Almost all quiet on the eastern front of Ukraine these days.
Ever since the warring parties declared yet another ceasefire in late July, the guns of Russia’s war in the Donbas remain silent most of the time and Ukrainian forces report no casualties.
The years-long war of attrition was suddenly put on hold in just a snap, following over 20 previous attempts that had failed immediately.
For Ukraine, which seemingly got used to losing a soldier every few days, this continuously long period of calmness is unprecedented. The country’s leadership eagerly radiates optimism and tries to gloss over ceasefire violations — all looking forward to a possible big rendezvous with the Kremlin that might spell the war’s end.
Few, however, share this sense of positivity.
Despite the silence, there are no reasons to believe that the Kremlin is ready for concessions to ensure a withdrawal from the war on mutually acceptable terms.
Neither has it exhausted its ability to maintain its 30,000-strong occupational force in the region that has been stationed there for the past several years.
When all’s said and done, yet another ceasefire may end up being nothing but just a calm before the storm — both militarily and diplomatically.
“There is clearly no reduction in motivation of Russia to destroy Ukraine,” says Glen Grant, retired British Army officer and defense expert with Kyiv-based Ukrainian Institute for the Future.
If there had been motivation, it would have been shown by concessions in this ceasefire, while now it’s on the contrary — the Russians appear to be preparing for further action, according to Grant.
“I hope I am wrong, but there is no evidence to show otherwise,” he says. “The actions of (Ukraine’s) senior leadership are best expressed as ‘Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned!’”
A Ukrainian serviceman loads a machine gun at a trench line foxhole near the town of Krymske in the war zone of Donbas on June 30, 2020. (AFP)
‘Display of wisdom’
The all-out ceasefire was broken by gunfire within just minutes after coming into force at midnight on July 27.
Violations haven’t been numerous: military dispatches register no more than 2-4 incidents a day. Reports from the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe’s (OSCE) mission in the Donbas also say there’s a radical decrease in the intensity of hostilities.
Nonetheless, weapons keep being employed every day.
The Ukrainian national security leadership, however, prefers to present these armed clashes as a “non-systemic display of untamed emotions or provocations on the lowest level,” in the words of Ukraine’s General-in-Chief Ruslan Khomchak.
From Kyiv’s official point of view, this is “the state of the sustainable and comprehensive ceasefire.”
“By contrast with numerous previously announced ceasefire declarations, which lived only several days, today is the 15th day of armistice without heavy weapons and combat casualties,” Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council secretary, said on Aug. 10.
The military power of Russian-backed forces in Donbas in 2020
The high command continues insisting that the Ukrainian contingent is ready to repel any offensive by Russian-backed militants. The military press shows photos from the war zone depicting Ukrainian troops fully armed.
But there’s more to it — many of the latest military reports specifically note that Ukrainian troops “abstained from opening fire” in response to the enemy’s attacks. For many, this is a reminder of a former deal in which Ukrainian troops are banned from engaging the enemy without a direct commandment from Kyiv. Violators were even to be subject to disciplinary action.
The ban supposed to be served by both sides. But in the view of Iuliia Mendel, the spokeswoman of the president of Ukraine, this unilateral withholding was necessary for peace.
“The Ukrainian army has demonstrated itself wise,” Mendel said in the controversial Aug. 3 statement that triggered an uproar in social media.
“If the other side provokes conflict and therefore a failure of the fragile ceasefire, and yet the (Ukrainian army) doesn’t give in, it is a display of wisdom and commitment to peace.”
No matter what, the Ukrainian authorities seem to do their best cutting all corners and softening their rhetoric on the war in a bid to boost some progress in tortuous talks with the Kremlin, which holds the key to the war that has killed over 13,000 since 2014.
As recently as on Aug. 6, Ukraine’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said that Ukraine expected to carry out yet another major prisoner exchange with Russian-backed militants, and also worked on agreeing between three and five new areas of mutual withdrawal of troops and weapons in the Donbas.
A Ukrainian soldier sits at his combat post in the war zone near the city of Avdiyivka on July 19, 2019. (AFP)
Growing menace
Meanwhile, nothing shows the Kremlin’s goodwill toward Ukraine.
According to the latest estimates by Ukraine’s intelligence, in the Donbas, Russia continues holding a force that is, to a certain degree, comparable with forces of NATO’s larger members. It includes 35,000 troops, 480 tanks, 910 armored personnel carriers, 720 heavy artillery pieces, 200 missile systems in addition to drones, munitions, radio-electric warfare means.
The Kremlin’s bill of war expenses in the Donbas accounts for nearly $5 billion a year, according to Ukraine’s Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories.
There is no reason for any kind of optimism in foreign intelligence reports either.
In his statement published on Aug. 1, Valeriy Kondratiuk, head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, noted that, in addition to the immense power of its western and southern military districts, Russia completed deploying two brand new field armies and a combined arms corps.
This includes the 20th (24,000 troops) and the 8th (45,000 troops) Guards Armies based in Russia’s cities Voronezh and Novocherkassk respectively — just several dozen kilometers away from the Ukrainian border — as well as the 22nd Coastal Forces Corps in occupied Crimea.
Moreover, since 2016, Russia continues reactivating the old Soviet nuclear weapons infrastructure near the Crimean cities of Feodosiya and Balaklava — which might point to the Kremlin’s long-rumored plans to deploy nukes in the occupied Ukrainian peninsula.
This broader picture of Russia’s military activity in the region renders the rhetoric of peace in the Donbas by Ukrainian leadership increasingly flimsy.
A Ukrainian soldier assembles his Kalashnikov rifle after regular cleaning near a rear front dugout in the war zone near the town of Novoluhanske, eastern Ukraine, on June 14, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Nothing is over
This ominous silence is indeed a chance to achieve a new prisoner exchange or further disengagement of forces, or new cross-frontline entry points for civilians, says Mattia Nelles, Ukrainian expert with Berlin-based think tank Center for Liberal Modernity.
But this is not even close to being a sort of breaking point in the war.
“Whereas the relative success… comes as a quasi-surprise to many, it should not lead us to believe that the Russian calculus has suddenly changed,” Nelles says.
“On the contrary, the Kremlin continues to push Zelensky hard on unpopular political components of the Minsk agreement — such as the adoption of a special status for the (occupied) Donbas — knowing well that this causes strong tensions within Ukraine.”
Nelles says this period of silence again demonstrates Russia’s ability to halt the shootings in the Donbas when it wants.
“Ultimately, we have to see how long the ceasefire actually holds. But as Ukrainians sadly know too well, Russia and its proxy-forces can dial up the conflict at any moment,” he says.
Grant also insists that a ceasefire is never a military act in war, but rather a political action in which a stronger side usually gives a weaker side a chance to give up — or it proposes a deal.
But Russia continues to offer no concessions to Kyiv. Instead, it insists on the bitter peace signed in Minsk after the devastating defeats in Ilovaisk and Debaltseve in 2014-2015.
In this case, Grant suggests that Ukraine’s military should waste no time and “assume that the ceasefire will break, and use the time to (its) advantage to be prepared if and when it does.”
“What (Russians) have done is gained military strength by weakening the Ukrainian front line and political strength by getting many gains for no concessions on their own part,” Grant says.
“They are using the time well to consolidate and to prepare further action while the Ukrainian side splurges meaningless PR. The OSCE report of 60 tanks exercising close to the front line should sound an ample warning that Russia has not gone away.”
