Fighting for position

AS COLUMNS of soldiers marched through the centre of Kiev to mark 25 years of Ukrainian independence this week, Larissa Nikitina could not help but think about the price of sovereignty. Some 9,500 Ukrainians have been killed in fighting in the country’s east since early 2014, and there are more casualties every week. “We fought for this holiday, we are fighting for it, and we will have to keep fighting for it,” she said. Tensions have flared around Crimea and eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, and many worry that another round of fighting is on the horizon.

The Minsk peace process, which has sought since mid-2014 to broker an end to the conflict, has been at a standstill all summer, and violence has been escalating. International monitors have noticed Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatist forces creeping closer along the line of contact; heavier-calibre weaponry and artillery have come back into use. Earlier this month, Russia claimed that Ukraine tried to stage a terrorist attack on Russian-occupied Crimea, a charge Kiev denied. While events remain murky, Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric was ominously clear: “We will not let these things pass.” Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, put his troops on high alert.