{"id":185700,"date":"2014-09-03T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T00:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/09\/03\/russia-and-ukraine-hammer-out-deal\/"},"modified":"2014-09-03T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T00:06:00","slug":"russia-and-ukraine-hammer-out-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/09\/03\/russia-and-ukraine-hammer-out-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia and Ukraine Hammer Out Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really don’t think that this can be cast as anything but a setback for both NATO and the Ukraine, but if this deal holds the shooting should stop<\/a>, which is a good thing:<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a plan to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine that would entrench rebel gains there and hand a significant defeat to Ukrainian leaders who have sought to regain full control of the territory of their nation.<\/span>

<\/span>Putin said that he and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had agreed on the broad outlines of a seven-point peace settlement that would at least temporarily freeze the conflict on the ground. He specified no major concessions for the rebels and instead insisted on a large-scale Ukrainian military pullback and the introduction of international monitors to ensure that fighting does not resume.<\/span>

<\/span>Poroshenko did not specifically address the \u201cPutin plan,\u201d as it was dubbed by the Kremlin, but he said that the time had come to end the conflict.<\/span>

<\/span>\u201cThe first task is peace,\u201d Poroshenko said in a statement. \u201cToday at 5 a.m. I spoke to President Putin about how we can stop this horrible process. There is no denying that people must stop dying.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Both leaders said that they hoped peace talks could start Friday.<\/span>

<\/span>The apparent concessions to Russia dealt a further blow to Ukrainian aspirations to escape the orbit of the nation to which they were once joined as part of the Soviet Union. Months of pro-European protests in Kiev ended in February with the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. Russia quickly moved to annex the Crimean Peninsula in response. The Europe-friendly Poroshenko was elected in a landslide victory in May, but his popularity has been damaged by the grueling conflict in the east, where \u00adRussian-backed rebels have claimed important swaths of territory.<\/span>

<\/span>Just weeks ago, Ukrainian forces appeared close to defeating the rebels. But since early last week, the rebels have made rapid, renewed strides against the Ukrainian military after Kiev reported a large-scale Russian incursion into southeastern Ukraine. The Kremlin denies aiding the rebels, although rebel leaders have said that Russian soldiers were using vacation time to fight on their side.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That last bit, the whole, “I’m a soldier, so I’m, going to war on vacation,” is the very epitome of a “Busman’s Holiday.”<\/p>\n

Victoria Nuland’s Neocon folly is just the gift that keeps on giving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really don’t think that this can be cast as anything but a setback for both NATO and the Ukraine, but if this deal holds the shooting should stop, which is a good thing: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday announced a plan to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine that would entrench rebel gains …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[964,1040,1033,1098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-relations","category-former-soviet-union","category-russia","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}