Minsk II - Or, Minsk: there and back again

So the second batch of Minsk Agreements recently finished in Belarus, after a 16 hour session that was, incidentally, the longest single bit of negotiation that these leaders have probably ever undertaken. There, Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and Putin negotiated a cease-fire (Poroshenko's main goal), while Putin wound up with a lot of what he was looking for, but maybe not the whole of it. Various sources suggest he wanted to have the ceasefire start in 10 days, rather than this Sunday - largely to allow the seperatists to take Debaltseve, a transportation hub that they currently have almost completely surrounded.

However, Merkel did suggest that Putin was able to really put some pressure on the rebels to accede to the Minsk ceasefire, round 2 (hah), and chances are that they'll end up with the rail hub regardless, as apparently Ukrainian and Russian authorities are meeting with each other through mediation by the Organization for the Security and Co-operation Europe (OSCE) in order to figure out a way to extract them.

Debaltseve itself is in no great shape, with most residents having moved on, and, like much of Ukraine's southeast, it's been shelled to heck.

Apart from this, no one is really sure what's really going to happen. My concern is that while Russia plays a large hand in what's happening - as does the Ukraine, no one is 100% in control of the forces on the ground. The rebels may have to answer to Russia if they do something, but it seems as if they don't necessarily have to ask - meanwhile on the Ukrainian side, you have a variety of Oligarchs sponsoring their own home-grown battalions in an effort to regain their lost wealth (factories, etc.). Of these, the Ukrainian oligarchs worry me the most, largely because they do not necessarily ask- or answer- to Kiev, they fight for themselves, their wealth, and their status - and pay other people to do so for them. Ultimately, if we sent weapons to the Ukraine (which incidentally, is more or less bankrupt), this is who we'd be supporting. Oh yes, lets also not forget the Azov Battalion - a far-right (read neo-Nazi) group of men who also operate under the aegis of the Ukrainian government - for the most part.

So this is more or less the situation on the Ukrainian side - an army that is experiencing significant desertion rates, is financed generally by oligarchs to reclaim their lost factories and wealth, which occasionally falls on the side of neo-nazism. Meanwhile, on the rebel's side, we have groups propped up by Russia in order to protect a 'Russian speaking population' from Kiev's 'tyranny' (not so sure about that...), but who are more or less working for Russia to preserve the Russia leaning proclivities of the Ukraine itself (autocracy, corruption), and keep it out of the EU and NATO orbit (and associated benefits of increased transparency, democracy, etc.).

Which is ironic if you think about it too much.