Blame Game

Some analysts have attributed the recent spike in violence in Ukraine to peripheral events.

For one, the violence began one day after Saturday’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. One line of thinking is that this week’s escalation is a move by Putin to test the White House’s tolerance for Russian provocations in Ukraine.

Also, on Wednesday, Ukraine begins its one-month presidency of the United Nations Security Council—a rotating billet based on the alphabetical order of countries’ names.

Ukraine, which is a non-permanent member of the Security Council, has repeatedly called on the U.N. to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine to enforce the cease-fire.

Through the U.N., Ukraine “will continue using every opportunity to defend Ukraine against Russia’s military aggression,” Poroshenko said on Twitter Wednesday.

Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

This first appeared in The Daily Signal here.