Ukraine’s Battleground Blurs the Lines Between Civilian and Fighter

[newthinking]

Simon Shuster / Kramatorsk @shustry
May 6, 2014
Kramatorsk, Ukraine. May 5, 2014.

The conflict in the restive region seems black and white to governments in Kiev and Moscow, but on the ground the boundaries separating peaceful citizens from terrorists and violent thugs is murky—as TIME's correspondent found this week after a clash with separatists

?w=1100
Parents and relatives mourn a pro-Russian medical worker, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine.
A funeral of a young girl age 21, Yulia Izotova in the central square in Kramatorsk. Witnesses say she was killed by shots from a Ukrainian military column on the road from Slaviansk to Kramatorsk,

The conflict in Ukraine hinges on a war over the meaning of words. So far, all sides have been able to agree on two things: the central government in Kiev has lost control over several towns in its eastern regions, and last week, it sent its armed forces to take them back. But there is a lot of confusion on the question of whom they’re fighting. Kiev has called the people in command of these towns “terrorists.” Moscow has called them “peaceful citizens” rebelling against the “junta” government in Kiev. But neither of these parallel realities is anywhere close to the picture on the ground.

Both Moscow and Kiev are partly correct. The Ukrainian military has now encircled both peaceful citizens in the eastern region of Donetsk and fiercely aggressive militant groups. But the question lies in how its troops will tell these groups apart. More than any other factor, this will determine whether Kiev’s campaign results in a massacre of its own people, a restoration of its authority, a Russian “peacekeeping” invasion, or some combination of all three. But the closer one gets to the actual fighting, the harder it becomes to delineate the many shades of grey between the warring definitions of the conflict.

http://time.com/89747/ukraine-conflict-kramatorsk-donetsk-russia/