Putin Is Turning Temperature Down In East Ukraine – Foreign Reporters

What You Need to Know:

✔️ Removing Andrei Purgin, a Donetsk rebel leader could be the first step in compromising towards a peace deal with Ukraine;

✔️Moscow controls the players in rebel-held East Ukraine and it can turn the temperature up or down as it wants;

✔️Donetsk is now a place of paranoia starting with the attacks on the OSCE and banning of journalists;

✔️A new coup d’etat in rebel-held East Ukraine could even signal an end to the war.

In the past two months, the separatist held territories in Donbass have seen paranoia and tension creep in with attacks on the OSCE and the banning of journalists. Now, a new coup d’etat in the self proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic seems to indicate a wholesale change in their adherence to the Minsk agreements. It could even signal an end to the war.

"Andrei Purgin was true to the cause of expanding the Russian world and continuing the war," says Simon Ostrovsky. "I think a big reason for his removal was that he wouldn’t agree to a peace agreement under Minsk, and his replacement with Pushylin, much more of a pragmatist, means that they are trying to come to some kind of accomodation."

Could this be the end of the war, with the past week on the fronts having been almost totally quiet, it might in fact be. However, Oliver Carrol believe that it's more about Moscow showing who is boss in Donetsk by establishing who the main players are. Speaking about the head of the Donetsk separatists, Zakharchenko, Oliver Carrol says "He wasn’t present at the latest meeting, and the next morning, he was fully onboard with the Minsk agreement, which is a U turn for him.” It could indicate that Zakharchenko has been forced to follow Moscows orders or else.

Oliver Carroll, foreign correspondent with The Independent and Simon Ostrovsky, correspondent at Vice News, spoke with Hromadske International Sunday Show co-hosts Ian Bateson and Nataliya Gumenyuk on September 6th, 2015.