On Jan. 29, less than one day after his first phone conversation with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin put the newly inaugurated president’s soft-spoken words on the future of Russian-American affairs to the test.
This test has been uttered in a rain of shelling and an upsurge in fighting with an intensity not seen since the battle of Debaltsave. In five days more than 5.000 artillery shells were fired. This escalation is twenty times higher than the average monthly figure that Russian-backed separatists fire at Ukrainian forces. More than ten casualties in such a short time is also well above the norm, but more dramatically, the attack in Avdiyikva has triggered a humanitarian crisis the like of which Ukraine has not forced endured since the peak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict in 2015. More than 17000 people are now without water, electricity or heating in a Ukrainian winter, with temperatures hovering below -20° Celsius. Bread queues and even evacuations have had to be organized under the dire circumstances, reminiscent of scenes in Aleppo. These are tragedies that we do not associate with Europe. The escalation is so fast and severe that President Petro Poroshenko was forced to break off his national state visit to Germany, Ukraine’s most important (and reliable ally).
