Ukraine Has Few Options To End The Civil War In It's Favor

Russian Muscle Turns Tide, Leaving Ukraine Few Options -- Wall Street Journal

President's Choice is Negotiating With 'Terrorists' or Bloody Defensive War

MARIUPOL, Ukraine—With his army in retreat amid an influx of Russian soldiers and heavy weapons, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is facing a tough choice between making concessions to Kremlin-backed separatists or fighting a bloody defensive war.

The dilemma seemed unthinkable until last week, when what Western officials describe as an incursion from Moscow turned the tide of a five-month conflict that Ukrainian officials said they were close to winning.

Now the Ukrainian army is retreating across much of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions after suffering hundreds of casualties. The separatists and Russian forces have opened a new front, threatening the southern port of Mariupol.

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My Comment: Absent any meaningful military support from NATO .... Ukraine's options are limited to (1) a bloody and long defensive war that will severely impact the economy, or (2) negotiate with the separatists. In hindsight .... Ukraine President Poroshenko should have taken the initiative a few weeks ago when his forces were winning the battlefield .... and the rebels .... with Moscow's support .... were begging for a ceasefire to be followed by negotiations. Instead .... he called Putin's bluff that he would not support the rebels .... and Putin .... having limited options himself .... decided to called him on it thereby changing the dynamics on the ground completely. This ceasefire and subsequent talks is something that is not going to be easy for President Poroshenko to accept .... and doubly hard for his supporters. They were hoping for a quick military victory .... not expecting that the opposition against them in the east would be that fierce .... nor (contrary to their own public remarks) did they expect such a direct Russian involvement. My hope now is that the ceasefire holds .... and negotiations will lead to some accommodations being reached. But the bottom line right now is that the Ukraine that we know no longer exists .... all that is now left is where will the boundaries be and to what degree of autonomy will the eastern part of the country get.