Ukrainian president would order ceasefire if Minsk peace talks confirmed

Petro Poroshenko's announcement comes after a phone conversation he had with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin

The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, said he would order a ceasefire to begin at lunchtime on Friday if peace talks that are planned to be held in Minsk, Belarus, are confirmed.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Nato summit in Wales, Poroshenko said: "At 2pm local time [11am GMT] on Friday, provided the [Minsk] meeting takes place, I will call on the general staff to set up a bilateral ceasefire and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will begin tomorrow."

The announcement comes after a phone conversation between Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The Russian president later released a seven-point "peace plan" for eastern Ukraine.

How can you tell whether Russia has invaded Ukraine?

And 'two weeks' seem a bit overstated :)

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Last Thursday the Ukrainian government, echoed by NATO spokesmen, declared that the the Russian military is now operating within Ukraine's borders. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't; what do you know? They said the same thing before, most recently on August 13, and then on August 17, each time with either no evidence or fake evidence. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

You be the judge. I put together this helpful list of top ten telltale signs that will allow you to determine whether indeed Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday, or whether Thursday's announcement is yet another confabulation.

Because if Russia invaded on Thursday morning, this is what the situation on the ground would look like by Saturday afternoon.

The Chart Obama Does Not Want Merkel To See

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The weekend's headlines reeled from the collapse in global manufacturing PMIs and with them the last best hope for the world's economies to reach escape velocity all on their own. However, there was one nation that did not plunge... there was one country whose growth (based on the soft survey data) is at 10-month highs. Perhaps this is the chart that President 'we need moar sanctions and costs' Obama does not want Angela 'umm, wait a minute' Merkel to see...

Since sanctions began the plunge in Euro-Area PMIs has been commensurate with the rise in Russia's (oh and according to survey-data, US is as good as it has ever been)...

Seems pretty clear who is paying the price and suffering the costs of Western sanctions...

When does Europe draw its own red line around Obama's sanctions?

Russia's Manufacturing Sector Grows Despite Western Sanctions Over Ukraine

August PMI Increases for Second Consecutive Month

Russian manufacturing showed a second consecutive month of growth in August, propped up by new orders, suggesting that Western sanctions haven't yet impacted the sector, the HSBC Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index showed Monday.

The headline manufacturing PMI index reached 51.0 in August, unchanged from the July level and remaining above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction.

The August figure was the third positive reading in the past 14 months, hovering just below a long-run average of 51.0

The European Union Isn't Going To Bail Out Ukraine

The European Union has had a pretty rough run over the past seven years. Economically, things are simply catastrophic. The Eurozone is not only experiencing an output slump that is even worse than the great depression, it is also teetering dangerously close to outright deflation. Unemployment remains persistently high everywhere except Germany: it is still above 25% in both Greece and Spain, and above 10% in Portugal, Italy, and France. The forecasts are hardly encouraging, with expectations of little or no growth in 2014 and an exceedingly modest rebound predicted for 2015. The situation is so desperate and hopeless that respected economists like Tyler Cowen have started to compare the performance of the more sclerotic European economies with the de-industrialization of 19th century India.

Politically, things aren’t a whole lot better. The most recent elections to the European Parliament in late May saw Euroskeptics and radicals of various stripes storm to unprecedented victories...

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Sanctions Costs: German Exports To Russia Collapse, "Risk 50,000 Jobs"

Just a month ago, Germany's powerful business lobby threw its weight behind tougher sanctions against Russia (dropping its previous objections). It appears they are now regretting that decision. As The Federation of German Industry (BDI) reports today, exports to Russia in H1 2014 dropped 15.5% from 2013 and "may drop by as much as 25% - posing a risk to 50,000 German jobs." We are sure, as Zee Germans look across the pond at the S&P 500 hitting record highs, BDI's conviction that Russia's action must face significant consequences may just fall apart again.

Just 3 weeks ago, Germany’s powerful business lobby has dropped its opposition to tougher sanctions against Russia ahead of today’s crunch EU ambassador meeting in Brussels.

BDI chief Ulrich Grillo said sanctions could would come at a “painful” cost to European business, and to German exporters, but that the game had changed with Russia.

“The BDI and I personally have become convinced that the behaviour of the Russian government in the Ukrainian conflict of secession must have noticeable consequences for Moscow, ”

And now... (as Bloomberg notes),

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Trust in Kiev evaporates as fighting causes refugee exodus to swell

It took 4 months for the western press to finally report what really is happening in Eastern Ukraine!

Financial Times

By Courtney Weaver in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev

Last September Olga Laskireva dropped off her 20-year-old son in Kiev for his obligatory military service in the Ukrainian army. Nine months later she returned to the capital to pick him up and bring him home.
As residents of Krasnodon, an eastern Ukrainian town less than 20km from the Russian border, the Laskirev family has tried to stay neutral as the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists battle for the Lugansk region. But over the course of four months of heavy fighting, they have begun to blame Ukraine’s new president and the government in Kiev for the conflict.
“Who gives a son a weapon so that he can go and shoot his own mother?” Ms Laskireva says. “That is not right.”