Donbas: The West must allow this opportunity to pass by

The highly symbolic visit by European Council President Donald Tusk to Stanista Luhanska, one of the key transit points on the contact line in Ukraine’s Eastern Donbas region, would have been unthinkable just few months ago. Since more than a week, the guns have gone silent in the area and a ceasefire is holding, allowing the population on both sides of the line of contact to start hoping for better living conditions. This is still a fragile achievement. But it reminds the world that Russia’s undeclared war is before all a human tragedy that has claimed more than 13,000 lives, displaced two million Ukrainian citizens, and kept more than three million residents of Donbas – ethnic Ukrainians and Russians alike – de facto hostages in their own country.