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Press TV has conducted an interview with Jim W. Dean, managing editor of Veterans Today from Atlanta, about the Ukrainian government accusing pro-Russia forces of jeopardizing a shaky ceasefire in the volatile eastern regions of the country.

Press TV: Well this situation, on the one hand we hear about a ceasefire then at the same time we hear about escalations taking place, then fingers being pointed at each other from both sides.

How do you see this basically? What do you think is taking place? Do you think first of all the ceasefire will hold?

Dean: Well that is the magic question and there are certainly folks that do not want it to hold and those who do. So we have a continuing different type of war going on now that the main shooting part of the war has stopped.

But the other thing I think going on here is control over the media and of course the number one thing in PR is you always charge, make accusations about the other party because that puts them on the defense and the public tends to remember the accusation and now what the comeback is.

And Ukraine is in kind of a difficult spot here. They are making these charges on the east Ukraine republics because they are involved in a very massive restructuring, the resupplying and the repositioning troops just like they did in the last ceasefire to get ready to launch a new offensive as part of their threatening position in the negotiations. And then surprisingly we have had this amazing development where the Ukraine has to brag, that they part of their powers, that they have been able to get NATO and the Western NATO countries to agree to give them military support which was kind of done in closed-door rooms and of course the Western countries, the US, France, Norway, Germany they have all denied it and even today we had another commander of the armed forces basically said the equipment including weapons has already started to arrive.

So part of what they are doing with these accusations with the republics is just try to get public attention away. They are also preparing for another offensive if and when they see the conditions to do so.

Press TV: On the one hand we are talking about the ceasefire that is taking effect or has been going on now for a while, on the other hand we see in the middle of this that the West has up the ante against Russia and issued and increased more sanctions.

Why at this time when there is a ceasefire, when there are talks trying to have talks about a permanent ceasefire, why do you think the West picked this time to increase pressure on Moscow or is it that they really do not want the ceasefire to be effective? 

Dean: It is the classic. They are talking out of their mouth from both sides. In a lot of it there is a lot of pushback developing in Europe now particularly in Germany because Angela Merkel one hand she is saying that we want to maintain trade negotiations and relationships with Russia but then when the outgoing EU Commission President wanted to delay imposing the sanctions till the end of the month to have more time to see how the ceasefire was going to go, Angela Merkel went in front of the ... and basically pushed going ahead and over the head of the EU Council President and he said no we want them now.

So they are using these sanctions as kind of a gun to the head to Russia and it is all stupid because Europe is getting hurt worse than Russia.