The negotiations that took place between President Petro Porshenko
of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, mediated by the leaders of
France and Germany, in the Belarussian capital on February 11th of
2015 gave us a road map to bring peace to eastern Ukraine. The deal is done.
The mechanisms have been spelled out. The very obvious problem with Minsk II is
non-compliance.
If the problem is non-compliance, then the solution has to
be tools to ensure compliance.
As I have argued in the past, if you want to replace Minsk with a new deal, it would have to start with the
exact same terms contained in the present deal, so a renegotiation is not on
the cards, although this is almost certainly what Putin wants, he
wants a deal that would translate to a Russian (or Russian proxy) veto over
Ukraine’s sovereign affairs. As things stand at present, nothing in Minsk gives Putin the level of control he wants over Ukraine, and so the war rumbles
on. Doubling down on death until the cost becomes too great and Ukraine
capitulates seems to be his (mis)calculation.
Minsk should not be renegotiated as Putin desires, Minsk II should
be reinforced, the only changes needed relate to timeframe. The increased costs
for non-compliance are not a matter for negotiation, the rest of the world
needs to present the reality of additional sanctions against Russia as a matter
of fact.
Minsk II (like Minsk I before it, and like the Geneva Peace
Accord before that) opens with a simple requirement: cease fire. A ceasefire is
planned for September 1st. That’s a good start. If it happens.
The next point in Minsk II is a pullback of heavy weapons.
On both of the above points, it must be clearly stated that
if Russia fails to comply, significant additional sanctions will be the result.
To ensure these things happen, the OSCE needs to be able to monitor without
hindrance and in safety. One serious problem of communication on this point is
the ambiguous nature of statements made by the OSCE, at a recent press
conference Alexander Hug, the deputy chief of the OSCE Mission in Ukraine, said
(rather unhelpfully) that “the sides prevent our monitors from accessing
certain areas” and “the sides threaten and intimidate our unarmed monitors.”
While that paints a picture to the uninformed that “the sides” share equal
guilt in these matters, in reality the vast majority of restrictions of movement
of the OSCE team occurr in the areas not controlled by the government. I am not
aware of a single instance where the OSCE mission has been threatened by
Ukrainian forces, only the occupying forces have shot at, and made cut throat
signals to, the OSCE SMM.
Allowing the OSCE Mission free access to observe is Minsk
commitment number 3.Russia should be made aware that in case of further threats
to, or intimidation of, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine by the
forces they control and direct and supply, significant additional sanctions
will be the result.
The only change that I would make to Minsk II is to bring
point number ten up the list. If Minsk is read (as was not intended in fact) as
a direct follow from point two to point three and three to four, then the
requirement at point ten, “pullout of all foreign armed formations, military
equipment, and mercenaries, from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE
supervision” needs to be restated as an immediate requirement. If Russia fails
to withdraw the men and equipment that they have poured into Ukraine over the
last two years, Moscow needs to understand that significant additional
sanctions will be the result.
As a minimum, this is what is needed to stop the war. If the
rest of the world cares about stopping the war, new deadlines for these three
basic actions need to be put in place, not a change to Minsk II, an update to
Minsk II, so Minsk II and a half. If the world does not have the stomach for
new sanctions against Russia, Putin will continue his war against Ukraine, many
more people will die, it’s that simple. If the international community fails to
act, more bloodshed will be the result.
What about the rest
of Minsk II? What about Ukraine’s obligations?
There’s nothing on Ukraine’s “To Do” list that can be used
as even scant excuse by Russia for refusing to meet Minsk commitments 1, 2, 3,
and 10.
What does Ukraine have to do? Change the Constitution. The
specifics of this refer to decentralization, and it is nothing to do with the
parts of Donbas that are presently occupied. In all likelihood the reason for
the foot-dragging on this issue is that decentralization means more power
(country-wide) to local authorities, and many central politicians don’t like giving
up power that may be abused at some point for personal gain. Parliament is in
recess at present, they must tackle this issue immediately when they return and
stop providing Putin with excuses.
Ukraine has to grant an amnesty for locals who participated
in the events in the eastern Ukraine, well, to be frank, there really were not
many locals who participated in those events. An Amnesty law was passed in
Ukraine after the signing of Minsk II, it was never signed into law by the
President. It should be, although it is unpalatable, it’s part of the package.
It excludes amnesty with regard to capital crimes.
Ukraine has to pass a law on the “Special Status” of certain
parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Some people fear that this is somehow a
backdoor way of Russia gaining control over Ukraine’s external affairs. Such
people should read what are the actual terms of the Special Status. It does not
mean de facto autonomy, it provides for no veto on Ukraine’s foreign affairs.
It’s just a name, a silly name thought up under immense pressure. Anyone who
tries to draw an inference of autonomy from the actual terms of the Special
Status is simply wrong.
Lastly, Ukraine needs to hold elections in the areas from
which Russia must withdraw. For there to be elections, a law on the process of
elections needs to be passed. The process of agreeing the framework for an
election has to be defined by the Trilateral Contact Group, who have been
unable to provide this framework, because it is stalled by ridiculous demands
(such as no Ukrainian political parties would be able to compete, despite Minsk
II clearly stating that the elections have to be held according to Ukrainian
law) from the representatives of the occupying forces. The hold up with this
law isn’t that Parliament have just not passed it, or don’t want to pass it,
the hold up comes from the reluctance of the Kremlin appointees to agree to
terms for elections.
There is a fear amongst some that these elections would
bring those who currently hold appointed power in some parts of Donetsk and
Luhansk into the national power structure. That we would see Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky (or Givi, remember him?) taking seats in the Verkhovna Rada. Before
the war they had no local reputation, no local support, they were plucked from
obscurity to head up the Kremlin projects that were plan B after the creation
of “Novorussia” failed, something we now know much more about since the
(shoddy, but nonetheless breathtaking) release of the Sergei Glazyev tapes.
The citizens of Donbas want peace. They’re not going to vote
for the people who have incompetently presided over a period when they were
denied peace. They’re not going to vote for a Zakharchenko or Plotnitsky, and
they won’t be able to vote for Givi because he’ll be answering charges of war
crimes for abusing prisoners of war, which he foolishly filmed, and war crimes
are also not covered by any amnesty.
In all likelihood there will need to be some kind of international
presence to help independently manage the difficult task of reintegration of
the Donbas, and allow for free transmission of information to lift the
delusions a small number of people there hold, this must be part of the pathway
to elections, if they are to be free and fair.
Minsk II (and a half) looks like this: Stop fighting. Russia
withdraws from Ukraine. These things will be ignored until and unless Putin understands that there will be significantly increased costs for failure
to do this. The rest, working to allow the Ukrainian citizens of Donbas their
democratic right to peacefully elect whoever they want, is actually not so
difficult. The war must stop first.
