A meeting between Ukrainian and Russia-backed separatist leaders scheduled to take place in Minsk on Dec. 9 will not take place after separatist leaders said they needed more time.
The so-called tripartite talks include Ukrainian, Russian and separatists representatives as well as observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The parties previously agreed to a cease-fire on Sept. 5 but it has failed to hold, resulting in escalating casualties. A new cease-fire was intended to cover the Luhansk Oblast as well as the Donetsk airport and to start on Dec. 5 but has also failed to materialize.
Casualties from the conflict have continued to grow with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko saying on Dec. 6 that 1,250 Ukrainian servicemen have died since fighting began.
Poroshenko has actively pursued new peace talks, pushing for an early date.
Over the weekend separatist leaders sought to push back the peace talks which they said did not leave them enough time to prepare.
“We insist that Dec. 12 be the earliest date. The proposed date of Dec. 9 will not work. There are many issues that require preparation,” said Denis Pushlin, chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Donetsk People’s Republic, on Dec. 7 according to Interfax-Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have countered that delaying the talks shows a lack of commitment to pursuing peace and to stop the loss of lives in eastern Ukraine.
“Those who are interested in stopping the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine as quickly as possible and creating peace in Donbas don’t put the lives of the residents of the region at risk and do so,” said Ukrainian Security Council spokesman Andryi Lysenko on Dec. 8. “Ukraine is absolutely prepared for talks on Dec. 9.”
Russian meanwhile has appeared to support this round of talks.
“(Russia is ready) to do everything to have the contact group meeting take place in Minsk this week. I think this will be carried out,” Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Dec. 8 according to Reuters.
In the meantime Belarus remains on call and ready to host the international peace talks at the drop of a hate.
“The date of the meeting fully depends on the parties’ decision. As soon as the parties involved agree on the specific date of the meeting of the contact group and inform us about it, we are ready to report it within 1.5 minutes,” Belarusian Foreign Ministry press officer Dmitry Mironchik told Interfax on Dec. 8.
Interfax-Ukraine reported that an anonymous source close to the negotiations expected the negotiations not to take place on Dec. 9 but near the end of the week.
Despite the unsuccessful nature of previous talks and difficulty agreeing on a date some experts believe the talks could signal a desire on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin to de-escalate the conflict.
Timothy Ash, an analyst who heads emerging market research for Standard Bank in London, wrote:
“Putting a few things together, and I am beginning to think that Putin might just be getting cold feet about Ukraine, and what it has cost him. First, there are credible reports that the Russian military suffered heavy losses around Donetsk airport last week – perhaps even hundreds of casualties among Russian elite forces. Typically just before previous bouts of peace talks there has been an upsurge of fighting as both sides aim to go into the talks from a position of strength.
“But the scale of Russian military losses may just have made Putin think that his military options may be more limited than he had assumed. Second, the combination of oil price drops and sanctions is now devastating Russian markets, and exposing Putin’s own Potemkin village that the Russian economy was never as healthy as it seemed – the Putin’ straw houses in the Potemkin village was built on the foundation of inflated oil prices, and a decade or more of missed opportunities to reform. The ruble has lost one third of its value, capital flight is running at an accelerated pace of at least $140 billion the Central Bank of Russia has fritted away at least $100 billion in scarce foreign-exchange reserves, banks/corporates are struggling to get access to international capital markets for much needed investment, the economy is pushing into recession and inflation looks set to push back into double digits.
“Russians are set to feel a lot poorer, with per capita gross domestic product set to fall from over $14,000 last year, to around $10,000.
“This latter fact matters as many Russians have got used to buying their flash cars, high-end apartments and enjoying their holidays at swanky international resorts. Now their ruble buys a lot less internationally, and they are also wondering the longer the isolation from the West goes, how much longer their international credit cards will continue to work. Nationalism might serve to rally the nation, but this crisis is beginning to hit them in their purses and their bank accounts.
“Third, and perhaps related to the first two points above, Putin’s state of the nation address sounded tough/confident, but all the focus on the historical importance of Crimea – rewriting history, which frankly was never there for Russians – was weird, and especially the absence of much talk of Novorossiya.
“Did this suggest that Putin was trying to prepare the nation for a step back from the brink, and ‘satisfying’ himself with just Crimea, and stepping back from trying to take the rest of Ukraine? Fourth, we now have a new ceasefire deal taking shape in Donbas, with the Minsk process being fed new life, and Russia might resume gas supplies to Ukraine this week.
“Now to read Putin you have to go back to basics and his KGB training – as a spy his skills are in the art of subterfuge, cloaking his intentions, double bluffs, shifting around all the time to put his opponent off guard all the time and making sure he (or Russia, as I don’t think he plans to exit the political scene in Russia) has a good or several. So one can never really know if he is actually planning to step back from the brink.
“Meanwhile, I don’t think his strategic objectives have changed that much, which are all about ensuring his place in Russian history, a Greater Russia, and a weakening in the EU and NATO as a means to achieve that.”
