The soldiers hadn't a chance of winning. They were easily outnumbered by pro-Russian forces, whom Moscow has supported throughout the conflict. As the Ukrainian soldiers made their way out of the bombed city, the ceasefire accord reached in Minsk on February 12 was in tatters.
Repeated calls by Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as
Mom...
, the German chancellor, to Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead..., the Russian president, to implement the ceasefire have gone nowhere. Diplomacy has failed. What is more, Europeans have not grasped the implications of Ukraine losing its territorial integrity.
European leaders can wring their hands. They can threaten to ratchet up the sanctions they have imposed against Russia. But the damage has been done ever since March 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea. Through its weak response to Russian aggression, the E.U. has discarded the rules of the post--Cold War era.
Even the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, in which Western and Communist bloc leaders pledged to respect the inviolability of borders, has been torn up. Europe is entering a new and dangerous era for which it is completely unprepared.