“There’s gonna be a few dead Parliamentarians in the coming weeks, all “fifth columnists”.”
There is something going on, and it’s big, IMO...
Kiev is out of money, running out of aircraft, and the South Pocket is coming apart, (but the rebels don’t have the strength to eliminate it), and Kiev doesn’t have the strength/supplies to do anything other than bombard the cities, it seems.
The growing unrest in the west is likely becoming a big issue, as well.
The “Big offensive” has been beaten back, and Kiev is resorting to replacing the modern equipment they started the war, with much older stuff that had been sitting in the depots for 30 years, such as T-72’s, and series 1 BMP’s. There have even been a couple of Tweets about digging up the Chernobyl “Equipment Graveyard”, looking for usable Mil-28 parts.
The war is getting more vicious, with reports of several atrocities now, such as Kiev launching an attack under a flag of truce, and torturing/murdering POW’s, and Strelkov’s declaration that some Kiev officers are to be shot on sight, and not taken prisoner, as justification.
It seems that Kiev is running out of steam, and becoming more desperate. The Ballistic Missile launches show that pretty clearly. And Winter is still coming, with not enough gas stored to get through it.
As I have said for a couple of weeks, if Kiev is going to end this, outside of a negotiated settlement, they have to do it soon, or the Social Unrest will result in another Maidan, this time with lots of guns.
The presence of any of the following, Poland, Hungary, Belarus, and Moldova, (depending on which parts of West and North Ukraine go to the streets first), will be a fairly good indication of whether or not changing current borders (Crimea part of Russia with Transnistria on the block in return) will be considered.
Think Metternich and a return to Europe behaving like Europe with three or more power blocks instead of the EU as the be all and end all of European unity.