4th mass grave found in E. Ukraine, self-defense forces report

Published time: 28 Sep, 2014 22:36 Edited time: 29 Sep, 2014 08:29

4th unmarked grave at Savur-Mohyla, a hill east of the city of Donetsk (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov) / Reuters

 
One more mass grave has been found in a village in eastern Ukraine, say self-defense forces. The site was located days after OSCE mission confirmed the discovery of three mass burial sites in areas recently abandoned by Kiev forces.

The new site of the suspected murders is near Nyzhnia Krynka village, not far from the town of Makeevka, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Purgin told ITAR-TASS. The number of bodies and their identities have yet to be determined.

Taped hands, gun wounds’: RT witnesses exhumation of mass graves in E. Ukraine

“Another grave discovered … How many bodies and how these people died will be established during the exhumation,” Purgin said.

In the meantime, a group of international experts have already arrived at the area of mass burials in the village, a source from the DPR told RIA Novosti.

“About 10 international observers are currently working at the site of mass graves near the village of Nyzhnia Krynka,” said the source, adding that the group includes experts from Russia and France.

Several weeks ago, before a ceasefire was agreed, this area of Ukraine was under the control of the Ukrainian army and the National Guard’s nazi Aidar battalion. Earlier this month, an Amnesty International report has confirmed that war crimes including abductions, executions and extortion were committed by this particular Ukrainian battalion.

Crimes of Ukrainian Aidar battalion confirmed in Amnesty Int’l report.

Last week RT crew went to investigate the previously discovered site where four bodies have been found buried in shell craters behind a burnt-out coal mine, days after the OSCE confirmed that three mass graves, allegedly with many bodies, have been found near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Posted by Ainhoa Aristizabal

Our sincere thanks to Vice news that let us used their photos

War Crime Inquiries and a Toppled Lenin as Ukraine Ceasefire Violations Continue

September 30, 2014 | 2:21 pm

It didn’t take long for Russia’s launch of a genocide investigation into Ukraine’s political and military leadership to draw counter-fire from Kiev. Just hours after Moscow’s announcement, the Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office opened its own inquiry, this time into alleged Russian support for “terrorist and separatist groups”.

The Russian investigation follows a call from Moscow last week for an independent inquiry into alleged mass graves discovered in the area surrounding the village of Nyzhnia Krynka, approximately 20 miles northeast of Donetsk city, from where locals say the pro-Kiev National Guard battalion had recently retreated.

“Died for Putin’s lies” reads the inscription on a makeshift plaque that marks two of the three grave sites at Komunar mine, according to a report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Another sign nearby – written in Russian – lists the date of death as “27/08/2014” alongside the names of four individuals, and in one additional case a simple set of initials.

According to initial statements by rebel leaders, the burial sites discovered on September 23 contained scores of bodies.

Speaking to the Russian News Service, Alexander Zakharchenko, self-declared Prime Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed there were about 40 bodies of civilians, prisoners of war and Ukrainian militia soldiers. Over the weekend, the rebels claimed a fourth grave had been found close by with an unknown number of victims; the report could not be independently identified.

Other pro-Kremlin media outlets have reported as yet unsubstantiated claims by the rebels that amongst the dead were victims with their hands tied behind their back and who had been shot point blank in the head, or beheaded.

Since then, however, the number of confirmed dead has been significantly reduced and there has been no independent verification of the identity of the bodies or the causes of death.

“Around ten bodies have been removed from the site,” a senior official in the rebel defense ministry told VICE News. “There could be many more, but we can’t continue digging until the area has been demined,” he added.

The director of Donetsk morgue, Anatolievich Kalashnikov, told VICE News by telephone that nine bodies had been brought to the morgues in the region from the area of the burial sites.

Four bodies seen at the grave by OSCE representatives on September 24 were in “such an advanced state of decomposition, there was no immediate way to tell how they died or who they were,” Michael Bociurkiw, spokesperson for the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, told VICE News. “There are no forensic experts in our team, and we did not meet with any at the site, but we are happy to facilitate access for any outside experts as we did with MH17,” he added.

