Ukrainian conflict: opponents accuse each other of ceasefire violations

Incidents are on the increase. Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian separatists accused each other on Thursday of having violated the ceasefire established in July 2020 in eastern Ukraine, at the heart of new international tensions for more than a month.

This Thursday, the two parties indeed accused each other of new violations of this agreement, a representative of the separatists going so far as to deny that a new truce was negotiated a little over a year ago: “There is no agreement”, the meeting “did not lead to anything”, said Rodion Miroshnik, representative of the self-proclaimed Lugansk Republic (LNR). “But if you really want to make a statement on this, why not do it?”, he added.

The authorities of the other self-proclaimed republic, that of Donetsk (DNR), announced that a civilian was injured Thursday in a Ukrainian bombardment, according to the official separatist agency DAN. The Ukrainian army then reacted by indicating that the separatists had launched three attacks against its positions on Thursday and would have used large caliber mortars and grenade launchers, without however claiming to be a victim.

The day before, however, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) welcomed an easing of tensions by recalling that the Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian separatists had agreed to restore the ceasefire in the eastern Ukraine.

“I was delighted that the participants expressed their strong determination to fully respect the measures to strengthen the ceasefire agreement of July 22, 2020”, then said OSCE representative and conflict mediator Mikko Kinnunen. “It is of very great importance to people living on both sides of the front”, the diplomat continued, speaking after an exchange by videoconference of the Trilateral Contact Group, which brings together the parties to the conflict.

Germany and France have thus “urged the parties to respect the ceasefire and to continue discussions on new measures in the humanitarian field”. For several weeks, the West has accused Russia in particular of massing troops on the Ukrainian border, near the separatist territories, with a view to possible military intervention.

As a reminder, in July 2020, the two camps, at war since 2014, had agreed to a ceasefire. This truce had been respected for several months, before finally shattered in early 2021. According to Mikko Kinnunen, daily ceasefire violations were on average five times higher in December 2021 compared to the same month in 2020.

The war in eastern Ukraine, which claimed more than 13,000 lives, erupted in the spring of 2014 after a pro-Western revolution in Kiev followed by Moscow’s annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. The political settlement of the conflict, provided for by the Minsk agreements of 2015, has stalled. Russia, despite its denials, is widely seen as the military and financial godfather of the separatists.