with Greece's new leader Alexis Tsipras and Egypt's Abdul Fattah al-Sisi with whom he this week agreed to build a new nuclear power plant and garnishing of support or at least sympathy from Italy's Matteo Renzi, Hungary's Viktor Orban and Czech President Milos Zeman who has condemned sanctions against Russia and was a notable absentee last October at a German-led summit in Milan designed to resolve the conflict.

Going after what he wants ... Russian President Vladimir Putin's desire is to throw away post-Communist agreements and reform the Soviet empire with satellite states. Picture: AP/Kirill Kudryavtsev Source: AP

Putin has also provided France's emerging political force National Front and its leader Marine Le Pen with a loan and even apparently managed to splinter NATO's position on Ukraine with France and Germany unequivocal there be no military solution to the conflict, while the US continues to threaten to arm Ukraine and NATO as a bloc announcing the "biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War" with 30,000 NATO troops on standby in among others Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria..

It's a difficult geopolitical issue in Minsk, one the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared was the world's "final chance" to get right before what Hollande said would be "total war". The totality presuming sucking in other EU nations on Russia's doorstep, notably those NATO bolstered nations as well as Romania, Belarus, Moldova and Latvia.

Fire power ... Russian-backed separatists cover their ears as they fire a mortar towards Ukrainian troops outside the village of Sanzharivka, northeast of Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine. Picture: AP/Maximilian Clarke Source: AP

Kiev, and also sections of Obama's own administration, believe the four Russian objectives to meddle in what was largely a civil dispute remain: to capture Luganska where a power plant supplying the region with electricity; Debaltseve that has the transport hub that moves the coal from the region's mines across the continent, Donetsk which is Ukraine's vital coke and steel production that attracts its primary export dollar and the harbour about industrial powerhouse Mariupol home to two of Ukraine's three biggest steel plants. Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko has warned that Putin never just wanted to help provinces become semi-autonomous Ukraine states but rather set up an economically-valuable new puppet state of Russia

But how to stop Putin from doing what he says he is not doing?

A destroyed Ukrainian Army tank sits outside Uglegorsk, 6 kms southwest of Debaltseve. Picture: AFP/ Dominique Faget Source: AFP

There is credible evidence Russia now has more hardware including hi-tech anti-aircraft missile systems in Ukraine's east then at the time last July its backed troops shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 killing all on-board including 38 Australians and withdrawing that will be a physical and symbolic challenge for Russia.

It is clear from the latest Minsk accords, rejoining the EU's lexicon is "Novorossiya" or New Russia and that, in the view of NATO members and posted on the Facebook page of Ukraine Defence Minister Valeriy Geletey can only escalate the conflict to a "great war the likes of which Europe has not seen since World War II".

And that may force the likes of Doctor Andrey Igorevich, and indeed EU nations, to pick a side.

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