Speaking about the claims that some of the bodies were found with their hands bound, the OSCE’s Bociurkiw said he had “nothing further to add on that”.

Announced on Tuesday, Ukraine’s counter-war crime investigation is expected to focus on the detention of Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenk – accused by Moscow of killing two Russian journalists in Ukraine.

However, the statement released by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said that other issues will also be examined and accused officials from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation of “illegal interference” in the work of Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies and armed forces.

“[The interference] is aimed at aiding the terrorist organizations ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ in their criminal activities and obstructing the performance of duties by government officials,” it said.

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have highlighted mounting evidence that both sides in the conflict have violated international laws of war in a host of ways, including indiscriminate use of artillery in populated areas, irregular detention, torture and even executions.

The opening of legal inquiries by both sides in the conflict comes as continued shelling in pockets of the region puts further pressure on a ceasefire agreed in Minsk on September 5.

Despite now being more than three weeks into the supposed peace deal, shelling has not stopped in several flash points across the region including Donetsk airport, Shchastya and Popasna.

On Monday the worst outbreak of fighting in a week left at least 12 dead.

Ukraine Clashes Kill 12 as Donetsk Airport Battles Threaten Fragile Ceasefire. Read more here

Ukrainian army officials said at least nine soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in just one day of clashes, seven of them in a single attack by rebels close to Donetsk airport, which has been the focus of fierce battles as the separatists try to rout Kiev’s forces from their last foothold in the city.

According to city officials, three civilians were also killed and five wounded by shelling overnight Sunday on a residential neighborhood near the aerodrome in the north of Donetsk.

Despite a deal on September 20th to create a buffer zone which saw both sides tentatively agreeing to withdraw heavy artillery from within firing range of one another, the details of the pact were almost immediately contested, with the area around the airport cited as a key bone of contention.

Speaking to journalists on Saturday, Ihor Kolomoysky, the oligarch governor of Dnipropetrovsk who has bankrolled several of the pro-Kiev battalions fighting on the frontline of Ukraine’s anti-terror operation, said that an agreement had been reached with the rebels to abandon the airport in return for a large swathe of territory to the south of Donetsk.

However, military spokesperson Andriy Lysenko later denied the claim saying the airport “was, is and will be under the control of the Ukrainian military.”

Meanwhile, in a move that could spark a backlash in the divided Ukrainian held city of Kharkiv, pro-Kiev demonstrators felled a 66-feet tall statue of Vladimir Lenin late on Sunday evening.

Several monuments to the Soviet era dictator were desecrated and pulled down by protesters during the Maidan revolution in early 2014, but the latest toppling is amongst the first in the country’s east where pro-Russian sentiment is stronger.

Back in April thousands took to the streets for pro-Russian demonstrations in Kharkiv, some of which descended into violent clashes. Now, in a bid to keep the peace the city’s mayor Gennady Kernes, who has managed to straddle the divide between the two warring factions, called the destruction “barbaric” and pledged to rebuild the monument.

In Kiev, however, Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, expressed little sympathy for those who might object to the statue’s toppling. “Lenin? Let him fall down. As long as nobody suffers under his weight,” the minister wrote on his Facebook page. “I ordered the police to protect the people and not the idol.”

​‘I told him not to go’: Heartbroken Donetsk residents check morgues after shelling

RT NEWS

Published time: 3 Oct, 2014 16:47

Residents of Donetsk, a restive city in eastern Ukraine, have learnt to expect the worst, so the first place they go to look for their loved ones if they disappear is the morgue. After recent shellings, the grim trips are the new reality for the city.

Lyuba, 70, has come to look for her husband, who went to the shop and never returned home. The shop is in the Kievsky district, where the fatal shelling of a school and bus stop took place on Wednesday. The area is just south of the airport which has been seeing an increasing standoff between militias and Kiev troops.

“I told you not to go! Killed… By a bomb…,” Lyuba found her husband, though cannot quite believe he is dead.

“Natasha?” the old woman phones her daughter in tears. “He’s dead. I’m at the morgue.”

Her husband, 76-year-old Nikolay, was among 13 civilians killed in the latest shelling, bringing the total death toll in the region to over 1,400 people.

