An excerpt:
The Russian-occupied Donbass enclave in eastern Ukraine is on the verge of economic and social collapse. That grave fact casts the Russo-Ukrainian war in a different light. Normally, wars are fought over prize territory: winners gain it, losers lose it.
In this case, the implosion of the Donbass means that whoever controls the enclave is, in fact, the loser.
In this case, the implosion of the Donbass means that whoever controls the enclave is, in fact, the loser. As the man who owns the enclave and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future, Vladimir Putin is thus the loser. And both Russia and Ukraine know it.
An excerpt:
He knows most of these men will be on the front lines in a matter of days or weeks. As the soldiers run through their drills, Kondratenko paces back and forth with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder, shouting commands in a booming voice one would more likely expect from a U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor than a civilian doctor.
Every so often he smacks a soldier’s head with his canteen. But in between his shouted commands, he frequently leans down close to his low-crawling pupils, almost whispering advice and instruction in their ears.
“I could be home relaxing, but I have to be here,” he says. “I know the things I’m teaching them will save their lives.”
Kondratenko comes across as being hard on the soldiers. But it’s a role he must play for the sake of the men’s training. Before teaching soldiers how to apply a tourniquet, he puts them through a series of physical exercises, pushing them to exhaustion. Physical exercise simulates the physiological responses to combat, and Kondratenko knows that if the soldiers ever need to use the skills he is teaching them today, they will have to do so under extreme stress.
“I make the training very hard,” Kondratenko says. “I’m tough, but the price of a mistake in combat is death. We have lost a lot of really good people, and we’re tired of burying our boys.”
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Monday, May 4. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Thanks for reading.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this AP report published in the Moscow Times about how several Russian experts are worried that Ukraine is still a tinder box despite the shaky cease-fire:
U.S. experts on Russia see a growing danger that the crisis in Ukraine that has already taken thousands of lives could explode, although the latest cease-fire agreement has partially held.
U.S. and Western European moves to isolate Russia and damage its economy for its seizure of the Crimean peninsula and support of separatists in eastern Ukraine against the Western-backed central government have not forced President Vladimir Putin to back down.
The State Department says Russia is beefing up its troops and weapons along the Ukrainian border. Meanwhile, the U.S. has dispatched 300 American military trainers to work with the Ukraine army, and other NATO members are adding hundreds more.
Experts say that's a fuse of a much wider conflict waiting to be lit after a year of battle that the U.N. says has taken at least 6,100 lives.
Andrew Weiss, Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said an egregious action by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine or an incident between U.S. and Russian forces could cause an escalation. He said a recent near-collision of U.S. and Russian military jets over the Baltics highlighted the risk.
"So there's a lot of volatility here that's embedded in the crisis," Weiss said. "So I'm thinking the current lull just doesn't look sustainable. And it's only a matter of time before something triggers a new escalatory spiral."
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has ebbed substantially since the signing of a February cease-fire deal, but sporadic clashes still break out along the 280-mile front line separating government and rebel forces. U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of NATO forces in Europe, told a congressional hearing Thursday that it appears Russian forces have used the lull in fighting to reposition for another offensive.
Read the entire article here