Astana peace summit postponed as both sides mobilize in east Ukraine

Both Ukraine and
Russia accuse each other of mobilizing their forces for an offensive in the east
of Ukraine. Ukraine’s army says that during the past 24 hours shells have rained
down on their troops in a staggering 84 separate attacks, after a large column
of armoured vehicles was filmed entering the country on Jan. 11 by civilians in
the town of Krasnodon, who said they belonged to the Russian army.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is
planning to conscript up to 200,000 soldiers for military service in 2015, many
of whom will be expected to replace the embattled units in the Donetsk and
Luhansk regions that have spent months defending Ukrainian territory from
assault by Russian forces and their proxies.    

At least sixty
Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Dec. 9, when both sides announced
stricter ceasefire orders, christened a “regime of silence.” One civilian was
killed overnight by shelling in the Luhansk region.

“There was a kind of
pause but now we are losing our people again,” Valery Chaly, deputy head of
Presidential Administration said in the interview to Channel 5. He added there
was still the threat of a “return to the military solution.”

The spike in
skirmishes along the front line between Ukrainian and pro-Russian troops casts
a grim shadow over any further attempt to secure peace in a war that has
already taken more than 4,700 lives since April.     

“The differences in opinion made it clear
how difficult it is to make progress towards a political solution or a summit
in Astana, from which much is expected and which must be prepared,” said German foreign affairs minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the Berlin talks. While the leaders of each
country will not be convening in the near future, he added that the heads of
the political departments of the ministries would plan a meeting for next week.

Unlike the Minsk protocol
agreed by country representatives and the OSCE in early September, it was hoped
that a new deal would prove more successful if signed by heads of state.
Ukraine and Russia have much to gain from the talks. Investors are largely
steering clear of Ukraine as long as the conflict remains unresolved, while
Russia needs to lift Western sanctions that, coupled with falling oil prices,
are wreaking havoc on its economy.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said last week that the sanctions had made Russia more
compliant during peace talks. But he added that Russia was yet to fulfil three
important aspects of the Minsk agreements — allow Ukraine to regain control
over its border, stop the shipment of weapons to separatists and “withdraw its
regular army troops and its agents.”

For its part, Russia insists
on the federalization of Ukraine and giving more powers to the volatile regional
authorities. It demands Ukraine holds direct talks with the insurgents, whom Kyiv
officials consider terrorists.

“Our
understanding is growing that it will be difficult to agree upon other
individual issues, given that each of these individual issues is important,
without launching a comprehensive constitutional process involving all regions
and political forces of Ukraine,” Lavrov told reporters after a meeting
with his German, French and Ukrainian counterparts in Berlin.

“A political
process, a constitutional reform process should create a framework that, so to
speak, will help tackle all tasks concerning the implementation of each point
of the Minsk agreements in the right context, including a ceasefire,
humanitarian aid, the release of hostages and measures to grant special status
to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics,” the Russian
minister said.

Despite
the difficulties, Ukrainian officials continued to express hope that the Astana
talks would take place. “A meeting at the level of
the presidents of Ukraine, Russia and France, as well as the German chancellor
is being prepared in Astana,” Ukrainian Charge d’Affaires to Kazakhstan Yuriy Lazebnik told
reporters in the Kazakh capital.

“The Kazakh side has confirmed its
readiness to host such a meeting as soon as its date is agreed,” he added.

“All four parties
of the so-called ‘Normandy format’ are currently working with Kazakhstan’s
assistance to put all the Minsk agreements into practice, make the Astana
summit a success and to secure a final solution to the situation in Ukraine on
the territory of Kazakhstan. Kyiv sincerely hopes that it will happen.”

Kyiv Post staff writer
Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at grytsenko@kyivpost.com