The number is set to rise, the head of Donetsk’s main morgue Dmitry Kalashnikov told RT.

“Twenty bodies have arrived at the morgue over the past 24 hours. Among them are 11 civilians, who were killed by shell explosions. I find it hard to call this a ceasefire,” he said.

“Last week there were many civilian deaths, and I’m not even counting the soldiers,” Kalashnikov added.

It comes as the self-defense forces fight with the Ukrainian army over the city’s airport, with black smoke coming from the site and the sounds of heavy artillery heard.

As the standoff continues, a Red Cross employee was killed in artillery shelling near the Donetsk office of the organization on Thursday. Russia is calling for a thorough and objective investigation into the matter.

It comes on the backdrop of the ceasefire brokered on September 5 in Minsk. On Friday, the EU said it is concerned that the truce may get breached and called to respect it.

“We are worried that the truce has been breached. We count on the truce to be respected because it is a necessary condition allowing the peace process to move forward, the OSCE and the Red Cross employees to work there,” Soren Liborius, the head of EU information department, said.

погиб работник “Красного Креста” из Швейцарии – Red Cross worker from Switzerland killed ( + 3 Videos)

погиб работник “Красного Креста” из Швейцарии – Red Cross worker from Switzerland killed in Ukraine

Разгром позиций украинской армии в н.п. Дибровка – The defeat of the Ukrainian Army in the village Dibrovka

Ukraine Have Accepted That Crimea And The Donbass Are Lost

Ukraine Have Accepted That Crimea And The Donbass Are Lost
on: September 22, 2015

Ukrainians have accepted that not only Crimea is lost, but the Donbass, too? There were signs a year ago that there was little appetite to recover it by force of arms, at least among those young people who would have to do the fighting. But there was still fierce (albeit impotent) anger about Crimea. There were also totally unrealistic expectations about Western military help and Ukraine’s European future. Had its sacrifice not earned it fast-tracked EU membership?

A year on, the mood seems incomparably more realistic and less angry. There is concern, at many levels, that the West in general is losing interest – in part out of frustration that Ukraine’s institutional reform is too slow; in part because of the press of other concerns – refugees, Syria, Islamic State.

But perhaps being out of the international limelight has been beneficial, in helping to convince Ukrainians that, in the end, their fate lies primarily in their own hands. The US and the EU can provide – conditional – economic assistance and debt relief. They can supply templates for tax, judicial and regulatory reforms. And they can help to train and equip the country’s relatively small, and backward, armed forces.

From last year to this, acceptance seems to have settled that Kiev’s early expectations were hopelessly inflated. And the change sounded loud and clear at the conference of the annual Yalta European Strategy forum, which I attended.

The first difference was that few Ukrainian officials voiced any serious criticism of the Minsk-2 agreement. President Petro Poroshenko announced early in his speech that the previous night had been the first in the whole conflict with no shelling. The lull is seen as a chance to extend the ceasefire and fulfil the rest of the agreement, rather than another pretext for demonising Putin.

A second change was on the Western side, where even inveterate cold warriors – such as the ultra-hawkish former Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and the US assistant secretary for European affairs, Victoria Nuland (the official overheard treating Ukrainian government appointments as if they were in the gift of the US and dismissing the EU with a profanity) – were singing a different song.

While insisting on Ukraine’s right to make its own choices of alliance, they were far less militant than before. Alluding to Russia, Nuland even corrected herself, replacing the word “aggression” with “pressure”, as though instructed not to jeopardise the fragile peace. Nato membership was almost universally ruled out. The overall impression was of a wiser West, but a wiser Ukraine – with a young, energetic and well-qualified team of ministers. It is a Ukraine that may finally have understood its eastern lands must be wooed, rather than bombed, back into a more devolved Ukraine.

The country’s prospects are excruciatingly finely balanced. Pervasive corruption remains barely tackled, despite a newly trained and equipped police force in major cities. Nor is it clear that the bright, young government can carry public opinion with it on such basics as new tax structures and higher fuel bills. And if it can’t, then Ukraine will all too easily sink back into the resigned cynicism that followed independence in the early 1990s, and the Orange Revolution in 2004. Its leaders may plead not to be forgotten, but a period for reflection outside the international spotlight could be exactly what Ukraine needs.

