A Ukrainian soldier carries defused RPG round near the eastern city of Slovyansk in the Donetsk region on July 14.(GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
The conflict in Ukraine has evolved significantly in recent weeks. Ukrainian security forces have made progress against the pro-Russia rebellion that has plagued the country since March. Central to Kiev's efforts was the takeover of Slovyansk, which had been a rebel stronghold, by the Ukrainian military over the weekend of July 4-6. The rebels fled their bases and checkpoints in Slovyansk and the surrounding areas, but rather than cross the border into Russia, many instead joined forces with pro-Russian separatists in and around Donetsk to continue fighting.
Analysis
Because the rebels have lingered in the country, Kiev must now focus its military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk, the two major strongholds of pro-Russian separatists. With the fall of Slovyansk, Ukrainian forces have enhanced their ability to move fuel and equipment and to establish checkpoints, making it easier to close in on larger cities. The morale and confidence of Ukrainian troops has also substantially increased since the shaky start of operations.
However, taking over these cities by squeezing separatist forces out as they did in Slovyansk is a much larger and more difficult challenge for several reasons. First, Donetsk and Luhansk are large urban areas -- more than 1 million people reside in each city -- and the Ukrainian government tries to avoid inflicting heavy civilian casualties so that it does not alienate its citizens in the east. Second, both cities, particularly Luhansk, are close to the Russian border. Ukrainian security forces have been unable to secure and close off the border, enabling Russia to reinforce the rebels in the east with weapons and more fighters. This makes completely eliminating pro-Russian separatists in these areas a difficult task for Ukrainian security forces unless they can establish control over the border -- one of the stated missions of their current military operation.
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The Ukrainian government still believes it can ensure eventual victory by surrounding the rebels, cutting off supply lines from Russia and deploying targeted airstrikes. Indeed, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has said that Kiev expects to retake Donetsk and Luhansk within a month.
However, the gains made by Ukrainian security forces have also escalated the violence of the conflict and heightened the possibility of Russian involvement. On July 14, a Ukrainian An-26 aircraft was reportedly shot down close to the Russian border. Ukrainians said that Russia was responsible for the shooting, claiming that the plane was flying too high to be downed by Ukrainian weaponry. Russia has denied these claims, and the rebels themselves have claimed responsibility. A day earlier, a Russian citizen was killed after an artillery shell, reportedly fired from the Ukrainian side of the border, hit a house in the Russian region of Rostov. Russia responded by threatening Ukraine with "irreversible consequences."
Further incidents could also raise the stakes in the conflict, particularly because fighting rages so close to the Ukraine-Russia border. Russia has already moved between 10,000-12,000 soldiers toward the border. While all sides want to avoid a serious escalation, they may not be able to; the proximity in which they are fighting naturally creates spillover violence, including low-grade cross-border incidents.
Still, Ukraine and Russia are unlikely to conflict directly. Ukraine does not want to go up against the Russian military, and Moscow has made it clear that, for logistical, military and political reasons, it does not want to invade eastern Ukraine. Nonetheless, kinetic action on the border inevitably raises the risk of escalation.
More Provocation
Meanwhile, political activity surrounding the Ukrainian conflict has also picked up. Ukraine has continually asked the United States to place more sanctions on Russia for its material support of the pro-Russian rebels. There are now indications that Washington will consider doing so this week, possibly to include targeting Russian firms in the financial and defense sectors. However, Europe remains hesitant to pass anything but symbolic sanctions against Russia, and without European participation, the international community will find it difficult to maintain a united front in pressuring Russia to end its support for the separatists. As Germany continues balancing its support for the Ukrainian government with its close business ties to Russia, countries such as France, Italy and Austria have grown more skeptical of Western efforts to place more sanctions on Russia.
But sanctions are not the only European involvement that the Ukrainians are seeking. On July 15, the press service of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced that he had held a telephone conversation with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the issue of creating a joint Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian military brigade, otherwise known as "UrkPolLitBrig." Though it was first proposed in 2009, there has been scant effort to proceed on its formation. But since the Ukraine crisis started, Polish and Ukrainian officials have revived the idea of the brigade: Poland's Defense Ministry reaffirmed its interest after Russia invaded Crimea in March, and Ukraine's Interior Ministry raised the idea once again in June. With a pro-Western government in Kiev, the choice by Poroshenko's press service to raise the issue publicly can be taken as a signal that Ukraine is serious about the possibility of creating such a brigade this time around.
The mere consideration of such plans is likely to provoke Russia. The joint brigade is also unpopular in Germany, where the government opposes any greater military commitment to Eastern Europe. Ukraine's participating in the Western alliance system, and particularly in NATO, is a red line for Russia. Despite the Ukrainian government's repeated public assurances that NATO membership is not on its agenda, the fact that Ukraine is actively discussing even limited concrete military cooperation with two of the most anti-Russian members of NATO is not taken lightly by Moscow. Combined with the increased activity on the Ukraine-Russia border, these developments point to an escalation of the conflict rather than its resolution, though the broader constraints of large-scale military clashes remain in place.
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