Ukraine faces threat of Russian air power as conflict takes turn for the worse

The tension is palpable at
this concrete-clad blockpost on the road east to Donetsk, where Ukrainian and
Russian artillery have been hammering each other with massed fire for the past
three days in an effort to establish control over the devastated ruins of the Donetsk airport.

A queue of parked headlights
would provide an attractive target for Kremlin-backed separatists who
demonstrated a staggering disregard for civilian life last week when they rained Grad
rockets down on another Ukrainian checkpoint outside Volnovakha, killing 12 people and wounding 17.

Now a full-scale war
threatens to consume Ukraine, with fighting in the Donbas region escalating dramatically since Jan. 18. Battles raged all along the contact line after Ukraine responded with its own offensive to a surge in attacks by Russian fighters.

The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s
Republic even told Russian TV channel Life News it had formed its own air force.
Should that announcement ever come to fruition, Kyiv faces the prospect of thinly-disguised
Russian combat aircraft flying sorties in its airspace.

Government forces have
pummelled the positions of Kremlin proxies, even those in the very heart of
Donetsk. Two civilian casualties were reported killed in the city today and a
hospital had to be evacuated after it was struck by a rogue Ukrainian shell.

The spike in civilian deaths has
prompted Amnesty International to accuse both sides of recklessly endangering
non-combatants.

“Pro-Russian separatist forces must stop
using densely populated areas for launching military operations,” Denis
Krivosheev, the organization’s Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia,
said today.

“Kyiv-controlled forces must not launch
indiscriminate attacks which put civilian lives at risk.”

Meanwhile, the European Union
looks to be sleepwalking towards a continent-wide conflict, choosing to
encourage member states to arm Ukraine rather than broaden financial sanctions
against Putin’s regime, which shows no sign of letting up on its neighbor despite
teetering on the brink of an economic collapse.

Last week the European
parliament passed a resolution stating that “there are now no
objections or legal restrictions to prevent Member States from providing
defensive arms to Ukraine” and that “the EU should explore ways to
support the Ukrainian government in enhancing its defence capabilities and the
protection of Ukraine’s external borders.”

The
bloc’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, played down the stand-off,
describing the latest developments in Ukraine’s east as “definitely not encouraging,
rather the contrary.”

Putin’s response was to raise
the stakes yet again, gambling Europeans would rather get dragged into a proxy
war than swallow the bitter pill of an economic downturn should fresh sanctions
cause Russia to collapse entirely. Two battalion-sized Russian task forces
crossed the border into the Luhansk region late this afternoon, according to
Ukrainian authorities.

No surprise then, that the block-post guard is on edge. As the car pulls away from the last
machine-gun nest at the Ukrainian checkpoint, past a row of troop trucks and a
series of armoured personnel carriers, peace in Europe seems very far away indeed.

Kyiv Post editor Maxim Tucker can be reached at tucker@kyivpost.com or on Twitter @MaxRTucker

Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action. Content is independent of the financial donor.