Ukrainian Nazi group Pravy Sektor claims to be “co-ordinating” violence in Kiev since january 2014

Pravy Sektor rejects original protesters’ goal of closer links to EU, demanding ‘national revolution’

Kiev protesters vs Nazis

“We’re peaceful men,” said 46-year-old Mikhailo cheerfully, as he poured petrol into a row of glass bottles to create molotov cocktails. “We’re just making them. Other people will throw them.”

The intensity of the violence in Kiev, which began late on Sunday night and culminated on Wednesday morning with three deaths, has taken many people both inside the country and abroad by surprise. While during the two-month course of the protests there were two incidents when riot police attacked protesters brutally, there has not been a large-scale response from the protesters. Suddenly, this week, the police found themselves under a hail of molotov cocktails, their buses torched and several hundred people unwilling to give their ground and ready to engage them in violent clashes.

After two months of protest with little result, the mood is very different to that back in December. Then, when riot police attempted to remove the barricades surrounding Independence Square in a night-time charge, protesters handed back helmets and shields to officers who got stranded in the crush and sent them on their way. After the surge, groups of officers could stand unmolested at the side of the square. Now, feelings have intensified. When a molotov cocktail lobbed at police lines broke on the torso of an officer and turned him into a human candle, whoops of joy went up from the crowd.

But while some of the violent inclination appears to stem from the frustration of those who saw their peaceful stance ignored, there also appear to be more shadowy forces at work. Pravy Sektor, a murky grouping of nationalist and far-right groups, has said it is co-ordinating the violence, and the coalition represents very different ideals from the initial protest goal of closer links with the European Union.

Andriy Tarasenko, one of Pravy Sektor’s co-ordinators, agreed to meet the Guardian in a cafe in central Kiev. Wearing a rollneck jumper and with a quiet voice, he seemed a far cry from the warriors on the street, but his message was clear.

Andriy Tarasenko, one of Pravy Sektor’s co-ordinators, agreed to meet the Guardian in a cafe in central Kiev. Wearing a rollneck jumper and with a quiet voice, he seemed a far cry from the warriors on the street, but his message was clear.

“For us, Europe is not an issue, in fact joining with Europe would be the death of Ukraine. Europe means the death of the nation state and the death of Christianity. We want a Ukraine for Ukrainians, run by Ukrainians, and not serving the interests of others.”

Tarasenko said the goal of the group was a “national revolution” that would result in a “national democracy” with none of the trappings of the “totalitarian liberalism” that the EU represents for him.

He also has little time for the trio of opposition politicians who have been the de facto protest leaders, including the former heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko. “The only negotiations with [President Viktor] Yanukovych should be about how he gives up power. If any of these leaders were capable of seizing power, they would have done it already.”

The number of people taking goggle-eyed selfies in front of the burning barricades and looking on in disbelief suggests that those who feel they are peaceful protesters who have been driven to this by the uncompromising nature of the authorities are still in the majority.

Hardcore Ukrainian nationalism is not even the predominant feature of those involved in active clashes with police. Neither of the two people killed by bullets on Wednesday morning were ethnically Ukrainian. But it is clear that the popularity of Pravy Sektor is growing and that many of those lobbing molotov cocktails and preparing for all-out battle are influenced by their ideas.

Tarasenko said it was hard to say how many active members of Pravy Sektor there were, but noted that its page on the social network Vkontakte had more than 50,000 members. On the barricades, “hundreds are quickly turning into thousands”, he claimed.

As the clashes have continued, the international community has continued to put strong pressure on Yanukovych to avoid violence, but in recent days there has also been an acknowledgement of the darker side of the protest movement. A US state department statement issued on Wednesday blamed Yanukovych for the violence but added: “The aggressive actions of members of extreme-right group Pravy Sektor are not acceptable and are inflaming conditions on the streets and undermining the efforts of peaceful protesters.”

