Retaking Donetsk

As far as Andriy Lysenko, Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council chairman is concerned, the 'humanitarian catastrophe' that Moscow is bemoaning can be readily avoided by the rebels in Donetsk taking steps to "lay down their arms and give up", to save their lives. Ukraine is determined to retake all the territory that has been imperilled by the creation of a rebel group incited into action by the Kremlin and the estimable Vladimir Putin, esquire.

Above: A heavily armed pro-Russian rebel mans a newly erected barricade on the road to Donetsk airport.   Picture: YANNIS BEHRAKIS/REUTERS

Finally, the Ukrainian military feels confident enough that they are gaining ground to the extent that the rebels will stand no chance of withstanding the government military assault against their positions. Their brief but inflamed and temporarily successful mission to alienate the eastern Ukraine population from Kyiv is flaming out. Russia remains poised in indecision, attempting still to rouse international opinion and the UN against Ukraine, in sympathy with the insurrectionists.

Any possible reaction in support of the pro-Russian rebels had long ago been dissipated when the world watched with bated breath and universal condemnation as Russia seized possession of Crimea to the great acclaim of the Russian population, fed a steady diet of anti-Ukraine slander. Had there been a mere iota of concern left that Russia's alarm might have some substance, it too was dissipated in the Surface-to-Air missile attack against the Malaysian passenger jet.

The Ukrainian military has Donetsk encircled. The population has been less than halved, with hundreds of thousands of people having fled in terror. Even now, as the military closes in for the final denouement, it has issued a general warning to those remaining in the city to depart for the time being, lest they come to harm in the final assault against the rebel positions.

Newly elected rebel leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko couldn't make up his mind; ceasefire, or not?

Yet on Sunday rebel spokeswoman Elena Nikitina informed the press that talks on the conflict would begin only when and if the Ukrainian army withdrew from the region. And how likely will that be? She might as well have demanded that Kyiv agree to east Ukraine's secession, welcoming Russia to embrace the geography as its own, a happily obliging Ukraine, bolstering the Russian Federation's ulterior plan.

Maxim Rovinsky, a city council spokesman, said that ten thousand people in Donetsk had no electricity, while the local government was attempting to preserve access to gas, electricity and telephone service to "avoid a humanitarian crisis." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insists a truce is "not only possible, but necessary. We believe the question is urgent and there can be no delay, and the issue is under the control of the Russian president."

Kyiv agrees that humanitarian aid should enter Donetsk. But that aid, it rightfully insists, must come by way of the International Red Cross, definitely not the Russian Federation. Russia has already done more than enough to destabilize the country and punish Ukraine for its audacious insistence that it is a sovereign nation capable of making decisions on its own relating to its future.

Kyiv's concern is that should international fears over a humanitarian crisis such as Moscow is agitating for create a situation of intimidation geared to having it agree on a Russian aid mission, such a mission could become a proverbial Trojan Horse, giving Moscow the access and acceptance it will interpret as coming from the international community to enter Ukraine.

Bringing with them the military, 20,000 of which remain massed near the border with Ukraine.