Fed Up With Failing Peace, Ukraine Rebels Eager To Fight

[Purveyor]

DOKUCHAYEVSK, Ukraine (AP) -- In this front-line town in eastern Ukraine, the cease-fire called more than three months ago seems to be only an insulting guise. Shelling rocks the area so often that dogs have learned to head for the basement at the first blast.

Everyone wants the shelling to stop, both the town's civilians and the rebels who control it. That weariness points paradoxically toward new violence.

The rebels are itching for an end to the pretense and wish their leaders would give the order for a full-out assault.

"We've asked them for permission, but all they say is: `no, no, no,'" said one rebel sniper, who goes by the call-sign Rzhavy.

The hollowness of the phony armistice was rudely exposed this week as a ferocious one-day battle erupted on the western edge of the main rebel stronghold, Donetsk. International appeals for calm and restraint duly followed.

MORE...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE_CEASE_FIRE_FRUSTRATIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-06-06-11-21-42

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Hmmm, I thought the rebels were all on-duty Russian soldiers.

From the article:

The units holding the line in Dokuchayevsk are a varied crew. Some are from nearby towns and cities. The voyage there has been longer for others, like Valery, an ethnic Evenk from the Siberian region of Yakutia in Russia, around 5,500 kilometers (3,300 miles) to the east.

Valery, who agreed only to give his first name, said he completed a three-year contract with the Russian army in September and decided to travel to Ukraine after growing bored of civilian life.

"My granny told me that men should fight, so I came here," he said.

------

"So they fire at us at the checkpoints. Fine, we're fighters here," said a bespectacled rebel militiaman, who adopted the nom de guerre Odessa in honor of his native city. "But there are civilians living near here. They just hurl stuff at them too."

One shell last week fell onto Yelena Ignatova's roof, but spared her meticulously tended garden plot of tomatoes, peppers and cabbages. Residents like Ignatova pray desperately for peace, but have little faith that diplomacy is the way to achieve it.

"What did we need the peace agreement for?" she said. "Just to give the Ukrainian army the chance to reinforce here?"

------

I doubt Yelena Ignatova is one of Putin's lackeys.

My main point here being that this is much more messy and complex than a "Russian invasion."

[Purveyor]

2. It always has been more complex but for our bumper-stick news crowd, that tidily sums it up for them

so the "Red Scare" can flourish.