So these "rebels" are not in receipt of Russian weapons...
There's a nice set of satellite shots from a commercial operator now being published, which sort of make it obvious that the tanks the rebels got came from Russia.
Putin is stokeing this for all he's worth. Until the west gets serious, it will just keep going and getting worse.
Couldn't the Ukrainians just use the Chechnya solution, after all thats a Russian approved method? Oh wait the Ukrainians are civilized.