Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov says the future status of Ukraine’s Donbas should be like what Moscow has proposed for Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, Vitaly Portnikov reports. That would mean the permanent federalization and neutralization of Ukraine ensured by the continued presence of Russian troops.
The author of this plan, Andrey Yermak, a deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation, has been in active contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian commentator says (radiosvoboda.org/a/30187796.html in Ukrainian; charter97.org/ru/news/2019/9/28/349998/ in Russian).
This idea is now in active competition with two others: the first is one that Vladislav Surkov, an aide to Vladimir Putin, has long been associated with – the preservation of “the peoples republics” as quasi-states, as levers on Ukraine and an instrument for the profit of the Russian political elite; and the second, that of Dmitry Kozak, who wants “the incorporation” of these republics into Ukraine but with the preservation of their “state infrastructure” and of course the Russian military presence.
Such a plan would also allow Russian elites to profit and ensure the neutralization of Ukraine, Mr. Portnikov explains. And in this regard, he continues, Mr. Zelenskyy’s constant talk about a referendum on Euro-Atlantic integration is a means by which Ukrainians could give up any drive to join NATO and thus represents preparation for a “quiet capitulation’” to Moscow.
In his statement, Mr. Lavrov declared that “the law is the law, but the opinion of the self-proclaimed republics must be considered,” words that gut the Minsk agreements and mean that the chief goal of Moscow is the preservation of “the peoples republics” and of Russian forces on Ukrainian territory to ensure Ukraine remains neutral.
The same goal animates the proposals of Messrs. Surkov and Kozak with only this difference: In Mr. Surkov’s mind, the peoples republic would remain “puppet states” under the Kremlin’s protectorate, while in Mr. Kozak’s, they would be that but with their formal return into the composition of Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy must reject “the dangerous illusion” that it is possible to achieve an agreement with the Kremlin “on Russian conditions,” Mr. Portnikov writes. Instead, “Kyiv’s goal must be the restoration of the territorial integrity of the country and the real re-integration of the Donbas,” not its return as a cancerous and potentially fatal tumor within Ukraine.