Even amid the violence, there is a certain orderliness and purpose of mind to the protests. While a small number of buildings have suffered from the flames of the burning barricades, there has been no wholesale looting or random violence. Despite the fact that for two months people have been out on Independence Square protesting against Ukraine’s move towards Moscow, a branch of Sberbank – a Russian state-controlled bank – which is adjacent to one of the entrances to the square has remained completely untouched, its glass facade undamaged.

But the number of people wielding baseball bats, planks of wood, golf clubs or even hammers has dramatically increased. There have been other disturbing scenes, such as when protesters captured groups of paid-for government thugs earlier in the week, and forced them to speak Ukrainian or sing the national anthem under duress, making videos of them and issuing threats.

The majority of protesters are horrified at the bloodshed and would be satisfied with some kind of compromise agreement, or at least willing to accept it to rule out the chance of further violence.

But Pravy Sektor says that if Yanukovych does not resign, he should be forced out.

“We would give him and his family 24 hours to leave the country, or there would be a revolutionary tribunal,” said Tarasenko. Asked what he thought the most likely medium-term outcome of the clashes would be, he said: “Prolonged guerrilla warfare.”

Vladimir Putin has the edge over Barack Obama in their views of the world

President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin offered different views of the world, but it was Putan’s version that seemed more real.

It is striking, when they are together, how much more vital Russian President Vladimir Putin seems than President Obama. Obama is in better shape and younger, but there’s somehow more rawness and power in Putin’s bulk. The two offered rival views of the world in speeches to the UN on Monday, and it was likewise Putin’s world that seemed more vital and real, and Obama’s that was more elegant but dimmed.

Obama sounded familiar notes during his address. He mentioned cooperation in his second sentence, international rules and norms by his sixth, and international order by the seventh. When he addressed specific issues, like Syria and Ukraine, it was in the context of those rules and their breach. Within minutes, he had condemned those, like the unnamed Putin, who would return to a might-makes-right zero-sum international game.

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York September 28, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Putin sounded a different note. Freedom, he said, could only come from state sovereignty, by which he meant state power, legitimate because it was there. He hammered on state power, urged the support of Bashar Assad’s authority in Syria, and paradoxically called for recognizing the rights of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. But there are no paradoxes in Russia, or in Putin’s view of power.

BARACK OBAMA AND VLADIMIR PUTIN SPAR ON SYRIA AND UKRAINE AT UNITED NATIONS

Different words, and a different tone; but today, it is striking that Putin’s values are the ones that are flourishing.

Ethnic solidarity. Tribal loyalty. And power above all, state power, legitimate by definition, not so different from the divine right of kings.

Obama’s world is a classically liberal one, in the best sense, based on common prosperity and peace. Its weakness is that Putin does not value the dividends of peace as much as he values the dividends of power, and because he doesn’t, his surrounding states can’t, either.

Obama spoke of the “consequences” that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had forced him into, but to Putin those limited consequences were well worth it.

Obama looks to be a step behind Putin. photo: Getty images

A sharp lesson had been taught to other Eastern European states that would defy him. For Estonia, which had a security officer kidnapped from its soil last year before he was sentenced by Russia to 15 years for spying. For Latvia, with its 26% ethnic Russian population. For Georgia, with NATO membership as a lost dream. Even in Poland, there are the forces of accommodation who are unheroic but believe in hedging their bets. They may well prefer Obama’s world, but Putin’s is a far surer thing.

The Middle East has joined Putin’s world as well. At the peaks of American power, the Arab states have bought into American rules and norms because they had no choice. In 2003, in 1993, in 1973, different rulers at different times have bought into the American order. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat used his unprecedented Russian support and weapons to start the Yom Kippur War, which he lost, and was forced to accept a peace. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accepted the same peace in 1993 at Oslo, once the collapse of the Soviet Union had made military defiance of the American order seemingly untenable. And the region grudgingly accepted George W. Bush’s democratization crusade, though they would drag their feet and stall until the luster had come off.

Explaining why Obama’s world finally collapsed in the Middle East depends largely on which original sin you believe in: the invasion of Iraq in 2003 or its abandonment in 2011. Maybe Syria in 2013. Maybe Iran in 2015. Maybe none. Maybe all. But the old order and norms are gone. In Syria, a civil war is being fought with brute force among the most ancient identities possible, those of Sunnis, Shiites and Alawites. There’s not much talk of norms.

