This weekend's shelling of international monitors in Kominternove, a village in the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, shows the violence and instability that is simmering under the surface in the region. Since the withdrawal of small-bore weapons from the front a few months ago, fighting has continued, although at a reduced level than earlier in the year.
The conflict seems to have shifted more to a political confrontation, with the pro-Russian forces stirring up trouble in the capital, Kyiv, and attempting to prevent Ukraine from becoming a successful state that is free from Russian influence. After all, a politically and economically successful Ukraine would be a defeat for Putin's policies and could endanger his position of power at home.
The shelling of the OSCE personnel in Kominternove was only a short distance from Mariupol, the city separating pro-Russian Ukraine from a land bridge to Crimea, now annexed by Russia. This land bridge is the likely long-term goal of the Kremlin to reduce the cost of supply efforts to the Peninsula. It also has the benefit of providing a path for electrical infrastructure away from Ukrainian held territory, which has been anything but reliable. The source of the small arms fire directed toward the OSCE mission is unconfirmed at this point, with both sides pointing fingers at the other.
A source within the Ukrainian military tells me that the situation remains difficult at the front in the Donetsk oblast. It is not the open warfare of the summer with heavy weapons in the mix, but it remains dangerous with separatists regularly using small arms and grenade launchers. In the last few weeks, the government says separatists have started to use mortars and reactive missiles. Government forces fear the situation could change at any moment and revert back to all-out conflict. Soldiers admit their desire to take back their lost territory in the East but are constrained by political considerations at the present time. They observe what is happening on the other side and try to protect themselves, but are ready to bring their heavy weapons back to the front at a moment's notice. Most of the fighting is near the city of Donetsk, from Avdiivka to Marinka, with multiple separatist attacks every day.
What is undeniable is that Russia is keeping Eastern Ukraine in its back pocket as a trump card over Ukraine's future. It is almost impossible for Ukraine to achieve prosperity with a smouldering war on its border and almost certainly Russian security service personal attempting to incite instability and influence events in Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin has allowed the conflict to calm down somewhat as Russia focuses on propping up the government of Bashar Assad in Syria, and preventing the Islamic State from sweeping up through the Caucasus and creating terror in Moscow. However, it is also probable that this will not last. At some point in the future, Moscow will have achieved its goals in the Middle East and focus will shift back to Ukraine, a country that Putin does not see as a real nation-state.
Eastern Ukraine also serves as a bargaining chip for Russia in obtaining the removal of Western sanctions that are slowly crippling its economy. This remains a primary goal for the Kremlin. Russia is working feverishly to reduce the appetite and support for continued sanctions in European capitals. Putin's coordination with France in the Middle East against ISIS, after relations soured over the refusal of France to sell the two Mistral warships to Russia, is a prime example of this effort.
The most likely prospect in the near term for Ukraine is a continued effort by Russia to point out the nationalist tendencies that exist in the country, and to fan the flames of unrest. This approach could allow the Kremlin to achieve its aims without the bloodshed and international condemnation that the conflict in the East was generating. Perhaps this was the Kremlin's strategy all along: to move to a more covert phase of the conflict in Ukraine while shifting its military resources to Syria. So far, with the specter of open fistfights in the Ukrainian parliament, and nationalists marching with Nazi flags in Mariupol, the strategy seems to be working.
