Why Is Putin Smiling About Ukraine?
In Kiev, Everybody Knows
David Patrikarakos
David Patrikarakos
“There can be no real ceasefire until strategic battles have been decided” The latest Minsk ceasefire goes into effect a minute past midnight on February 15. Here’s why it’s not going to work.
The thick carpet of snow that covers central Kiev lends the city an artificial air of calm. In Independence Square, scene of the EuroMaidan revolution last year, the cafés and restaurants are full, and in the surrounding streets people hurry to and from work, wrapped up tightly against the cold. Designer shops sell Levi’s jeans and Calvin Klein shirts, while an Apple store is filled with customers. The war seems a million miles away.
But each day the stores re-price those jeans and shirts. The people walking to work worry about how they will afford life’s necessities and how to ask their boss for a pay raise—again. As the war in eastern Ukraine has intensified, the Ukrainian hryvnia has lost over 30 percent of its value in a week, and everyone is reacting in their own way. A waiter in my hotel asks me if I have any dollars.
The talks that ended Thursday in Minsk between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would, on the face of it, seem to have brought some relief to this beleaguered country. Most immediately, the parties were able to announce an immediate and full bilateral ceasefire in parts of the Donestk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire will take effect a minute past midnight Ukraine time on Feb. 15.
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Read more: www.thedailybeast.com
The thick carpet of snow that covers central Kiev lends the city an artificial air of calm. In Independence Square, scene of the EuroMaidan revolution last year, the cafés and restaurants are full, and in the surrounding streets people hurry to and from work, wrapped up tightly against the cold. Designer shops sell Levi’s jeans and Calvin Klein shirts, while an Apple store is filled with customers. The war seems a million miles away.
But each day the stores re-price those jeans and shirts. The people walking to work worry about how they will afford life’s necessities and how to ask their boss for a pay raise—again. As the war in eastern Ukraine has intensified, the Ukrainian hryvnia has lost over 30 percent of its value in a week, and everyone is reacting in their own way. A waiter in my hotel asks me if I have any dollars.
The talks that ended Thursday in Minsk between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko would, on the face of it, seem to have brought some relief to this beleaguered country. Most immediately, the parties were able to announce an immediate and full bilateral ceasefire in parts of the Donestk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire will take effect a minute past midnight Ukraine time on Feb. 15.
...................
Read more: www.thedailybeast.com
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