What prospect now for the Minsk accord? The shambolic retreat under heavy fire of Ukrainian forces from the strategically important Debaltseve must beg enormous questions about whether all or even part of the agreement brokered in the Belarus capital by France, Germany and Russia can be rescued. What prospects for another agreement when Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande found that President Putin's word again isn't worth the paper it is written on? How do you start to talk?
In reality none of Minsk's provisions have been implemented – a full ceasefire never materialised although there has been a reduction in the intensity of most of the fighting elsewhere, and the withdrawal of heavy weapons out of a cordon sanitaire zone also never began.
But the absence of specific reference to Debaltseve in the agreement should also have rung alarm bells among the European leaders who were perhaps to eager to sign off on a deal to tie down the detail. The devil was in the detail. The town was simply too strategic a communications hub for Donetsk and Luhansk and a weakness in the Russian-backed separatists’ defensive line for Moscow or the rebel leaderships to pass up.
There are also real questions being asked now about how long it took for President Petro Poroshenko to recognise and accept the reality that his forces were outnumbered and outgunned and could not hold the town. Did Poroshenko delay the pull-out for political reasons? The Ukrainian forces in Debaltseve have been put at several thousand and casualty figures are unclear. Poroshenko suggested around 20 per cent, some of his retreating troops say well over 60 per cent, of the thousands trapped in the town.
The president sought to cast the retreat in a positive light, saying on TV that he had ordered the troops out. The comment met with derision from his men. They had retreated, having ditched heavy weapons and ammunition, under withering fire from all sides, abandoning dead and wounded as they fled across fields .
Whether the rebels will be satisfied with their gains is unclear. Observers wonder if they will press on to two other important towns, Avdiivka, north of Debaltseve, and Mariupol, on the coast, in the hope of expanding the territory of the breakaway state they hope to create. If they do, however, they are likely to face the real prospects of a sharp escalation in western sanctions and open up the real possibility of US supplying arms to Kiev. European capitals – the French still hope to keep Minsk alive – are hoping Debaltseve will mark the de facto beginning of the ceasefire, not its end. But artillery fire was still raining down near Debaltseve on Thursday, and the Ukrainian military said its troops had come under fire elsewhere from rebels.