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LEADERS FROM UKRAINE, Russia, France and Germany are due to hold last-ditch peace talks today aimed at halting 10 months of conflict in east Ukraine that has claimed over 5,400 lives.
The crunch summit is the climax of a frantic diplomatic push by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to prevent the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War from escalating.
For the first time since October, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will come face-to-face with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin — who Kiev and its Western allies accuse of masterminding the pro-Russian rebellion — in an effort to thrash out a truce.
“Tomorrow’s meeting in Minsk is one of the last chances to declare an unconditional ceasefire and withdraw heavy artillery,” Poroshenko said in a statement yesterday.
If the talks fail, US President Barack Obama has warned that Washington may decide to start providing arms to Ukraine, a step many European leaders have been desperately trying to avoid.
Obama spoke to Putin by phone yesterday and sought to pressure him to rein in the rebels and embrace the chance for peace.
“If Russia continues its aggressive actions in Ukraine, including by sending troops, weapons, and financing to support the separatists, the costs for Russia will rise,” the White House said.
Western diplomats, however, warn the warring sides remain deadlocked over key issues, and that there is no guarantee of reaching a conclusive accord that might end resurgent fighting.
“Nothing is certain yet, and holding a summit does not mean it will lead to success,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
New proposals, old plans
The plan to be discussed is based largely on flouted peace agreements between Kiev and the rebels in September. The hope is that, at minimum, a ceasefire to halt fighting that has killed hundreds of civilians in recent weeks can be agreed upon in Minsk.
In lower-level talks in the city yesterday ahead of the summit, the separatists submitted their settlement proposals but warned that “it is too soon to speak about a ceasefire”.
A key sticking point is whether a new deal will extend rebel control over some 500-square kilometres of territory seized over the past month.
As the peace bid headed to the wire, fighting has raged on the ground with both sides trying to strengthen their hands at the negotiating table.
At least 19 soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting in east Ukraine, a Kiev defence official said today, including five in a rocket attack on regional capital Kramatorsk.
Insurgent fighters have been battling for weeks to take the key transport hub of Debaltseve, while Ukrainian forces on Tuesday captured ground around the key port city of Mariupol.
Kiev is desperate to get Putin — who has watched Western sanctions and low oil prices batter the Russian economy — to put pen to paper on a deal.
The former KGB spy has consistently told Kiev it needs to reach an agreement with the rebels, not with him.
Moscow is pushing for the separatist-held territories to be granted a large degree of autonomy, while Ukraine is demanding it gets control back over some 400 kilometres of its border with Russia.
Kiev and the West accuse Putin of pouring soldiers and troops into Ukraine to spearhead the insurgency, but Moscow flatly denies it is behind the fighting.
It’s possibly someone showing off their capability before putting it up for auction. Like the Christmas Sony hack a couple of years ago
Here’s why this wasn’t a nation state actor. Let’s take a look at an excerpt from the log of the Firewall on my Home Router: (IP’s truncated)
Oct 22 16:26:30: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (186.244.206.xx:15314->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:07: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (83.21.5.xx:63112->109.255.xx.yy:9999 TCP) from module Firewall
Oct 22 16:28:04: [Minor] Port Scan is detected (93.171.199.xx:11943->109.255.xx.yy:23 TCP) from module Firewall
My router (and yours) is scanned thousands of times a day, looking for open ports through which they can connect to webcams, home alarm systems etc etc. Not that they want to spy on you, or steal your stuff. That’s actually quite rare. Instead they will simply turn your devices into internet weapons that will send crafted queries designed to spam other machines, anywhere else on the Net.
It’s not the Russians doing this. It’s gangs of basement dwellers and malcontents. Much ado about nothing in terms of world politics. Be more worried about your shiny new Thermostat.
State sponsored hackers are “sitting in the basement” type hackers who are just employed, plus there’s a lot more of them, what are they on about? They’re really pushing this Russia thing! There’s a few videos of Putin talking to international journalists asking them to actually do their job and report on what’s happening because the U.S. Media are out of control. It’s a sad state of affairs when you get to this stage.
@Linda: Well yes Linda, but with the additional training, education and skill-set that comes with that. They don’t spend their lives scanning Virgin media IP blocks trying to hack home devices. They don’t care about DYN (the company hit yesterday) or their customers, by and large, or perform low grade nuisance attacks in general.
Instead they are busy doing the same thing to IP blocks belonging to infrastructure and governments.
Which is why I think we agree that this was unlikely to be nation state and even if it was Russia are no more likely to be guilty than China, Iran or North Korea if it was.
We agree. I think it’s least likely to be Russia anyway, if they really thought it was them they wouldn’t say it. I mean why this story and not the one where Putin is saying he doesn’t want to get into a war with the U.S but they have to stop moving their nuclear stuff over toward him? If there’s even a chance that the U.S. is trying to start a war, shouldn’t we know this before we worry about who fiddled with Twitter? They’ve done it before and they’re at it again.
This has F-Society written all over it…
I found the discrimination against me as a kid was very prominent, as one of the few vegetarian in school, I really understood how it felt to be frowned upon for being different. Other students would shout ‘winner winner, chicken dinner’ at me when they quite clearly knew I did not eat the low grade chicken there degenerate mum’s would make them scoff on a daily basis.
@Jaque H Doyle, winner winner, chicken dinner. How do you like your steak cooked ?
Someone putin on a show of power in support of his business friend, Trump?
So the US are saying that, at the moment, the Russians are the evil superior cyber power? It could be anyone really. Their tech companies have been farming out manufacturing, data handling and coding etc to the Far East and third world for years chasing the bottom line, so it shouldn’t surprise them if they’re open to both fair and unfair competition, underground practices and even attacks from anywhere in the world. Silicon Valley has the startup and investment gig but the technology is inherently wide open to bad intentioned talent everywhere.
Jasus I hope they don’t DOS attack Eircode… Pizza consumption would grind to a halt!!!
TBH these people bore me. If this is what makes you happy in life you really need to get a life it’s so much more fun!
Us testing the internet kill switch , before martial law is declared all communications will be severed !
Can’t be Anonymous, most of their hacker’s are actually in prison or simply not good enough, so that leaves the Chinese or the Russian’s? My money’s on the commies…
Eh they’re both commies…
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