VLADIMIR PUTIN TAUNTS PRESIDENT OBAMA FOR FAILURE TO STOP ISLAMIC STATE ON ’60 MINUTES’

This, then, is the great irony facing the President: That only when Putin’s world of power has been thwarted can Obama’s world of norms and order prevail. He can lecture the UN about the benefits of prosperity and peace, but until the aggression of Putin and others has been settled, the aligned and nonaligned alike have to hedge their bets.

Russian and Chinese power is lasting, and the American ideal is fleeting. We have to win Putin’s game before we can play our own.

Andrew L. Peek (@AndrewLPeek) is a professor at Claremont McKenna College and was a strategic adviser to the top NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Putin Sees Path to Diplomacy Through Syria

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ANDREW E. KRAMERSEPT. 16, 2015

Syrians in a destroyed section of Douma, east of Damascus. Russia has offered to hold talks with the United States on Syria. Credit Abd Doumany/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LVIV, Ukraine — To much of the world, Syria is a scene of unending tragedy, but to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia it is a golden opportunity, a way out of the isolation he and Russia have endured since the West imposed sanctions over Ukraine — with the added bonus of wagging an “I told you so” finger at the White House.

His opening gambit to ingratiate himself with the West after a year of ostracism began with a singular gesture that Washington could hardly miss: dispatching a pronounced new flow of military hardware to Syria.

This week, Mr. Putin unleashed a diplomatic offensive, pushing to meet with President Obama, offering to hold military-to-military talks on Syria, and planning a big rollout for a Syrian peace plan when he speaks at the United Nations later this month.

The stakes for Mr. Putin are high — perhaps the highest in his career. The Kremlin has been on the defensive, diplomatically isolated after its adventures in Ukraine and battered economically by sanctions, low oil prices and a weak ruble that is cutting into living standards. Rapidly depleting the rainy day funds that have staved off financial disaster so far, Mr. Putin knows he needs to get back in the West’s good graces in a hurry, or at least change the conversation.

Syria provides an ideal vehicle for that, while also giving Moscow a significant role in the Middle East and promoting Mr. Putin’s long-term ambitions of re-establishing Russia as a player on the world stage.

“Putin dreams of the restoration of Russian power everywhere, not just in the former Soviet space,” Aleksei Malashenko, a military analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in an interview. “The activity in Syria and around Syria means Russia is able to come back to the Middle East, not as a superpower, but as something that can balance the power of the West and the United States.”

Wednesday brought a new welter of developments surrounding Mr. Putin’s plan. In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Moscow had suggested holding talks between the United States and Russian militaries on Syria and the continuing buildup of Russian forces there. Mr. Kerry said the administration was considering the offer, adding that the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had presented the talks as a way to coordinate with the Pentagon to avoid “unintended incidents.”

In Jerusalem, the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement saying that he plans to travel to Russia next week for talks with Mr. Putin about the stationing of Russian forces in Syria and the possible transfer of weapons to Israel’s enemy, Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

In Damascus, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, gave a collective interview to six major Russian news organizations in which he echoed Mr. Putin’s proposals but gave them a domestic twist.

He called on insurgents fighting his government to join with his forces instead, to battle as allies against the Islamic State. Only after that group is defeated can there be a political solution to the war that has devastated Syria, Mr. Assad said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

“The political parties, the government and the armed groups that fought against the government, we must all unite in the name of combating terrorism,” Mr. Assad said.

The Syrian leader, whose forces now control only about a quarter of the territory of Syria, did not comment on the Russian military moves, and the Russian reporters did not ask him about attacks on civilians.

He did describe Russia as an impartial intermediary, however, a characterization that many of his opponents would consider laughable, given Russia’s support for the president, an important ally and longtime arms client. Many opposition groups, as well as key Western countries like the United States, have set his removal from office as the first step toward a political solution, but Russia has rejected that as a condition.

Mr. Putin is expected to speak at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 28, his first such visit in a decade, and to use that global platform to emphasize the Syria strategy he has sketched several times already.

