UKRAINE is at war. The fighting does not admit to the name and it is low-intensity, but people are dying. It has elements of an insurgency, a civil war, foreign intervention and an information war. Russia has not moved its troops across the border as many feared, but it is fighting through proxies: Soviet army veterans, saboteurs, irregulars from Crimea, mercenaries and outright criminals. They grabbed government buildings in Eastern Ukraine and provoked the Kiev government into an “anti-terrorist” operation.Indoctrinated by Russia’s information war, many civilians took up arms to resist what they believed to be a fascist regime that had seized power in Kiev. Most of the fighting is between armed men. On May 13th seven Ukrainian soldiers were ambushed and killed by rebels armed with grenade launchers near Sloviansk.Nobody knows how many rebels there are, but 8m people in the Donbas region are in effect held hostage. Kiev barely has any control. Speaking Ukrainian or unfurling a Ukrainian flag is risky, even life-threatening. Some in the Ukrainian government are scared to visit. The local police and security services silently support the rebels: local authorities…
