ATP - The
warning is consistent with previous ones concerning the Ukraine conflict,
reflecting continued uncertainty about the fate of the fragile cease-fire,
which, despite a marked reduction of fighting since September, hasn’t taken
hold fully.
“There
have been multiple casualties due to land mines in areas previously controlled
by separatists, and separatist leaders have made statements indicating their
desire to push the front line to the administrative borders of the Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts,” the State Department warned, referring to the two
separatist-controlled territories.
The
statement continued: “Individuals, including U.S. citizens, have been
threatened, detained, or kidnapped for hours or days after being stopped at
separatist checkpoints.”
Packed
within the warning, however, is a piece of good news: The cities of Kharkiv and
Odessa (Ukraine’s second and fourth largest cities, respectively) were taken
off the State Department’s latest advisory. A July travel warning included the
two cities.
In
an emailed statement to the Daily Signal, the State Department said it had
“eliminated language urging citizens to exercise extreme vigilance in Odessa
and Kharkiv” after “ongoing assessments of the security situation in those
areas.”
The
State Department declined to comment on whether any specific intelligence led
to lifting the warning.
Kharkiv
and Odessa have remained under Ukrainian government control. Yet, according to
Kiev, Russian intelligence operatives abetted separatist movements in both
cities, spurring terrorist attacks and occasionally fatal civil unrest.
Eastern
Promises
On
December 15, speaking to reporters in Kiev via Skype from a forward location,
Ukrainian military spokesman Maj. Anton Myronovych said combined
Russian-separatist forces had launched 120 attacks against Ukrainian positions
in the previous three days using artillery, antitank missiles, grenades and
small arms.
Myronovych
said the current pace of fighting is consistent with the low level of conflict
that has lingered since September. In the preceding three days, December 8
to 11, Ukrainian positions were attacked 175 times, he added.
Kiev
claims the attacks on Ukrainian positions are an attempt to lure Ukrainian
troops into escalating the conflict and provide combined Russian-separatist
forces a justification to launch an offensive. “The situation remains tense,”
Myronovych said. “But attempts to provoke Ukrainian forces have failed.”
The
Ukraine war remains deadly. On December 9, two Ukrainian soldiers died and
seven were injured when their vehicle struck a land mine. A continued ban on
U.S. flights over eastern Ukraine also underscores that the region is still a
war zone.
U.S.
aircraft were banned from flying over parts of eastern Ukraine and Crimea under
Federal Aviation Administration regulations dating back to April 2014. The FAA
expanded its restrictions July 18, 2014, the day after a surface-to-air missile
downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the Russian border in the Donbas,
killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
About
six weeks ago, on October 27, the FAA renewed its ban on U.S. flights over
large swaths of eastern and central Ukraine. The agency cited the risk of
commercial aircraft being shot down as well as conflicting instructions from
Ukrainian and Russian air traffic controllers.
No
Deal
The
lull in fighting in eastern Ukraine paralleled the beginning of Russian
airstrikes in Syria in September.
Russia
says it is targeting the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS,
which holds territory in Syria and Iraq. Moscow also complains that the U.S.
has not been coordinating its efforts in Syria with Russian forces, and that
the U.S. divides up terrorists into “bad” and “good ones,” according to a
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement.
The
U.S., however, argues that Russia is defending Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad
and has targeted moderate rebels, some of whom the U.S. has trained and
equipped.
Some
analysts speculate that the Kremlin has sought to trade Western sanctions for
Russia’s help in fighting ISIS. If so, the Kremlin’s gambit appears to have
fallen short.
European
Union leaders were expected to extend the sanctions on December 17 by another
six months, citing combined Russian-separatist forces’ continued violations of
the truce, known as Minsk II. Full implementation of the Minsk accord is the
benchmark for rolling back sanctions on Russia, EU leaders say.
U.S.
officials also have said sanctions on Russia will not be eased in exchange for
Russia’s cooperation in Syria, a position that U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry reiterated when he met with Kremlin officials in Moscow on Tuesday:
It’s
our hope that the sooner the Minsk agreements are implemented and implemented
in full, the better, and U.S. and EU sanctions can be rolled back.
The
U.S. and EU put targeted economic sanctions on Russia in March 2014 following
the occupation of Crimea. The sanctions were expanded following the downing of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which subsequent investigations blamed on a
surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists—a conclusion the
Kremlin contests.
On
Tuesday Kerry told reporters in Moscow that the U.S. was willing to work with
Russia in fighting ISIS, and was not pursuing “so-called regime change” in
Syria. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had taken “under advisement”
America’s concerns about Russian airstrikes targeting moderate Syrian rebels.
Shaky
Truce
In
March 2014, Russia launched a hybrid invasion of Crimea with special operations
and intelligence units. Both the U.S. and the EU said a subsequent referendum
for the peninsula to join the Russian Federation was illegitimate.
Following
the occupation of Crimea, in April 2014 a Russian-backed separatist movement in
the Donbas escalated into open warfare.
According
to Kiev and NATO, as well as independent news reports, Russian troops and
weapons flooded across the border that August to turn the tide of battle as
Ukrainian forces gained momentum. The Kremlin denies military involvement.
Several
combined Russian-separatist offenses in 2014 and early 2015 inflicted heavy
losses on Ukrainian forces, and resulted in hundreds of troops taken prisoner.
Yet,
despite the intense fighting, neither side was able to gain an advantage and
the conflict ground into a static stalemate of trench warfare, replete with
daily heavy artillery attacks, mortars, tank shots, and sniper and small arms
skirmishes.
The
conflict cooled in September, when Ukrainian and combined Russian-separatist
forces agreed to a series of moves to withdraw heavy weapons from the front
lines and scale back the fighting. The overall intensity of the conflict has
decreased, but small skirmishes and tit-for-tat artillery strikes still happen
almost daily.
According
to the U.N., the conflict has killed more than 9,100 and displaced about 1
million.
Many
villages and towns along the contact line are abandoned, bombed-out ruins. Land
mines became a pervasive threat. injuring and killing dozens of Ukrainian
soldiers since September.
Civilians
are able to cross back and forth from separatist to Ukrainian territory, but
some families remain split across the front lines. Many who fled separatist
regions in 2014 are afraid to return for fear of being arrested or kidnapped
due to their alleged support for the government in Kiev. This leaves many
Ukrainians who fled from the Donbas de facto refugees in their own country.
Moscow
has shown no appetite to annex the separatist territories as it did Crimea.
Consequently, the separatist leadership has evolved its goals from establishing
an independent territory called “Novorossiya” to remaining part of Ukraine as
an autonomous territory.
A
preliminary vote in Ukraine’s parliament in August to grant
separatist-controlled territories more autonomy sparked deadly protests in
Kiev. The violence reflected the unpopularity of such a move within some
sections of society and its potential to spur unrest.
“The
situation in Ukraine is unpredictable and could change quickly,” the State
Department said.
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