Derek Nastasi
There are many conflicts going on in the world all of the time; some argue that it is human nature to be at war. However, there is one conflict that affects quite a bit in world politics, especially here at home. It's the war in Donbass, a war being fought right now between Ukraine against Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, Russian separatists and private military contractors. This has relevance especially now because it may have relations with the current Trump impeachment situation, along with the fact that the U.S. is giving military aid to Ukraine which is a portion of what taxpayer’s dollars are being put towards and,with any war, how it affects foreign relations. There has not been much reported on the war recently but the news website VICE, last year, sent an embedded reporter to cover the war. According to VICE, the war is still very active and hasn’t stopped since 2014.
So what or where is Donbass? Donbass is a collective for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. These regions consist of the Luhansk Republic and Donetsk Republic which are proto-states . Proto-states are politically organized territory that doesn’t represent an actual country which is made by the people. These proto-states were made in 2014, following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, which included rioting, shootings, and other acts of civil disobedience that showed a dislike in the Ukrianin government and eventually removed the sitting president of Ukraine, at the time, Viktor Yanukovych. To explain the War in Donbass in a simple way, Russia has found an opportunity to take back Ukraine by using the Ukrainian unrest and newly-formed proto-states to their advantage. Ukrainian was only formed as an independent country in 1991 from Soviet Russia.
The reason why Trump’s political opposition is trying to impeach him is because of his interactions with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It’s understood across the Associated Press that Trump told the Ukrainian president that if he does not give him the adequate information about Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, he will withdraw military aid to Ukraine.
Now, it is confirmed that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, was in Ukraine supervising natural gas operations for Burisma Holdings while George Kent, a State Department official, stated that Hunter Biden being on the board of the firm as a conflict of interest. Other criticisms is that he has no experience supervising these operations according to Fox News. The Obama administration also removed the investigator, Viktor Shokin, who was looking into the possible collusion. Is this money laundering through Burisma? Could the Ukraine government be turning to dirty business due to troubles caused by the War in Donbass? These are some of the questions that are being raised in the press right now.
The war started when pro-Russian protests in eastern Ukraine began to escalate bringing separtist forces of the Luhansk and Donetsk Republic into armed conflict with Ukrainian government forces in April of 2014 when the war officially started. According to Reuters, the Ukrainian government stated that the War in Donbass reached its peak in mid-2014 and between 15 and 80% of the combatants were Russian paramilitaries (groups organized similar to a military but not actually part of the armed forces). Although Russia is involved in the conflict, their armed forces have not been reported of being involved directly in the war. However, according to Canadian Broadcasting Corp.(CBC), Russian troops are on Ukrainian territory, but that doesn’t mean that they are fighting. The groups, however, that are involved with Russian members or origin are: The Russian Orthodox Army(formed in Ukraine made up partly of Russian volunteers), Wagner Group(which was formed in Russia as a private military contracting group), and the Registered Cossacks of Russia (a Russian paramilitary organization). So that means that even though Russians are fighting in the conflict, they aren't part of an official government-approved on paper group.
One notable incident occurred between August 22 and 25 of 2014 when Russia sent a convoy across Ukrainian borders containing artillery and personnel disguised as a humanitarian convoy without Ukrainian government permission, which the Head of Security of Ukraine declared as an invasion by Russia, according to Reuters. According to The Interpreter and UK Telegraph, Russia has been staying vague when discussing if there are Russian personnel in Ukraine: they denied the presence of “regular armed forces” but confirmed “military specialists” or advisers being there.
As the war consumed the summer, the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) insurgents took back the territory lost during the initial Ukrainian government offensive by August, 2014; then on September 5, a ceasefire called the Minsk Protocol was signed between the LPR, DPR, Ukraine, and Russia according to BBC. Confirmed by the Associated Press, there were multiple violations of this ceasefire by military officers turned warlords and was completely ineffective by Jan, 2015 with heavy conflict assuring that. On February 12, a new Minsk II was signed but broken immediately by the separatists launching the offensive on Debaltseve. According to Euronews, this conflict remained a frozen one bordering a stalemate from 2015 to now. However this stalemate is not a peaceful or quiet one; dozens of soldiers and civilians alike die each passing month according to rferl.com with Politico stating that an average of one Ukrainian soldier died in combat every three days. Thousands of Russian separatists have been reported to be in the Debaltseve area by Kyivpost and RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Currently this is the situation in Donbass to this day. Although around 20 ceasefires were called fighting still hasn’t stopped. This conflict is one that was talked about when first started but forgotten about as time went on. Ukrainian soldiers give their lives every day to protect their homeland and Russians fight every day to take back Ukraine for Russia.
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