It had appeared to have been stabilised after miners/steelworkers had launched joint patrols with police to get rid of bandits. This fresh outbreak of violence is a step back, and underscores the difficulties of enforcing any kind of ceasefire on the ground.
There is now increasing focus on the claims that tanks were brought across the border from Russia, and that this is evidence that Russia is complicit in the seperatist actions. The question is with the US now focused on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, whether they still have appetite to go back to the sanctions push against Russia.
Note that President Petro Poroshenko phoned Vladimir Putin last night to complain about the tank traffic across the border. Poroshenko’s peace push, initiated in Normandy last week, does not appear to be making much progress.
Gas talks also don’t seem to be going anywhere fast, and are getting very acrimonious again.
On the economy front, there is now lots of discussion as to whether Poroshenko is trying to precipitate a change of governor at the NBU, with incumbent Stepan Kupiv seeming vulnerable to a change. A few prominent names at doing the rounds, including the head of a local brokerage company, who used to work for a French bank. Kupiv is considered close to Yatseniuk, the prime minister.
Timothy Ash is an analyst with Standard Bank in London.
