Has Putin been victorious in Ukraine?

On September 16th, the Ukrainian Rada voted to "[allow] the removal of government officials from their posts".

"About one million civil servants of different kinds will come under this law, including the whole cabinet of ministers, the interior ministry, the intelligence services, the prosecutor's office," Mr Yatseniuk said in a televised cabinet meeting.

Mr Yatseniuk said the government, police and judiciary would be "cleansed"

This process is known as "lustration" i.e. a policy that seeks to cleanse a new regime from the remnants of the past. The process of lustration involves screening new officials (elected or appointed) for involvement in the former regime and sets some consequences if they are found to have been involved. These consequences can range from publicizing information about collaboration in the previous regime, through dismissal and banning from holding certain offices.What this adopted policy of cleansing means is that Putin sympathisers, who especially dominated in the Ukrainian intelligence services and the Ukrainian prosecutot's office, can be dismissed from their posts and, more importantly, banned from holding certain offices.

Poroshenko addressing US Congress Sept.18th 2014

Added to this adopted policy of "lustration", Poroshenko is in Washington today (18th September 2014)  "with a simple request: more economic and military aid for a nation that is reeling from an insurgency in the east." Notice here that Poroshenko is requesting more "military" aid. In other words, the rather tenuous current ceasefire, together with the amnesty and self-rule granted to the rebels yesterday could, for Putin, merely be a "lull" before he orders a full military invasion, possibly in November, of Ukraine. After all, recently Putin boasted to Poroshenko that " ...he could send troops not only to Kiev but also to several EU capitals in Eastern Europe "within two days".

[He] allegedly mentioned the Baltic cities of Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn, as well as Warsaw (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania). These countries are Nato military alliance members." Poroshenko then passed on Putin's comments to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the weekend in Kiev. So far only Poland has publicly stated that it will supply Ukraine with arms if it wishes to buy any from Poland. What about other EU countries?

What all of this tells us is that notwithstanding that the Ukrainian Rada has ratified giving Luhansk and Donetsk powers of self-rule, Poroshenko is wary that Putin will try to do to these two eastern Ukrainian "enclaves" what he did to the Georgian areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 viz. recognise them as independent states. These so-called 'independent' states are recognised by only Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru. The rest of the international community consider both these 'states' to be under Russian millitary occupation. Looking at the Minsk deal (20th September 2014) reached by Ukraine, Russia, eastern separatists and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); this seems precisely what Russia wants viz. to maintain a "frozen conflict" between itself and Ukraine.

Key points of this Minsk memorandum include:

• To pull heavy weaponry 15km by each side from the line of contact, creating a 30km security zone
• To ban offensive operations
• To ban flights by combat aircraft over the security zone
• To set up an OSCE monitoring mission
• To withdraw all foreign mercenaries from the conflict zone

Points 2 and 5 are of particular interest. Does it refer to BOTH Russia AND Ukraine? Similarly, if Donetsk and Luhansk are given self-rule, will Ukrainian soldiers also be regarded as "foreign mercenaries" by these entities? Notice that none of these points even mention having a buffer zone along the border between Russia and Ukraine. In effect, the current areas controlled by Russia's proxies in Donetsk and Luhansk will become an integral part of Russia.

(to be continued)