He has already said that he envisages a two-track effort involving an international coalition to defeat the Islamic State, as well as a renewed effort to forge a domestic political compromise among Syria’s many squabbling factions and bring them into the coalition. He has parried questions about the direct involvement of the Russian military in fighting.

As for Ukraine, it has settled down into the frozen conflict that many anticipated from the beginning. The lull in fighting in the east that took hold on Sept. 1 is expected to last at least through the end of the month when Mr. Putin speaks at the United Nations.

At the same time, Ukraine has virtually disappeared from its starring role in the mainstream, state-run Russian news media, which is now focused on Syria all the time.

Mr. Putin’s Syria proposal has put the West in something of a bind. While they have sought to isolate Russia over its annexation of Crimea and military meddling in Ukraine, Western capitals have been struggling to contain the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The Obama administration has been “trying to sit on two chairs,” noted Konstantin von Eggert, an independent political analyst. It has been both slamming Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, while saying it seeks to cooperate with Russia on the Iran nuclear deal, the Middle East and other issues.

If Mr. Putin manages to forge a coalition on Syria, it would be increasingly difficult for Washington to argue that the Kremlin deserves isolation. There is an inconsistency in the message, Mr. von Eggert noted, and “Putin always exploits those inconsistencies.”

Mr. Putin and his senior diplomats have said repeatedly in recent weeks that they warned the Obama administration that its policies in Syria would lead to disaster, and that they were determined to shore up Mr. Assad to avoid a repeat of places like Libya and Yemen after long-established authoritarian rulers were deposed.

“The situation was misjudged; it was allowed to deteriorate,” Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview. “How far it can go I don’t know. You recall in Washington they said Assad has two to four months to last.”

“This is something we share now with the U.S. government: They don’t want the Assad government to fall,” said the Russian ambassador. “They want to fight ISIL in a way that won’t harm the Syrian government. On the other hand, they don’t want the Syrian government to take advantage of their campaign against ISIL.”

Some analysts suggested that Mr. Putin would prevail in the end, because the overwhelming threat presented by the Islamic State would trump concerns over the future of Ukraine, Mr. Assad, or even of Russia gaining greater influence in the Middle East.

Mr. Churkin told reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Putin’s proposal had generated “great interest” and could well become the major focus of the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations during the last week of September.

Neil MacFarquhar reported from Lviv, Ukraine, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Reporting was contributed by Sophia Kishkovsky from Moscow; Somini Sengupta from the United Nations; Michael Gordon from Washington; Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

A version of this article appears in print on September 17, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Putin Sees Path to Diplomacy Through Syria.

Russia digs 100 km ditch along border with south-eastern Ukraine

Russia has erected 40km of fortified walls, and more than 100km of defensive trenches on its border with the rebel Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.

“The engineering fortification of the state border is aimed at ensuring stability in the Rostov region, and preventing the illegal circulation of firearms,” Russia’s border service said in a statement.

The government agency said that it intercepted over 60 illegal weapons shipments across the border since the beginning of the year. In doing so, it confiscated 40 firearms, 200 grenades, 100 shells and 40 landmines.

The border service said it had to arrest more than 400 people for either illegally crossing the border or approaching the secure zone next to it, and open fire on five occasions. Occasional media reports have surfaced in recent months about spillover from the restive region, locked in a stand-off with the central government in Kiev for the past year, including a report of a Donetsk man illegally trying to cross into Russia in a Soviet-era off-road vehicle.

READ MORE: 3 civilians, including 11yo killed by Ukrainian army shell in Donbass – reports

Following the announcement, Kiev accused Russia of trying to seal in Russian fighters who have been drawn to the ranks of the rebel republics. Moscow strenuously denies that there are any Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

“If the mercenaries decide to try to get back into Russia from Ukraine on their armored vehicles, their entry will be blocked. This is a clear signal to the mercenaries in Donbass – they might have come here, but they are not going back. At least, they aren’t going back out alive,” said government spokesman Andrey Lysenko.

Ukraine itself is spending $200 million to build what has been termed the European Bulwark on a different segment of its 2,200-km border with Russia, further up north. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

Children of Donbas: Life in Holed Up Basements

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