If one were to believe Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine is not fulfilling its commitments under the Minsk agreements, while Russia is. “Ukraine sits back and does nothing,” forcing sanctions to remain in place, Mr. Lavrov charged, adding, “Europe no longer wants to be held hostage to this situation.”
The guiding principle here is: if you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it. It’s all part of the hybrid war that has been waged against Ukraine by Russia for the past two years. As U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt said at a recent conference on “Countering Information War in Ukraine:” “It’s economic pressure; it’s military pressure, the little green men; it’s political pressure; and of course, it is information pressure and the weaponization of information.” He explained, “The most important single principle to understand about this information warfare is that it’s not the objective of the Russian Federation in this effort to win an argument; the goal is not to prove the truth. The goal, rather, is to confuse, distract, deny, and to get Ukraine off track – to keep us off balance.”
Ukraine and the West must not allow themselves to be distracted.
Unfortunately, some media outlets have already begun reporting it is Kyiv that is holding up implementation of the Minsk II agreement, and some Western leaders, too, have taken the bait. They are simply tired of Ukraine, want to normalize relations with Russia, and just want to move on… They are now using the slow pace of reform in Ukraine as an excuse for possibly lifting sanctions against Russia.
They fail to see that Ukraine has legitimate concerns about the future of its territory, indeed, its very existence as an independent state. They fail to understand the complexity and controversy surrounding the idea of some sort of “special status” for parts of the “rebel”-held Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that is to be enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine – a process and a debate that are ongoing. And they apparently are unwilling to admit that forcing the holding of elections under conditions of occupation will most certainly not advance peace.
At the same time, skirmishes along the line of control between Ukrainian forces and the Russian-backed militants have escalated. For example, the Ukrainian army operations press center reported on February 11 (as these words were being written) that, during the past 24 hours alone, Ukrainian army positions were fired on 50 times in various locations in Ukraine’s east. The terrorists holding hostages in the Donbas are threatening to impose death sentences (see page 1). The Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which also is reporting numerous ceasefire violations, continues to complain of “freedom-of-movement restrictions” and “denial of access” – thus being prevented from fulfilling its tasks outlined in the Minsk accords.
In fact, it is Russia that is clearly violating the Minsk accords, including provisions calling for withdrawal of all “international” armed units, disarming of all illegal armed units, returning control of the border to Ukraine, allowing the entry of international humanitarian aid, and releasing all hostages and detainees. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated this week that Russia “has not implemented a single point of the Minsk agreements.” The MFA further reported: “Illegally armed groups controlled by the Russian Federation continue to systematically shell and fire on positions of the Ukrainian armed forces. During January 2016 the illegally armed groups fired on Ukrainian positions over 1,200 times; …The Russian side continues to send weapons, military equipment and mercenaries across the border into Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.” (It must also be noted that Russia is holding surprise military drills in its Southern Military District, which just happens to be on the border with the eastern regions of Ukraine controlled by combined Russian-“separatist” forces.)
The Washington Post had it right in its February 5 editorial titled “Is Mr. Putin serious about making peace in Ukraine?”: “The necessary first step is an end to the shooting and other measures to ensure security, such as the deployment of international monitors to all parts of the Russian-controlled territories. …Rather than pressure Ukraine, the Obama administration should enlist the European Union in insisting that Mr. Putin demonstrate with acts that he is ready to end the war. If he does, the climate for a political deal could be set. If not, all will know who is to blame for a frozen conflict.”