With Trump Distracted Putin Pounds Ukraine

[Native]

KIEV, Ukraine—Artillery and rockets have been raining down on the front-line town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine since Sunday, leaving 16,000 civilians, including 2,000 children, without heat, electricity or clean water as temperatures dipped to 20 degrees below zero Celsius, or about minus 4 Fahrenheit.

Ukrainian officials say that a combined force of pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars in eastern Ukraine is deliberately trying to derail the February 2015 ceasefire, called Minsk II. According to one line of thinking, the attacks are a ploy meant to bait Ukraine into a counteroffensive, which Russia can exploit for propaganda purposes.

“An hour ago, the enemy requested a truce and, taking advantage of the calm, launched an attack,” the Ukrainian army’s 72nd Brigade, the unit deployed to the front lines around Avdiivka, posted to its Facebook page shortly after the ceasefire was supposed to start on Wednesday.

Some analysts have attributed the recent spike in violence in Ukraine to peripheral events.

For one, the violence began one day after Saturday’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. One line of thinking is that this week’s escalation is a move by Putin to test the White House’s tolerance for Russian provocations in Ukraine.

http://www.newsweek.com/nolan-peterson-trump-distracted-putin-pounds-ukraine-551570

[Sanity Claws]

1. Putin's puppet

[Freethinker65]

2. Trump is not distracted. This was planned.

[BSdetect]

3. We are being distracted.

[Eyeball_Kid]

4. Oh, dear. We're watching the results of Divided Loyalties, aren't we?

[Demsrule86]

5. Trump will allow his BFF Putin to march through Eastern Europe.