Azor....we differ on the true Russian response if push comes to shove....
Right now yes the Russians use their own mercenaries to agitate in eastern Ukraine and to conduct direct ground offensives...supply the tanks....ammo and fuel for those attacks......In this case, Russia is deterring Ukraine from launching an offensive, which would be reported as violating the ceasefire. Ukraine is in no position to make major gains against the insurgents, without a devastating response from Russia.
BUT check the last Russian planned mercenary led offensive in the Svitlodarsk salient....a total failure and high loses on the Russian side.....
The UAF had picked up intel wise a large Russian military buildup in the area aimed at taking more "Minsk 2 grey zone territory" and basically ran a major ground offensive first taking the area from under the noses of the Russians and then defended it successfully.
While the fighting was truly heavy the Russians said not a single word....and tried to get their so called Christmas ceasefire in place to stop UAF actions.....
With every major Russian mercenary heavy ground attack in 2016....they basically went nowhere and the mercenary loses are now always high.
What many forget in 2014 when the Russian local separatists mad their moves to take Donbass...the UAF basically a low quality ill trained and equipped force starting to actually defeat the separatists and were on the verge of actually winning militarily....THEN the Russian military started massive cross border artillery attacks using everything in their artillery up to 152mm and BM21/BM27/BM30s and tactical missiles....
AND when that did not slow down UAF they opted for a Russian army ground invasion....
UAF has been basically totally rebuilt...rearmed and is now quite capable of defending itself and launching quickly large scale ground offensives when the opportunity presents itself......
Ukraine has largely held back attempting this because the IMF loan requirements indicates their loans cannot be made to a country at or in a "war".....and IMF then rewrote the regs to include the current fighting in eastern Ukraine as "not a war" in order to make the loans...
AND at the same time to appease the EU for Association Status and visa free travel......
UAF though does now have the capacity to go full out on the offensive and the Russians know it and do not want to risk an all out war.....when sanctions are hurting them badly....
BTW...all current Russian agreements and ceasefires are strictly as you point out..."for show only"....
Take their OPEC agreement made with great fanfare across the globe.....Russian oil figures released today indicate the Russians are pumping oil at a level never seen in the last five years....AND surprise there has been no cut back only production increases AFTER the so called OPEC agreements......in this case the Russians were trying to drive up the oil prices above 50 USDs which their announcement did in fact achieve as we are at now a price of 55 USDs...but slowly sinking again....but at least they get an earning bounce for their short fall budget....
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