Talks about the war in Ukraine resumed this week in the so-called Normandy format – Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia – with a meeting in Berlin on October 19. (U.S. involvement here is nil, as the Obama administration has basically said this is a European problem – no matter that the aggrieved party is a proclaimed strategic partner of the U.S.) The aim of the first four-way talks in over a year was to push ahead with implementation of the Minsk agreement of February 2015 (which superseded the earlier Minsk agreement of September 2014).
It’s a severely flawed deal. For example, reference is made to the withdrawal of “foreign armed formations,” yet Russian forces are not mentioned; there is no mention at all of Russian-occupied Crimea; there is a call for local elections, without any concern about the security situation there or the ability of internally displaced persons who have fled their homes to vote.
There have been calls in the past to scrap Minsk. Notably, back in June David J. Kramer of the McCain Institute argued that the agreement “is simply not working” and pointed out that Russia had failed “to live up to a single condition under the Minsk accord.” He stated: “It is time to scrap it and make clear to Russia, through a declaration from Western nations, that sanctions will remain in place – and will be increased over time – unless Russia meets several key conditions. These include withdrawal of its forces and weapons from Ukraine (including Crimea), respect of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, control of the border restored to Ukrainian authorities, and the return to Ukraine of those citizens it kidnapped from Ukrainian territory. Further negotiations with Moscow are pointless given that Russian officials won’t even acknowledge the presence of their forces on Ukrainian soil.”
But, there’s no plan B. Affairs Ministers Jean-Marc Ayrault of France and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany said as much on September 15, when they visited Ukraine and told President Petro Poroshenko the Minsk agreement must be implemented.
And there’s also a sad truth at work. For most of the world, the war in Ukraine has been forgotten, overtaken by horrific events in Syria and elsewhere. And yet, on a daily basis we read reports from the Ukraine Crisis Media Center on briefings by Col. Andriy Lysenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, as military clashes continue and people keep getting killed (the total is up to nearly 10,000 at last count). Here’s an excerpt from the October 19 report: Russia-backed militants fired over 500 rounds from heavy weapons over the last day. In the Mariupol sector they switched to round-the-clock attacks between Pavlopil and Shyrokyne. Over the last day militants made 43 attacks, including 29 using heavy weapons. One combat engagement is also reported. The villages of Vynohradne and Pyshevyk were damaged. One Ukrainian serviceman was killed in action over the last day; one was wounded in action.
Ukrainian National Deputy Hanna Hopko recently summarized the situation: “There has not been one day since the first ceasefire was agreed to over two years ago that there has not been shelling from the Russian-controlled side of the contact line.”
The Berlin meeting was an attempt to make some progress. And, even though Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that it “didn’t achieve miracles,” there was some hopeful news as the four leaders agreed to create a road map, by the end of November, to detail the sequence of actions that must be taken to implement Minsk II. Mr. Poroshenko noted that the proposed road map should clearly define the “sequence of steps aimed at the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the guarantees of their fulfillment.” He underlined that the fulfillment of security conditions – full ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign troops, respect for the delimitation of military equipment, unhindered access for the OSCE and release of hostages – must precede the transition to implementation of the agreement’s political portion, i.e., adopting a constitutional amendment on special status for the region; conducting elections in the Donbas; and granting amnesty to the “separatists.”
There still is much disagreement, and the task ahead will be extremely difficult. It seems Germany and France have now seen that Ukraine’s position on implementing the security portion of Minsk II before the political provisions is the correct approach. Russia, of course, will continue to disagree.