A deal has been signed to reign in extremist activities yesterday, but militants refuse to leave buildings in Donetsk as required by the agreement.
On April 18, the head of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic announced that his men will not lay down their arms or surrender occupied buildings unless the government in Kyiv resigns.
Denis Pushilin said that his men do not consider the government in Kyiv to be legitimate, and will not respond to its demands.
Now, Russia has an obligation under the Geneva Agreement to use its influence to deescalate the situation.
Should they refuse to do so, the economic consequences for their actions will only become more severe. Already, an economic boycott of Russian goods is starting to take place in Ukraine and spreading to other parts of Europe as well. This is in addition to any additional sanctions that the US and Europe might decide to impose.
The boycott campaign is starting to have its desired effect, although Russian troops remain in Ukraine and also across the border, ready to strike.
Within a month, there has been a 40 percent drop in demand for Russian retail products, according to the Ukrainian Association of Retailers. Its director general, Vadim Ignatov, said on April 8 that Ukrainians are refusing to buy Russian food, household chemicals, automotive products and clothing.
“The boycott has included goods that are produced in Russia by large international companies, but now local distributors are looking to replace them with European substitutes,” Ignatov said, adding that Ukraine has no Russian retail imports that cannot be replaced by goods from Europe or Asia.
The turnover of Ukraine’s food retailers in 2012 was $180 billion, of which Russian goods account for 5-7 percent, or over $1 billion, while Russia’s overall imports minus services to Ukraine were $23.2 billion in 2013. The vast majority of the items consisted of fuels, chemicals, heavy machinery, and metals.
But Ukraine has obligations as well. The parliament is starting to drag its feet on a package of amnesty and Russian language status, two of the main areas specified in the agreement. And Ukraine's government has done nothing so far to carry out its part of the agreement to dialogue with the opposition, at least from what we can tell from the news reports. Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself. But it does not have the right to decide which parts of international agreements to follow and which parts not to follow.
Ukraine needs to understand the position that it is in. If they are dragging their feet in the belief that the West is going to respond with massive force in the event of an invasion, they are mistaken, just like Georgia was mistaken a few years ago and Hungary was in 1956. They have already publicly ruled it out and they have publicly ruled out lethal aid as well. Ukraine needs to honor its international obligations so that Russia will not have any more excuse to meddle in Ukraine.