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Local Daily Names Cost Of War As Colombian Peace Deal Signed

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El Tiempo — Sept. 26, 2016

"Peace after 267,162 dead," declares the stark headline on the front page of newspaper El Tiempoon Monday as Colombia gets ready for a historic accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Latin American country has seen war for 52 years in a conflict that's claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

El Tiempo newspaper paid homage to those victims by including a list of their names in the backdrop of its front page.

President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC Commander Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, known by the nom de guerre Timoshenko, will sign a 297-page agreement at a ceremony in Cartagena in northern Colombia later today. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are expected to attend the event.

The peace deal was first agreed upon on Aug. 24, with a ceasefire coming into effect five days later. "The signature of the deal is simply the end of the conflict. Then the hard work starts, reconstructing our country," Santos told the BBC.

Actually, there's one more step. The agreement must be approved by citizens in a national referendum scheduled for Oct. 2.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

The Real Purpose Of The Moscow Drone Strike? A Decoy For Ukraine's Counterattack

Putin is hesitant to mobilize troops for political reasons. And the Ukrainian military command is well aware that the key to a successful offensive lies in creating new front lines, where Russia will have to relocate troops from Ukraine and thus weaken the existing front.

The Real Purpose Of The Moscow Drone Strike? A Decoy For Ukraine's Counterattack

Police officers stand in front of an apartment block hit by a drone in Moscow.

Anna Akage

-Analysis-

On the night of May 30, military drones attacked the Russian capital. There were no casualties – just broken windows and minor damage to homes. Ukraine claims it had nothing to do with the attack, and it is instead the frenzied artificial intelligence of military machines that do not understand why they are sent to Kyiv.

While the Ukrainian president’s office jokes that someone in Russia has again been smoking somewhere they shouldn’t, analysts are placing bets on the real reasons for the Moscow strikes. Many believe that Kyiv's real military target can by no means be the capital of Russia itself: it is too far from the front and too well defended – and strikes on Russia, at least with Western weapons, run counter to Ukraine’s agreements with allies, who have said that their weapons cannot be used to attack inside Russia.

If the goal is not directly military, maybe it is psychological: to scare the residents of the capital, who live in a parallel reality and have no idea how life feels for Ukrainian civilians. Forcing people to live with this reality could push the Kremlin to retreat, or at least make concessions and negotiate with Kyiv. If neither sanctions nor the elite could sober Vladimir Putin up, could angry Muscovites?

But neither Russia's military command nor its political leadership depends on the opinion of citizens. And there are enough special forces in Moscow to crush any mass protest.

Laying bare Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inability to guarantee his country's security, in front of Russia’s remaining international partners or among the country’s elites, is also an unlikely goal. The Russian army has already seen such embarrassing failures that a few drone strikes on the Kremlin can’t possibly change how Putin is seen as a leader, or Russia as a state. So why would Kyiv launch attacks on Moscow?

Let's go back to the date of the shelling: May 29 is Kyiv Day, a holiday in the Ukrainian capital. It was also the 16th attack on Kyiv in May alone, unprecedented in its scale, even compared to the winter months when Russia had still hoped to cut off Ukrainian electricity and leave Kyiv residents, or even the whole country, freezing in the dark.

The backdrop: the Ukrainian counter-offensive to liberate the occupied territories, which is in the works, if not already launched.

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