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U.S. envoy says 2017 deadliest year in Ukraine conflict, warns of spiking violence:
By RFE/RL
The U.S. special envoy for the Ukraine conflict has said 2017 was the deadliest year in the region since the outbreak of violence three years ago, and warned that hostilities are again ratcheting up.
Kurt Volker's comments on December 19 came as international monitors reported intense shelling overnight near the town of Novoluhanske, part of the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas.
UN officials reported eight civilians injured and dozens of homes damaged, with winter temperatures complicating matters.
"A lot of people think that this has somehow turned into a sleepy, frozen conflict and it's stable and now we have...a cease-fire. It's a problem but it's not a crisis," Volker said in a speech at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
"That's completely wrong. It is a crisis. This has been the most violent year, 2017, and frankly last night was one of the most violent nights, certainly since February, and possibly this year," he said.
Volker later posted several message to Twitter, suggesting that just before the "massive escalation" in cease-fire violations, Russia had withdrawn its officers from a coordinating body run jointly with Ukraine that is helping to implement the cease-fire.
He also warned that Russia-backed forces were close to seizing a water-treatment plant in the city of Donetsk, and he called for the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the area.
The chief monitor for a mission led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said a sharp deterioration in the security situation had seen cease-fire violations reaching levels not recorded since February.
More than 10,300 people have been killed, and more than 1 million displaced, since the conflict erupted in April 2014, pitting Russia-backed separatist fighters against government forces.
Volker was appointed earlier this year to try and push forward an agreement reached between Ukraine and Russia, along with France and Germany in February 2015 in the capital of Belarus, Minsk, to end the conflict. But the agreement has gone unfulfilled.
The United States and European Union have pushed Moscow to allow a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in eastern Ukraine, but there are disputes over where the force would be located, and whether it would be allowed to patrol Ukraine's border with Russia.
Volker indicated that no progress had been made in negotiations with Moscow.