PARIS — The presidents of Ukraine and Russia will hold their first face-to-face meeting in Paris on Dec. 9. After the bilateral talks, the two presidents will join the leaders of France and Germany who are mediating the summit in a so-called “Normandy format,” dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which has dragged on for over five years and claimed more than 14,000 lives.
This will be the first Normandy talk in three years since dialogue stalled in 2016.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already called the meeting’s very occurrence a “victory.” Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Ukrainian President President Petro Poroshenko previously blamed one another for derailing the peace talks after 2016.
Since taking office in May, Zelensky has held three phone calls with Putin. These talks resulted in a prisoner exchange that brought 35 Ukrainians home from captivity in Russia. Among them were 24 navy sailors captured by Russian special forces in neutral waters of the Black Sea near Russia-occupied Crimea in November 2018.
French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting the Normandy summit at his Paris residence, the Élysée Palace. The talks are expected to begin in the afternoon and end late in the evening. The different participants will also hold bilateral meetings.
The summit comes at a time of political challenges for its hosts. Paris is experiencing a new wave of gilets jaunes (“yellow vest”) protests, a working-class revolt against the pro-business government.
Macron has faced criticism both at home and internationally after he publicly attacked NATO, claiming that the alliance has suffered “brain death,” and said that “Russia is not a threat.”
This has helped spark a dispute with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She called Macron’s politics “disruptive,” adding that she is “tired of picking up the pieces… to glue together the cups” Macron has broken, according to the New York Times.
So far, it is unclear whether these tensions will create additional obstacles to finding a resolution to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Already, expectations are not high.
At home, Zelensky’s eagerness to bring peace has some Ukrainians worried. On Dec. 8, several thousand people took to the streets of Kyiv to protest what they feared would be “capitulation” to Russia.
The four countries — Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France — also have conflicting political and even business interests that could complicate the talks.
What Ukraine wants
Prior to the summit, Zelensky outlined his demands for Putin in several interviews. During his campaign, the president promised to end the war within a year and stressed he wanted to get Crimea back. Now, he is rushing to bring peace to Donbas.
Ceasefire
The Trilateral Contact Group — which includes representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) security mission — has been regularly meeting in Minsk since 2014 and attempting to negotiate a primary ceasefire. However, results have been scant.
Despite two sets of Minsk protocols being signed, a ceasefire has never held for more than a few days.
Following the Normandy Four meeting in Minsk in February 2015, military clashes became less intense and heavy artillery started to be withdrawn on both sides.
To comply with the Minsk agreements, Zelensky decided to push for bilateral disengagement of forces and weaponry on the Donbas front line in June. By November, both Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed militants pulled back their forces by up to a kilometer at three flashpoints. Since then, there has been no shooting at the three sites.
Prisoner exchange
After successfully negotiating the prisoner swap in September, Zelensky is eager to move forward and bring home Ukrainians who remain illegally detained in Russia and Donbas.
After successfully negotiating to free 35 Ukrainians from Russian prisons in September, Zelensky is eager to move forward and bring home those who remain illegally imprisoned in Russia, Donbas and Crimea.
According to Liudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, 133 Ukrainian political prisoners remain in Russian jails. Ukraine’s SBU security service claims that at least 227 Ukrainians are held in occupied Donbas.
In Paris, Zelensky expects to determine the exact number of people he will be able to free and when the exchange can take place.
Returning the occupied territories
Zelensky wants Ukraine to regain control over the border with Russia. This means both Russia and the militant formations it backs would have to remove their troops from Donbas.
However, Putin has never admitted that Russian forces are present in Donbas, despite much evidence to the contrary. International investigators have concluded that a Russian missile downed Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Donbas in July 2014, killing 298 people on board. Russian tanks and personnel seized Ukraine’s territory in the Battle of Ilovaisk that summer.
Elections in autumn 2020
Zelensky is keen to hold local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts on October 31, 2020, when votes will be held across the country.
Elections in Donetsk and Luhansk are something Putin also wants. However, he would prefer a different order: elections first, then the withdrawal of Russian and Russia-backed troops.
Zelensky has promised to insist on holding elections only after Ukraine regains control over the occupied territories.
Municipal Militia
In Paris, Zelensky will suggest launching a “municipal guard,” a law enforcement patrol that would include Ukrainian National Guard servicepeople, OSCE members and representatives of the militant formations in Donetsk and Luhansk — but only those who have not committed war crimes.
The municipal guards would be charged with ensuring security in the region.
Zelensky is copying a Croatian initiative intended to end fighting with Serbian separatists after the Yugoslav Wars erupted in 1991. Created in 1996, the patrol had two chiefs: one Croatian and one Serbian. These “municipal guards” later joined the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
What Russia wants
Since the start of the war in eastern Ukraine, Russia has denied its troops are fighting in Donbas. It wants Ukraine to engage in talks with the “leaders” of the militants it backs.
Ukraine has filed lawsuits in a number of international courts claiming that Russia has violated the rights of residents of Donbas and committed war crimes there. Russia rejects these claims.
Russia also wants European Union economic sanctions, imposed after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, to be lifted.
Selling gas to Ukraine
For four years, Ukraine has not purchased natural gas from Russia. Kyiv halted purchases in response to Russian aggression in Donbas and unfair gas prices.
Ukraine said that the gas agreement with Moscow was effectively highway robbery that has cost the country $32.1 billion. The deal, signed in 2009 and widely believed to be disadvantageous to Ukraine, required the country to buy as much gas from Russia as prescribed in the agreement, even if it did not need these supplies.
