Ceasefire violations between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Russian-backed Separatists in eastern Ukraine have kept the Russo-Ukranian war raging on. The most recent violation occurred only hours after the 29th ceasefire was signed on July 27, 2020. The ceasefire was supported and signed by both Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The conflict started after the peaceful Euromaidan protests turned violent in response to the Ukrainian government’s controversial decision to sever its ties with the European Union and strengthen its ties with Russia.
This major political shift divided the people of eastern Ukraine between the population that identified with their Ukrainian ancestry and the others that identified with their Russian ancestry. This led up to the internationally controversial 2014 Crimean Crisis as Ukranian citizens saw their region of the country annexed by Russia.
Vladimir Putin claimed Russia had annexed Crimea “to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will.” During the annexation 6 people were killed including three protestors; two pro-Russian and one pro-Ukrainian, two soldiers, and one Crimean SDF trooper.
The Ukrainian military and Russian-backed Separatists have been fighting a bloody and merciless conflict ever since. The Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine was occupied by Russian-backed Separatist rebels, consisting of many small fighting forces from many of the Eastern capital cities. Since the beginning of the conflict 4,494 UAF, 5,670 Separatists and 500 RAF (Russian Armed Forces) have been killed. Civilians have had no rest either, as the conflict now is documented displacing over 1.6 million people and claiming the lives of 3,367. The worst civilian casualties occured on July 17, 2014 when Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine which killed all 283 passengers and 15 crew.
Throughout the prolonged ferocity of this forgotten war, Ukrainian and Russian ambassadors, as well as representatives of rebel groups operating out of the Donbas region of Ukraine, and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) met to sign what is known as the Minsk Protocol.
This protocol was an agreement between all factions of the conflict to find a resolution to the brutal fighting and endangerment of civilians. This failed to stop the fighting, however, and Minsk II was agreed to on February 12 2015. This also failed to stop the fighting as within hours of the agreement being put into effect, both the UAF and Separatists reported hundreds of ceasefire violations to the OSCE. The validity of these reports has always been under investigation, as the OSCE believes that either side is abusing the reporting system as a way to undermine the other.
So what do these ceasefire violations and casualties mean? It means that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict cannot and will not be ended through military force. Both sides are armed with military grade ordnance and technology, but are still fighting with the stale Soviet doctrines that never found resolve until large puddles of blood were spilled. Without international intervention through legal means the war will continuously be sustained in Eastern Ukraine and continue to displace more and more civilians. All the governments and peacekeeping organizations can do is sign more ceasefires and hope.