WhatFinger

But we're a long way from getting the Russians out of there.

Overnight deal achieves ceasefire in eastern Ukraine

By Dan Calabrese ——--February 12, 2015

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All-night negotiations led to an announcement early this morning that a ceasefire agreement has been reached in eastern Ukraine. Germany and France brokered the deal between Russia and Ukraine. That doesn't mean the Russians are packing up and heading home, but at least it means the shooting will come to a halt for now while the principles involved try to pursue resolutions on the far trickier issues that remain:
"The main thing which has been achieved is that from Saturday into Sunday there should be declared without any conditions at all, a general ceasefire," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told journalists. French President Francois Hollande said there was still much work to be done on the Ukraine crisis, but the agreement was a real chance to ameliorate the situation. He said pro-Russian separatists, who had at one point appeared to reject the deal, had signed up to it. Merkel and Hollande joined Poroshenko and Putin for a marathon negotiating session that began early on Wednesday evening and continued into Thursday morning. The summit discussions came as pro-Moscow separatists tightened the pressure on Kiev by launching some of the war's worst fighting on Wednesday, killing 19 Ukrainian soldiers in assaults near the railway town of Debaltseve.
As the fighting escalated, Washington has begun openly talking of arming Ukraine to defend itself from "Russian aggression", raising the prospect of a proxy war in the heart of Europe between Cold War foes. The outcome of the Minsk talks is expected to influence discussions at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, when sanctions against Moscow will be on the agenda. A deal would likely mean a softer line toward Moscow. There's a danger to that last part. It's relatively easy for Putin to accept a ceasefire at a point in time, especially as a way of avoiding more onerous sanctions, only to turn around later and re-start the fighting. Putin refers to the part of Ukraine in question as "New Russia," so when we hear about him "respecting Ukraine's borders" it's hard to attach much real meaning to that statement. Meanwhile, Barack Obama - whose administration was not part of the talks - exercises his usual decisive leadership on the matter:
President Barack Obama says he has yet to make up his mind on the question of sending weapons. He spoke by phone to Putin on Tuesday, and the White House said he warned the Russian leader that the costs would rise if Moscow kept aiding the separatists.
Sigh.

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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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