February 4-5
Russia’s and its proxies’ military advantage (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 22, February 3) is increasingly shaping the Minsk process of negotiations to Ukraine’s detriment. That process maintains the fiction that Russia is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s official position in Kyiv and internationally is to uphold the September 2014 armistice to the letter. President Petro Poroshenko has reaffirmed this position in declining Russian President Vladimir Putin’s January 15 proposal to revise the ceasefire agreement de facto (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia [Zerkalo Nedeli], January 28). In the Minsk consultation process, however, Ukraine is being drawn into negotiating about terms and conditions of implementation of the armistice by Russia and its proxies.
The Contact Group, consisting of representatives of Ukraine (former president Leonid Kuchma), Russia (Ambassador to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (the OSCE chairmanship’s special representative Heidi Tagliavini), met with the representatives of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) on January 31 in Minsk. This long-awaited meeting collapsed because the DPR-LPR representatives were not content with Ukraine’s concessions and pressed to extract more.
This meeting had been planned to refloat the “Minsk consultations” process that had broken down on December 24, 2014 (osce.org, December 24, 26, 2014). The stated goal of that meeting and, again, of the January 31 meeting (Interfax, February 1) was to negotiate an “armistice implementation plan,” or road map, toward compliance with the September 2014 armistice, amid wholesale breaches by the Russian/DPR-LPR side.
The very idea of negotiating fulfillment of the armistice, however, implies to some extent re-negotiating the armistice itself. That risk is all the clearer since Moscow is conditioning its implementation of the armistice on Ukrainian concessions above and beyond the armistice terms. Moreover, Russia has unilaterally announced a certain sequence of implementing the core ceasefire terms over a long period of time, meaning in practice never, unless Ukraine renounces its sovereignty in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (see EDM, December 16, 2014; January 27, 2015).
Compelled, apparently, to negotiate in Minsk about armistice implementation conditions, Kyiv has also been maneuvered into asking the “DPR-LPR presidents,” Aleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky (rather than their representatives), to attend the Minsk negotiations personally and sign the resulting armistice implementation document. Mr. Kuchma (presumably on non-public instructions from Kyiv) argues that, since Messrs. Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky had signed the September 2014 armistice agreements, they possess the necessary authority to sign follow-up agreements in Minsk and carry them out (Interfax, January 31, February 1; Donetskoye Agentstvo Novostey [DNA], January 31, February 1).
That argument is unfounded, given that Messrs. Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky (under Russia’s protection) torpedoed the armistice from September to date. Moreover, making them responsible for delivering on any new agreement would misleadingly cast Messrs. Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky as independent actors, exonerating Russia of its responsibility for compliance with the armistice. Finally, inviting the two to sign agreements in their current capacity as “presidents” (which they were not when signing the September 2014 armistice) would imply their recognition in a co-equal status with Kyiv as negotiating parties.
That plays into the hands of Moscow, Donetsk and Luhansk, all of whom demand “direct dialogue” and negotiations on an equal footing between the “DPR-LPR” and Kyiv. Accordingly, the Russian and OSCE representatives in the Contact Group had sent invitations to Messrs. Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky with alacrity to attend the meeting in Minsk. Sensing Kyiv’s vulnerability, the “DPR-LPR presidents” adopted the attitude that their participation would amount to a favor. They demanded more concessions in return for these “presidents” attendance and even for continuing negotiations as such, at any level.
Their new demands are clearly designed to advance Russia’s increasingly ambitious objectives in Ukraine. According to Messrs. Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky in Donetsk and Luhansk, and their representatives Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deynego in Minsk, during and after the meeting (Interfax, RIA Novosti, Donetskoye Agentstvo Novostey, January 31–February 3), their new demands include:
• De-recognition of the September 19, 2014, ceasefire line. The “DPR-LPR” envoys declared in Minsk on January 31 that their “presidents” had not signed the appendix to the September 19 armistice agreement, but only the main document. The appendix, however, defined the ceasefire (demarcation) line in minute technical details. Ukraine takes the position that the appendix constitutes an integral part of the agreement (Ukrinform, February 2), but the “DPR-LPR” are now saying that they do not recognize the validity of the appendix. They had until recently paid lip service to the observance of the armistice agreement, but they no longer do so now.
• Ukraine to accept a separation-of-forces (demarcation) line that existed de facto as of January 31, instead of the line stipulated in the September 19, 2014, Minsk agreement. The currently existing line, if accepted, would confirm additional territorial gains for the “DPR-LPR.” Moscow has hollowed out the armistice agreements unilaterally, but President Putin recently sought President Poroshenko’s consent to revising the armistice, so as to devalue the armistice agreements even further (see EDM, January 27, 29).
• Ukraine to appoint a negotiator (whether Mr. Kuchma or someone else) with official status and corresponding credentials from the president or government. The “DPR-LPR” regard Mr. Kuchma’s status as that of a “private player.” Elevating Kyiv’s representative to official status would mark a step toward Ukraine’s recognition of the opposite side in the negotiations. To avoid such a step, the Ukrainian government has tasked Mr. Kuchma to negotiate in a personal capacity, without official status, from the Contact Group’s inception (June 2014) to date.
