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The peace deal for eastern Ukraine reached on Thursday sets clear deadlines for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons, but resolution of the main political and economic issues behind the conflict was made conditional on a series of difficult steps and put off until the end of the year. The deal made by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine builds on a cease-fire agreement that was reached in September and violated almost immediately. Here is a look at what they did and did not agree upon, and who won and lost in the process:

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh has said that representatives of his organization will contribute to ensuring security at voting stations in eastern Ukraine. ...

Fiends have mocked over lifeless body. Police Department in Mariupol Mariupol zhorilo_1 Twitter In two hours completely burned building local police today in Mariupol, Donetsk oblast during the antiterrorist operation pro snipers killed the commander of the Territorial Defence Brigade Dnipropetrovsk Sergei Demidenko. And then mocked over his body . "Accommodation ATC Mariupol completely burned. Snipers killed our commander Dnipropetrovsk territorial defense brigades Sergei Demidenko. According to eyewitnesses , the terrorists bullied out of the body of the deceased Demidenko. Him - already dead - cut off the ears and eyes gouged out. Fiends ! Seriously wounded commander of the...

Residents of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk have lashed out at troops entering the city’s streets with outrage and insults. The soldiers were supposed to be "liberating the people from pro-Russian terrorists,” according to the Kiev government. The ongoing military crackdown on anti-government activists in eastern Ukraine has been portrayed as a noble quest of freeing the locals “kept hostage” by the so-called “terrorists” and “separatists.” Coup-imposed Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov recently branded the campaign “an anti-terrorist operation against the sabotage group of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Federation” on his Facebook page. Curiously, however,...

Edward Lucas: I hope I'm wrong but historians may look back and say this was the start of World War III 'Vladimir Putin is striking at the heart of the West''We can chose to surrender any responsibility we have to protect Ukraine and the Baltic states''Or we can mount a last-ditch attempt to deter Russia from furthering its imperial ambitions''If we choose to resist Putin, we will risk a terrifying miltary escalation''I do not think it an exaggeration to say this could bring us to the brink of nuclear war' It is about brute power. It is about whether Putin’s...

KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government dispatched its highest-level police and security officials to the eastern part of the country Monday in an effort to put down separatist violence described as inspired by Russia and following a script that played out in Crimea. “The plan is to destabilize the situation,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency cabinet meeting Monday morning. “The plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow.” On Sunday, pro-Russian demonstrations in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk that had been orderly the last...

Nearly 100,000 Russian forces have massed on Ukraine's border, a top Ukrainian defense official told an American audience Thursday, giving a number far higher than US military estimates. "Almost 100,000 soldiers are stationed on the borders of Ukraine and in the direction ... of Kharkiv, Donetsk," Andriy Parubiy, chairman of Ukraine's national security council, said via a webcast from Kiev. "Russian troops are not in Crimea only, they are along all Ukrainian borders. They're in the south, they're in the east and in the north," Parubiy said.

Like Seek and Find said, Catalonia is set to vote on whether or not to split off from Spain. Scotland has an Independence Referendum coming up in September, Crimea is set to vote nationally on this in 6 days, and Eastern Ukraine will most likely follow with a national vote to join with Russia. Give it time, and Quebec will try again to become an independent nation... The world fracturing into more and more countries seems to be accelerating...