HS analysis This is what Putin is rubbing: he thought the Minsk agreement was the fulfillment of his dreams, but it was quite different

In February 2015 President of Russia Vladimir Putin smiled widely in Minsk, Belarus.

Minsk II Agreement had just been negotiated by the Normandy Group. The group includes Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia. The agreement satisfied Putin’s dreams about the crisis in Ukraine at the time.

Now, in February 2022, Putin seems dissatisfied. It is still a Minsk II agreement that is said to be “rubbing” Putin.

What exactly happened?

In February 2015 Russian-backed separatists advanced in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The Minsk ceasefire agreement of September 2014 was crushed and the crisis seemed to escalate. Ukraine reluctantly bowed to the Minsk II agreement.

Agreement required a ceasefire in “certain areas” of Donetsk and Luhansk. It was supposed to mean the fighting zones between the separatists and the Ukrainian forces.

However, Russian-backed separatists continued to take over Debaltsev, a road and rail hub. Separatist leader Alexander Zakarchenko said cynicallythat the ceasefire cannot affect Debaltseve because the city is not specifically mentioned in the contract.

Zakarchenko was one of the signatories of the final Minsk II agreement.

Ukrainian troops withdrew from Debaltseve. Only then did the separatist guns fall silent, but there has never been a complete ceasefire.

Ukraine according to Russia immediately violated the agreement. Without its support, the separatists would not have taken over Debaltseve.

Putin, for his part, can point out that Russia is not even mentioned in the Minsk II agreement. According to him, the crisis is between Ukraine and the separatists.

That does not stop Putin from demanding the reform of Ukraine’s constitution mentioned in the agreement. Russia believes that the “decentralization” mentioned in the agreement requires a federation in which the separatist regions would have a veto over even NATO membership.

In the Ukrainian Parliament, the agreement is seen differently and has not progressed. After all, Ukraine did not even have a ceasefire.

A real stalemate then. Until Russia concentrated more than a hundred thousand troops on Ukraine’s borders and began to talk about the “security guarantees” it is demanding from NATO and EU countries.

Russia did not receive the security guarantees it demanded from the West, and the Minsk II Treaty returned to headlines in January. That’s when Putin had a telephone conversation with the president Sauli Niinistö with.

Niinistö said The Washington Postille considered that the 2015 Minsk agreement was a sideline of the debate. However, it became central to Russia’s publication in the paper.

According to Russia, “both sides” reaffirmed the “importance of consistent and full implementation” of the 2015 Minsk package.

Putin complained that Kiev was “stubbornly” refusing to fulfill its treaty obligations “to enter into a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk and to strengthen its constitutional status in the Donbass region”.

“A possible solution could be – and the most possible solution – for the Minsk agreement to be implemented, or at least to move forward,” Niinistö later estimates. in a remote meeting To the Political Journalists Association.

Can you agreement come true? No, says the program director of the Foreign Policy Institute Arkady Moshes To HS.

“It was born dead and was much worse for Ukraine than Minsk I. The West made the mistake of putting pressure on Ukraine to accept an agreement that rewarded those who expanded the crisis.”

The majority of the Ukrainian people oppose the agreement.

“A government that ratifies the Minsk II treaty as such would collapse.”

Should the Minsk III agreement be negotiated?

“If it were acceptable to Ukraine, Russia would not accept it. That is what Ukraine wants from Bosnia, a country within which the region has a veto over foreign policy decisions. ”

Is there in the face of a Russian attack? It may be cheaper for Russia to attack now than later, as Ukraine’s armed forces continue to strengthen.

“But it wouldn’t be cheap. Additional international sanctions would come on top of the fierce warfare. I am not an alarmist and I do not think an attack is inevitable. ”

The most peaceful party seems to be the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi. “What’s new? Hasn’t this been the reality for eight years? ” he acknowledged the threat of Russian invasion last month.

“Russia thought it had an agreement in which Ukraine would agree to get the territories back, but such a torque did not materialize,” Moshes said.

According to him, Ukraine has learned to live with the situation.

“Separatists have certain areas, but elsewhere in Ukraine the economy may develop, integration into the West may deepen and the armed forces may strengthen.”

Last On Wednesday night, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said the country could not accept Russia’s interpretation of the Minsk agreement.

The opinion was necessary because of the French president Emmanuel Macron had praised the fact that he had received commitments from both Putin and the President of Ukraine to abide by the agreement.

However, Moshes believes that small advances are possible through diplomacy. Ukraine has also come signalsaccording to which some details of the Minsk agreement can be promoted even if there is no consensus on the interpretation of the agreement.

“A small step could be a ceasefire, for example. And making it permanent, ”Moshes estimates.