A gathering dark cloud is threatening the peace of Ukraine

A gathering dark cloud is threatening the peace of Ukraine

By E. Stanley Ukeni

It seems like even as the United States’ Secretary of State, John Kerry, was in Russia holding talks with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the Russian Army was busy massing troops and hundreds of pieces of heavy weaponry. Reports filtering out of southern Russia indicate that heavy weapon such as mobile rocket launchers; tanks and artillery are being massed at a temporary military staging area near the Russian border with eastern Ukraine. Well, well, it appears the Russian leadership is not in a trusting mode just yet, and as such intends to make sure that they are not caught off guard by a surprise Kiev offensive.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Stepan Poltorak, warned over a week ago that Russia is actively rearming the separatists—with aim of restarting the fighting between government troops and the pro-Russian separatists in the near future. He supported his assertion by indicating that a significant number of Russian tanks and heavy artillery have been moved into separatist-held eastern Ukraine, and that there are units of Russian armed forces already in the areas of Luhansk and Donetsk.



The first hint of trouble came when news broke, in late May, that President Vladimir Putin had ordered all information relating to the records of the deaths of Russian soldiers, during special operations in peacetime, to be classified as state secret. As I read that news brief on the executive invocation of a supposed wartime state secrecy decree for the classification of military war deaths, I thought to myself, ‘this could only mean one thing—the Russian leadership is setting the groundwork for possible covert operations either in the Ukraine, or elsewhere in the world.

Although the Russian armed forces have consistently denied any involvement in the civil strife in eastern Ukraine—where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting forces loyal to the pro-western government in Kiev, there is now credible evidence of a deliberate and coordinated massing of covert Russian army detachment along its southern border with Ukraine. Why would the Russian military leaders think to do this close to such a volatile area?

Based on information that I gathered from various sources, I concluded that Russia may either be contemplating compelling the separatists to lunch summer offensive aimed at expanding the territorial area under their control, or the kremlin is anticipating a spectacular breach of the tenuous ceasefire by the regime in Kiev. Either way, there is no denying the fact that the Russian army is massing troops on its southern border with Ukraine.   

If you’re like me, the question in your mind would be, ‘why would the otherwise sensible Russian leadership act in a seemingly irrational manner by unnecessarily seeking to reignite a, potentially regionally destabilizing, war so close to its border’? Well, the short answer is not too unreasonable if one considers the situation from the Kremlin’s point of view.

The Russians may be figuring that if an American-backed lightning-fast surprise offensive by government forces were to crush the separatist army and force them into a retreat across the border, any subsequent counter offensive from the Russian side of the border, by the separatist forces, would probably be judged by the international community as a glaring Russian-backed war of aggression, which would put Russian in a precarious position of seeming to be violating international law and convention—a situation that would give western backer of the Kiev government an internationally sanctioned legal and moral impetus to come to the aid of the Ukrainian government. The Russian war planners probably figure that the conflict is currently an internal civil strife and must be fought and won as such.

What is clear from my research into the issues fueling this conflict is that all side considers the stakes too high for their side to back down without firm and sustainable guarantees. In my humble opinion, it is going to take a concerted effort by the international community to reach an amicable solution to this crisis.

Story is authored by E. Stanley Ukeni, © 2015. All Rights Reserved.