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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, February 2, 2017
Ukraine clashes leave several dead and test Trump's Russia stance
Both sides accuse the other of shelling, and water and power shortages in -18C weather raise fears of humanitarian crisis
A
woman grieves over the body of her mother who was killed by shelling in
Avdiivka, Ukraine. Photograph: Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
Parts of east Ukraine are
on the brink of a humanitarian crisis as the worst violence for a year
in the conflict between Kiev and Russia-backed separatists has left up
to 19 dead and thousands of people without water and heating in freezing
temperatures.
The violence is an early test of Donald Trump’s stated desire for better US relations with Russia. Kiev has watched nervously as Trump has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin and floated the idea of lifting sanctions.
The conflict in Ukraine has raged for nearly three years and cost more than 10,000 lives. A ceasefire was agreed in Minsk two years ago, and although little progress has been made since on a political solution, large-scale clashes have been rareover the past year.
However, in the last few days both sides have accused the other of using Grad systems, imprecise weapons that rain down multiple rockets over a wide area.
On Wednesday the Ukrainian military said three soldiers had died
overnight, and separatist authorities claimed four civilians had been
killed.
In a clear sign that US policy towards Russia could indeed be heading
for a sharp change of course under Trump, the state department made no
criticism of Russia or the separatist side, in contrast to most of its
statements in response to similar spikes in violence in the past.
The acting state department spokesman Mark Toner said the US was “deeply
concerned” by the violence and called for “an immediate, sustained
ceasefire”. However, the statement stopped short of apportioning blame.
Russia’s state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta excitedly noted the change
in tone. “Washington is not blaming the unrecognised republics for
breaking the ceasefire, is not stating any support for Kiev, is not
saying a single word about the role of Russia … Different variations of
these elements were, as a rule, a key part of all statements of Ukraine
under Barack Obama’s administration.”
The state department statement was markedly different in tone to
comments from the US mission to the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe(OSCE), which is staffed by career diplomats and may be out of step with the new mood in Washington.
“Russia and the separatists initiated the violence in Avdiivka,” said
the US chargé d’affaires to the OSCE, Kate Byrnes. “We call on Russia to
stop the violence, honour the ceasefire, withdraw heavy weapons and end
attempts to seize new territory beyond the line of contact.”
There are several rounds of US and EU sanctions on Russia over its
annexation of Crimea and actions in east Ukraine. Trump has suggested it
could be time to lift them, and has spoken of the potential for a grand
deal with Putin. The two leaders spoke by telephone at the weekend and agreed to meet soon.
Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said during a meeting with
security officials on Tuesday: “The shelling is massive. Who would dare
to talk about lifting the sanctions in such circumstances?”
In Moscow, officials accused Kiev of provoking the fighting to derail
the rapprochement between Putin and Trump. “Kiev is trying to use the
fighting it provoked itself as a pretext to refuse to observe the Minsk
agreement and blame Russia,” the foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov
said on Wednesday.
Fighting has centred on the town of Avdiivka, which lies a few miles
from the separatist capital, Donetsk, but is controlled by Ukrainian
authorities. The violence has come during a cold snap, with temperatures
falling as low as minus 18C.
Giovanna Barberis, Unicef’s representative in Ukraine, said: “Not only
are the lives of thousands of children in Avdiivka, and on all sides of
the conflict, at risk, but to make matters worse the lack of water and
electricity means that homes are becoming dangerously cold and health
conditions deteriorating as we speak.”
Also on Wednesday, Ukraine’s defence minister, Stepan Poltorak, claimed a
Ukrainian military cargo plane had been shot at from a Russian-held gas
rig on the Black Sea. “The shot damaged the plane. The crew were not
hurt,” he wrote on Facebook.
So far there has been no comment on the increased violence in Ukraine
from Trump’s inner circle. The new US president has repeatedly made
favourable statements about Russia and Putin and signalled a very
different approach towards Moscow. This month Trump tweeted: “Both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!”
Diplomats who served during the Obama administration have cautioned
against making deals with Russia. “For almost three years the United
States has worked closely with our European partners to support a
peaceful resolution to the conflict through full implementation of the
Minsk agreements, including by using sanctions to encourage Putin to
comply,” said Dan Baer, formerly the US ambassador to the OSCE. “This
should continue to be US policy going forward; anything else would be
irresponsible.”