Russian and proxy forces are attacking Ukrainian positions at multiple points along the frontline since mid-January 2015, bringing to bear superior armored forces, unmatched heavy firepower and electronic warfare support. These offensive operations are mostly positional and attritional for the time being, with a distinct... MORE

A new phase of Russia’s war is ongoing since mid-January in Ukraine’s east. This phase has broken the informal “silence regime” that had taken effect since December 9, which had mainly restrained the use of heavy artillery and multiple missile launchers. It is on these... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing a cheating game with the West and Ukraine, not only hollowing out the Minsk armistice agreements (see EDM, January 22, 23, 27), but even shifting the agreed-upon demarcation line on the ground and on the map. Kyiv is alert... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped to see the Minsk armistice process rehabilitated at the “Normandy Group’s” January 21 meeting in Berlin (see EDM, January 22, 23). Prefacing that meeting of the German, French, Russian and Ukrainian ministers of foreign affairs, Merkel declared: “The Minsk... MORE

Foreign affairs ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Sergei Lavrov of Russia, Pavlo Klimkin of Ukraine, and Laurent Fabius of France—representing the so-called “Normandy” group of countries—met in Berlin on January 21. Germany convened the meeting amid an upsurge in Russian-led attacks on Ukrainian positions along... MORE

Russian regular and proxy forces have attacked Ukrainian positions at selected points along the entire length of the demarcation line in recent days. This operation threatens to shift the demarcation line and the whole existing basis of the September 2014 Minsk armistice. Russia has blocked... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. Local ataman (historically, a Cossack leader) rule proliferates in the power vacuum of the “Luhansk People’s republic” (LPR). Russian forces seized this area from... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Outside Luhansk City and its environs, the “Luhansk People’s Republic’s” (LPR) territory is splintered into de facto fiefdoms and portions of no man’s land. Each fiefdom has its own ataman (leader)... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia is building secessionist proto-states on parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (collectively known as the Donbas region). This effort is advancing with relative ease in the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) but is faltering in the “Luhansk... MORE

The armistice in Ukraine’s east affords Russia a breathing pause to institutionalize the secessionist Luhansk and Donetsk “people’s republics.” The “Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)” is even less institutionalized and more chaotic than the nearby Donetsk republic (“DPR”). Various armed formations in the “LPR” are operating,... MORE