The Minsk agreements are coming to an end

Donetsk, March 27 (PolitNavigator, Yuri Kovalchuk) - Apparently, the Ukrainian side decided to implement the Minsk agreements as it happened in September-December: constantly shell the positions of the LDPR army, carry out sabotage, gradually preparing its forces for a new offensive.

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Yesterday, March 26, DPR Ministry of Defense representative Eduard Basurin said during a press conference that the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not withdraw their heavy equipment, but simply hid weapons in hard-to-reach places: on the territory of factories, in forests, and vineyards.

At the same time, the militias also notice columns of new military equipment approaching closer and closer to the line of contact. According to Basurin, accumulations of Ukrainian heavy equipment were noticed in the Mariupol and Donetsk directions, in the Gorlovka area, etc., in addition, DPR reconnaissance discovered columns of equipment heading towards the front line.

“The largest accumulations of heavy weapons are observed in Mariupol, near Novotroitsky, Karlovka, the village of Kurakhovo, in the Dzerzhinsk region. The Armed Forces of Ukraine retains the Grad and Uragan MLRS, 120-mm mortars, Gvozdika and Akatsiya artillery mounts, and D-30 howitzers,” says Eduard Basurin.

However, this time, the DPR leadership is clearly not going to meekly endure the shelling of Donetsk and Gorlovka, waiting for Ukraine to prepare for another breakthrough attempt. In recent days, the head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, has made two statements.

First, Zakharchenko announced the suspension of the exchange of prisoners of war with Kiev. According to the head of the DPR, the republic sends lists of prisoners of war to Kyiv, and in return receives lists of completely random people. In addition, the Ukrainian authorities are exchanging relatives of the militia.

Indeed, the Ukrainian side exchanges its soldiers for people who have nothing to do with the events in Donbass, and sometimes uses residents of Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, etc., abducted in controlled territories, for exchange.

Alexander Zakharchenko’s second statement was made on several Donetsk Internet resources. In it, the leader of the republic put forward an ultimatum to Ukraine: “If Ukraine does not withdraw heavy weapons by 18:00, then the DPR army will return its equipment to the front line.” The fact that this statement is not a fake was confirmed by the head of the international information service department of the political department of the DPR Ministry of Defense Vladislav Brig. At the same time, Brig refused to comment on Zakharchenko’s ultimatum.

It would be foolish to think that the Ukrainian side will be afraid of the ultimatum and urgently begin to fulfill the demands of the DPR and strictly adhere to the Minsk agreements. Rather, this is a signal that the Minsk Protocol has only a few hours or days left to live.

In any case, it becomes clear that the DPR, tired of the inactivity and selectivity of the OSCE’s perception, the arrogance of Kyiv and the indifference of Europe, has become completely disillusioned with Minsk-2. The republic is one step away from openly abandoning the Minsk agreements or starting to act like the Ukrainian Armed Forces - smashing Ukrainian positions with artillery, and then claiming that this was a provocation on the part of the security forces.

To some extent, this would even be a reasonable way out of the vicious circle of diplomacy, for which the residents of Donetsk and Gorlovka have to pay with their lives.