What I learned the last couple days about the Ukraine.
Gee, where do I start? An airplane got shot down; no, a commercial jet-liner. Okay, it was an international flight. The airport it took off from was in Dutch territory and the plane had almost 200 Dutch nationals on-board. This plane was heading to Malaysia on a known flight path for such flights. Right before this plane was shot down, (and there is no disagreement that it was shot down) it had clearance to proceed on that path. Boom! It was shot out of the sky. Nobody has a clear idea about who did it. One thing I see here for certain is that a certain group of rebels/freedom-fighters/thugs whatever you wish to call them; they have taken over the crash sight. They have fired shots over the heads of international investigators when they were conducting their investigation of the crash sight. There are also reports of these very same people robbing the bodies. Yes, desecrating the bodies of the international dead. Stealing their luggage. Making this crash sight as if it were a pirate treasure to be looted. Regardless of who is responsible for shooting this flight down, the actions of these men, who keep their faces hidden, are despicable. These people who rob from the dead are below even to most descried murder. And we're watching all this on our televisions!
Frankly, I don't give a crap who shot down this plane. The actions of the people who are so-called guarding this site speaks for me.
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Denying that international observers and experts are there.
Holding the train there--as of noon Houston time the bodies had been loaded and sat on the RR tracks for hours, under lock and guard, while the observers and experts watched the RR cars sit there.
While they sit there, Borodai has said that the black boxes should be (povinny, somewhere between "ought" and "must"
be under their control. They've called for specifically Russian experts, even when international experts were around.
Borodai has also said that they can't let experts to the crash site until they can guarantee their safety, and the only way to do that is to have a ceasefire.
Now he wants a ceasefire when before he would only discuss a ceasefire that required pulling back all troops (and diversionary groups) to the DPR and LPR's borders--BTW, the DPR and LPR have *never* controlled the territory all the way to the oblast or regional borders. So they'd only go for a ceasefire if a lot of territory was unconditionally yielded to them as a precondition.
But now the Ukr army is at the Donets'k airport (which is another way of saying "across the street from the first large district of Donets'k) and has cut off direct access from Donets'k to Luhansk. There's fighing near Mikolaisk. Over in Sverdlovsk. And approaching Snizhne from the SE and SW. The only path to the Russian border is east through Torez, Snizhne, then looping up north around Sverdlovs'k to Krasnodon and Krasnopartizansk. It's not a safe, open, direct route and it's under threat in at least three locations. That's their only supply line. Suddenly Borodai wants to use the bodies of 298 dead Asians and Europeans as a bargaining chip for getting a ceasefire "until the investigative work is concluded." That could take weeks.
During those weeks the border with Russia and the resupply route would stay open. If his demand's taken seriously, he's manipulating a dozen countries into pressuring Ukraine to allow the rebels to restock their arsenals, import new equipment, receive fresh shipments of recruits and troops from Russia, take a breather and recuperate, as well as dig in along new front lines.
Not something Ukraine will allow. But since the nearest fighting is miles from the crash scene and it's fairly easy to let in experts and such, there's no reason they need to. They're trying to cut the supply line well east and north of the crash site, and surround Donets'k well west of the crash site. If the experts are near Grabovo, it's unlikely for it to become a serious base of rebel operations. And there's no need to, since if Donets'k falls it will be a liability and if Donets'k doesn't fall it won't be because that area's under rebel control. Having the experts there is as good a defense as any for both sides.