• Ukraine to declare a unilateral ceasefire, phrased as “an end to shelling of peaceful Donbas cities by Ukrainian security forces,” according to the joint “DPR-LPR” statement, without stipulating reciprocal obligations on their part. Otherwise, their forces (“opolchenie”) “will have to push Ukrainian troops away from towns. At the moment, we are prepared to consider the currently existing demarcation line” (TASS, February 1; RIA Novosti, February 3) — a threat to continue offensive operations beyond even the existing line.
Unless Ukraine begins giving in to those conditions, the “DPR-LPR” leadership warns it will no longer participate in the Minsk process.
The breakdown of the Minsk negotiations process had become obvious even before its final collapse on January 31. Moscow, along with the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” have overtly repudiated the September 2014 Minsk armistice. They demand revisions of the armistice agreements in Russia’s and “DPR-LPR’s” favor, to the extent that would nullify those agreements and any safeguards of Ukrainian interests therein.
That repudiation is only the first stage in the collapse of the Minsk process. The second stage can follow if superior Russian and proxy forces intensify their attacks, compel Ukraine to solicit a ceasefire as a last resort to avoid further reverses, and impose a new armistice agreement that would eliminate even the theoretical safeguards contained in the Minsk documents.
Western leaders blocking military assistance to Ukraine are emboldening Russia to move toward that second, final stage of killing the Minsk agreements. The withholding of that assistance is not the only source of encouragement for the Kremlin. The other major source is the West’s collective, unofficial decision at the November 2014 G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, to break the causative link between Russian aggression in Ukraine and further Western sanctions on Russia. That break remains in effect to date. Since then, Russia has sponsored elections in the “DPR-LPR”; Moscow treats these as political entities on par with Kyiv; and Russia has unleashed offensive military operations, with an unprecedented level of direct Russian firepower and command-and-control support. Yet, no further economic sanctions on Russia ensued.
Moscow had practically announced the official collapse of the Minsk negotiations two days ahead of the January 31 meeting. “Battles will continue until the Kyiv authorities start a direct dialogue with the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics,” the Russian presidential administration chief, Sergei Ivanov, informed officials in Moscow, in President Putin’s presence (Interfax, January 29).
Pressuring Kyiv into some form of legitimizing the “DPR-LPR” is one of the goals behind the current military offensive. Following the Minsk meeting’s collapse, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Ukraine, “It is imperative to establish a dialogue between the Kyiv authorities and the proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.” Further, Kyiv should accept the “DPR and LPR as full-fledged participants in Ukraine’s domestic conflict, and fully take their interests into account” (Interfax, February 3, 4).
Denying its own role in the military conflict, Moscow finds it advantageous to position itself as a would-be diplomatic mediator in that “inner-Ukrainian conflict.” According to Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “The president is very concerned with the continuing fighting and is calling on all parties to the conflict to immediately stop hostilities” (TASS, February 2). Russia’s representative to the Minsk negotiations, Ambassador Zurabov, claimed that he “tried to persuade them [Donetsk and Luhansk] to negotiate,” but his “influence proved to be limited” (Interfax, February 2).
Thus, on one hand, Russia lays claim to paramount influence on the negotiation process, ruling out any meaningful international participation. But on the other hand, it claims to lack influence on its own proxies, unleashing them against Ukraine while evading responsibility for its actions. These games are familiar from the last two decades of Russia-orchestrated “frozen conflicts,” but Western governments look continually surprised and hesitant.
Following the collapse of talks in Minsk, President Poroshenko reaffirmed Kyiv’s position in a speech in Kharkiv, as well as in telephone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. As Mr. Poroshenko summed up, Ukraine deems the Minsk September 2014 documents as “the only basis for a political settlement.” All stipulations in those documents should be fulfilled without preconditions or exceptions. This applies to observing the ceasefire, adhering to the September 19 demarcation line, the withdrawal of Russian troops from legally recognized Ukrainian territory, the closure of the currently open Russia-Ukraine border (with the OSCE monitoring all or much of the above), and local elections in “DPR-LPR”-controlled territories to be held under Ukrainian legislation. (Ukrinform, February 3).
This is Kyiv’s response to Moscow’s unilateral re-interpretation, whereby Kyiv should legitimize the “DPR-LPR” (contrary to the armistice documents) and accept the shift in the demarcation line in their favor as preconditions to any discussion about troop withdrawal and border closure in an indefinite future (see EDM, December 16, 2014, January 27, 2015). Meanwhile, the absence of a viable monitoring organization adds to Ukraine’s vulnerabilities. Russia has disabled the OSCE mission in its present form; any new mandate of the OSCE would fully depend on negotiations with Russia.
Russia’s goals in the weeks and months ahead seem clear: continue direct and proxy military operations to grind down Ukrainian forces and resources; shift the demarcation line to gain more territory in a piecemeal fashion, so as to de-dramatize international perceptions of this process; pressure Ukraine to sue for a ceasefire and accept a new armistice that would supersede Minsk, legitimizing this time the “DPR-LPR”; and (with or without a revised agreement) exploit Ukraine’s deteriorating military situation to destabilize the country’s internal politics. The Kremlin counts on accelerating these processes, if Western governments fail to provide Ukraine with modern defensive military capabilities.
The article above is reprinted from Eurasia Daily Monitor with permission from its publisher, the Jamestown Foundation, www.jamestown.org.