As a result, Ukraine’s Naftogaz state energy company sued its Russian counterpart, Gazprom, over the price. In February 2018, a Stockholm arbitration court ruled in favour of Naftogaz and obliged Gazprom to pay compensation. The Russian energy company must still pay $2.5 billion to Ukraine.
Although Kyiv no longer buys Russian gas, it still serves as a transit corridor for Russian fuel headed to the EU. That provides Kyiv with $3 billion in revenue annually.
However, the transit agreement ends on Dec. 31. Russia and Ukraine are already discussing what comes next. Russia wants Ukraine to renounce its court claim and again start purchasing overpriced Russian gas. If so, Russia will continue using Ukraine as a transit corridor, Putin said.
Elections before troop withdrawal
Putin has repeatedly claimed he wants elections in Donbas before Ukraine regains control over its land. This would legitimize the roles of the Russia-backed militant leaders, who have effectively appointed themselves to govern the region.
Special status for Donbas
Prior to the peace talks in Paris, Putin called special status for the Donbas “a key issue.”
Russia wants Ukraine to amend its constitution and provide the occupied Donbas with a greater degree of self-governance, allowing it to make local decisions independently of Kyiv.
Once again, the stumbling block is the order in which these steps will be taken. Ukraine wants troops withdrawn first, then local elections and, finally, special status. Russia insists on the reverse order.
In 2014, Ukraine passed a law granting special status to Donbas. Currently, it is not in effect. It is supposed to start working on the day of local elections in Donbas.
What Germany and France want
Despite their central role in the peace negotiations, Germany and France’s support for Ukraine appears to have weakened. Some experts suggest they are moving closer to Russia.
“This is part of a co-ordinated approach… Germany and France are definitely pulling in the same direction on this, although France does it more bombastically,” Nils Schmid, the foreign affairs spokesman for the Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Merkel’s coalition, told to the Financial Times.
Both countries are notably losing money due to EU sanctions that limit trade with Russia. These sanctions are due for renewal early next year.
France
Macron has recently declared his desire to befriend Russia again. He believes Russia is not an enemy for Europe, but rather an ally-to-be, while the real enemy is terrorism.
The only possible breakthrough in the peace talks is if Russia decides to “hand back” the occupied Donbas without unacceptable compromises for Kyiv, said Mathieu Boulegue, a research fellow at the Russia & Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. Moscow does not seem to be willing to do that.
“The greater risk is that the international community (France especially) uses the excuse that the smallest step from Russia in that direction will be considered a gesture of goodwill, and understood as a signal to reintegrate Russia as an ‘acceptable’ partner in Europe (if not lift sanctions),” he told the Kyiv Post in an email.
Germany
Germany’s current position vis-à-vis Russia appears a little more promising for Ukraine.
In August, a former Chechen rebel commander was shot dead in a Berlin park. German prosecutors believe it was a Russia-organized assassination. The murder has been widely compared to the March 2018 attempted poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom.
Germany has expelled two Russian diplomats over the murder. Merkel recently emphasized that she is planning to bring up the case with Putin when she meets him in Paris.
However, there is also something that closely ties Germany and Russia: Nord Stream 2, the underwater pipeline projected to carry 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Germany, doubling the country’s imports from Russia.
Germany adjusted its legislation to enable Russia’s state-owned Gazprom company to build the pipeline in its waters. That would allow Moscow to export gas to the EU, bypassing Ukraine.
Berlin perceives Nord Stream 2 primarily as a commercial project, lucrative for the German businesses that invested in it. However, Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic countries, as well as the United States, say the pipeline makes the EU more dependent on Russia.
Opposition to the Zelensky strategy
At home, Zelensky faced the anger of political rivals, who took to the streets on Dec. 8 to condemn his peace plan as “capitulation.”
A number of the parliamentary factions’ representatives demand that Zelensky not comply with Putin’s demands and not betray Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity while seeking peace.
A group of Ukrainian war veterans decided to support no one – neither the President nor his political opponents protesting in Kyiv. These soldiers flew to Paris to organize a demonstration near the Champs Elysees and introduce their demands to Zelensky.
“We aim to achieve very simple goals: no federalization of Ukraine or any other division of the country, even if Russia offers gas, money or some political benefits,” said Evgen Turchak, a leader of Ukraine’s Veterans Movement.
Peace will be possible only after Russia withdraws from Donbas, Turchak told the Kyiv Post. The veterans also ask Zelensky to return Crimea.
“We would not compromise on any demands of Russia if it retains control over our land. Putin has never kept his promises; he is not trustworthy. We would not surrender our territories even for peace,” he said.
The Ukrainian World Congress, an international diaspora organization, also held a demonstration in Paris on Dec. 8 with similar demands to the veterans. However, they are even more conservative in their position, calling on Zelensky not to hold elections in Donbas at all, not to talk to the Russia-backed militants’ leaders and to intensify sanctions against Russia.
Fixed achievements?
According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, a memorandum will be signed following the Normandy Four summit.
“Honestly, the document is not very ambitious. It is cautious. Currently, its draft focuses on cementing achievements,” he said, speaking to the media at the NATO summit in London on Dec. 3.
The document also will reportedly include suggestions for another prisoner swap and an agreement for the next round of troop disengagement and demining in Donbas.
However, there is still room for maneuvering as long as the document includes general phrases that may turn specific at the meeting, Prystaiko said.
