Ukraine will need to pick up the tab for the Donbas again — restoring government payments, such as pensions and state salaries, frozen because of Russia’s war.
Meanwhile, Kremlin-backed separatists will preserve a tight grip over the areas of the Donbas that they control, including Donetsk and Luhansk.
Moreover, Russia won’t even close the border with Ukraine — leaving Russian President Vladimir Putin with unlimited opportunities to funnel more weapons and money to his soldiers and proxies in Ukraine.
Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande spent the night together in the Soviet-styled palace in Minsk, home to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for the last 20 years.
But the leaders did not sign the three-page agreement that emerged, giving them the opportunity, it seems, to disown it later on.
Insted, the text was signed by the trilateral group, made up of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The names of separatist leaders from Donetsk and Luhansk are also on the paper, even though they are not officially party to the negotiations. The top leadership quartet only made a joint statement in support of the new agreement.
This is one of many reasons to be skeptical that the new agreement will actually work. It is written on behalf of undefined “sides” that are supposed to discuss “modalities” of elections in Ukraine’s embattled east and pull back weapons. But the sides are undefined, and it’s not clear who holds responsibility over execution of the argreement.
The agreement is also open to interpretation by all sides.
In fact, interpretations started literally minutes after the document was agreed on and signed. One of the notable spins came from Putin, who said that Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve, one of the most deadly places in the war zone at the moment, must put down weapons and stop fighting.
Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in March, is not mentioned in the text. It was not even in the leaders’ comments, as if it does not exist at all.
It may be understandable from the Western diplomatic point of view (take the most painful issue off the table and deal with the rest), but from the point of view of the Ukrainian people, failure to mention the theft of 5 percent of its territory and people looks likes capitulation by the world, including Poroshenko, to Putin.
In the contested eastern Donbas, the territory which falls under the new Minsk agreement is yet to be defined. Even the pullback line for heavy weapons differs for Ukraine and the separatists. Ukraine is using the current contact line as the basis, while the separatists have agreed to go back to the line outlined in the September agreements, after which they gained territory.
But where civilian life is concerned, it’s even more vague.
First of all, it’s unnclear who will administer the territories that are supposed to become the 50-kilometer buffer zone and how it will be done. What happens to the territories between the demarcation line that existed in September and the new one we have now?
The Verkhovna Rada is to decide on places where local elections are to be held in separatist-controlled areas, but what happens if the leaders of the insurgents and/or Russia do not agree with Parliament’s decision? There is no mechanism for solving this dispute, or any other.
Also, the date of the election is to be set by March 15. The campaign will run for at least 60 days, according to laws governing pre-term elections. So, in the best-case scenario, the area will get a legitimate local government around June.
But there is also a contradictory point that says the election date is to be determined by the contact group. They might decide on a different date, or a date after the new Constitution comes in effect – that would be in November at the earliest due to the complex and lengthy procedure required to make these amendments.
In any case, this will be an election at gunpoint, like the so-called referendum in Crimea. Technically, the agreement requires the insurgents to hand over weapons. Apart from the obvious difficulties in implementing this, there are als two loopholes in the agreement.
First of all, the border with Russia will remain open until 2016, and will only be sealed off after Ukraine implements a new Constitution. Restoration of control over the border will only start after the local election in Donbas, according to the same agreement. There is nothing in the agreement that suggests that the supply of weapons over the border will stop in the meantime.
Secondly, the footnotes of the agreement stipulate that local leaders in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts will be able to form their own militias to support law and order. Basically, this means giving out uniforms to the armed thugs that roam those lands now. The agreement has no mention of any international peace-keepers.
Local leaders will also have a say in appointing the judges in the area, making sure their grip on serving justice remains tight.
In the meantime, Ukraine will pay for everything that happens, starting now, effectively funding the separatists at least indirectly.
It has pledged to restore all payments to Donetsk and Luhansk, which had been cut off in November as a part of an economic blockade. The International Monetary Fund gave Ukraine a new $17.5 billion loan, four-year loan on the same day as the new Minsk agreement was reached, and now we know where some of that cash will be going.
Ukraine also promised to reopen banks on separatist territories. In return, the separatists promised to pay taxes. But even shipping cash to the area is a trick. Operating banks in the Donbas is a form of suicide. And expecting taxes from an area where business is all but dead would be very naive.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
