As the date of December 9 approaches, the anxiety in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora grows. Why? Because on that date, the Normandy format talks aimed at achieving peace in eastern Ukraine will take place in Paris. The talks will bring together Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France for the first time since October 2016. It will also be the first time neophyte politician Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the comedian elected this past April as Ukraine’s president, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB intelligence officer who’s been in power since 2000.
Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a member of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network, points out on justsecurity.org: “All four Normandy leaders want to show progress towards ending this tragedy, …though each for his or her own particular reasons.” Mr. Zelenskyy, readers will recall, ran on the pledge to end the war. France and Germany are interested in “normalizing” relations with Russia for the sake of business and trade; they just want the Ukraine problem to go away. Russia has no real interest in peace; the goal is to continue destabilizing Ukraine, to hinder its progress in all ways possible and to prevent its integration with the West.
A blunt assessment of the situation is provided by Stephen Blank, a former senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, who notes on “Ukraine Alert”: “…there is no sign that Russia’s determination to destroy the de facto if not de jure mainsprings of Ukrainian statehood has abated. Moscow still demands that Kyiv accept formulas that would convert Ukraine into a confederation, whereby the currently occupied provinces of the Donbas could exercise a veto over central governmental initiatives, including efforts to combat the corruption that benefits Russia and erodes the foundations of Ukraine’s statehood. At the same time, Russia also refuses to discuss the status of Crimea.”
There is a very real danger in the Normandy four negotiations, according to Mr. Carpenter: “…Ukraine’s Western partners might be willing to hand control of Ukraine to Putin. If they do so, it will be under the guise of a ‘special status’ for the Russian-occupied Donbas, a notion that President Zelenskyy’s diplomatic advisors have openly discussed as they seek to deliver a peace agreement to a war-weary nation. Under the pretense of diplomatic progress, such a deal could prove deadly to Ukraine’s sovereign statehood.”
Back home in Ukraine, in the face of nationwide “No to Capitulation!” protests, the Zelenskyy team has tried to assure the public that it will not betray Ukraine’s interests. But it has provided scant information about its position going into the Normandy talks. A December 3 post on the presidential website reported only that at a meeting held in preparation for the negotiations, “Volodymyr Zelenskyy clearly stated his position on the inadmissibility of solving the problem of the occupied territories by military means and the necessity of achieving peace in the east of Ukraine by political and diplomatic methods.” The item also noted that “The parties approved five scenarios for the reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas.” No further details were provided.
Although no one, including Mr. Zelenskyy by his own account, has any illusions that the December 9 talks will end the war in Ukraine’s east, it is certain that Ukrainians in Ukraine and around the globe want peace. But, as the Ukrainian World Congress underlines in its resolute statement on this page, not at all costs.