By Vestnik Kavkaza
Today the presidents of Ukraine and Russia talked on the phone. Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko discussed steps toward a settlement of the conflict in the east of Ukraine. After the talk the press service of Poroshenko stated that the current ceasefire in Donbass would be permanent. However, many Russian and Ukrainian experts doubt whether the Ukrainian President is able to control the situation in the country or influence the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.
Rostislav Ishchenko, the president of the Center for Systemic Analysis and Forecasting, is sure that the combat zone will enlarge and cover regions neighboring Donetsk and Lugansk: “The Kiev army is suffering catastrophic defeat near Donetsk and Lugansk. It means soon Donetsk and Lugansk will be left, and the battle line will move toward Mariupol, Zaporozhia, Odessa and Kharkov. These are also cities with a million-plus population.”
The expert notes that, at the same time, the Kiev authorities don’t intend to negotiate or settle the conflict on the basis of compromises. “As the conflicts grow, the army suffers defeats, a part of the population which supports the Kiev authorities is radicalized. Poroshenko is threatened by impeachment. And he can really be substituted by a more radical person. And in this situation Poroshenko has only three options: be a nominal president, while different people govern the country; die; or leave the country. I don’t know what the best option for him is, but he is actually losing control over the processes which are happening in the state,” Ishchenko stated.
He notes that in over four months of the military campaign a great number of war crimes have been committed: “They touch on many people. These are people who give orders and who fulfil orders. And all of them understand that in case of the end of the conflict, the question “who is responsible for war crimes?” will appear. And they can be sentenced to prison. They don’t want that at all, and the only way out for them is to win the war.”
As for the prospects of the militants occupying new Ukrainian territories, Ishchenko thinks “theoretically the militants have an opportunity to occupy such major cities of Novorossia as Zaporozhia, Odessa, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk if the army doesn’t resist them seriously and protests against the Kiev authorities are organized there. But opportunities for moving toward the central part of Ukraine are limited. We cannot expect that protests will be organized in Kiev. There can be protests against Poroshenko, but not against Nazism or in favor of Novorossia. So military activity can take place in major cities, not only in Donetsk and Lugansk.”
