Tim Judah: What Putin has won in Ukraine
Inside Ukraine, driving north from the Sea of Azov, an appendage of the Black Sea, along rutted country roads that snake parallel to the Russian border, we saw abandoned Ukrainian military encampments and the twisted remains of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other vehicles. The Ukrainian cell phone signal died and our phones picked up the Russian one. Wherever we met rebel soldiers, they joked and chatted. They were relaxed. A cease-fire had been agreed on the day before, on Sept. 5, and along the border there was no reason not to be relaxed. Ukrainian forces had been driven out of here, just as they had in other parts of eastern Ukraine.