Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration, claims that advisor-level meetings of Normandy Format countries – Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France – are useless.
Kozak represents Russia during the meetings that aim to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has waged a proxy war since 2014.
The advisor meetings have occurred regularly since the last meeting between the Normandy Format countries’ leaders on Dec. 9 in Paris. The advisor meetings were meant to help implement the communiqué of the Paris meeting and draft proposals for the next meeting between the leaders of the four countries planned to be held in Berlin at a later date.
Now, Russia is threatening to scrap the negotiations.
“I propose to limit advisors’ roles to strictly technical support of the heads of states,” wrote Kozak in a letter to Jan Hecker, foreign policy advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who represented his country during the meetings.
The letter was leaked to several Ukrainian media outlets on July 30.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, who represents Ukraine in the talks, acknowledged receiving a copy of the letter, yet downplayed its significance.
“Mr. Kozak’s letter, in my opinion, is rather about a subtle diplomatic game, when one of the negotiating parties wants to strengthen its positions and seize the initiative,” Yermak told the press.
According to Yermak, the negotiations continue.
Normandy pause
Zelensky was looking to revive the Normandy Format meetings since he took office in May 2019.
The Normandy Format meetings were first held in 2014, as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of the same year. However, after no results were reached, the meetings were paused in 2016.
Zelensky took steps to relaunch the negotiations in the Normandy Format. On Sept. 7, Ukraine and Russia performed their first-ever mass prisoner exchange, swapping 35 people each.
Ukraine and Russian-led proxies have also rolled back weapons and personnel near three towns on the front line – Stanytsya Luhanska, Petrivske and Zolote – paving way for the first in three years meeting to take place in Paris in December.
During the Paris meeting in December, the leaders of Ukraine and Russia agreed to exchange all prisoners, disengage weapons in three more locations on the front line and to implement the so-called Steinmeier Formula – to hold free and fair local elections in the Russian-occupied Donbas region under Ukrainian law.
In exchange, the region would receive self-governance. The leaders agreed to meet again in four months.
Kozak, Yermak, Hecker and Emmanuel Bonn, foreign policy advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron, were to hold communications to help implement those agreements.
Since then, two more prisoner swaps took place, bringing a total of 131 Ukrainians home from captivity since September.
Now, Kozak says those agreements lack substance.
According to Kozak, the sides are drawing points for the future Normandy Format meeting that “are meaningless” and “do nothing to stop the conflict in Donbas.”
Kozak also pointed out that the current ceasefire was drawn by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, with representatives of Germany and France taking little part in the group’s initiatives.
The Trilateral Group includes representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and was formed to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region after it was invaded by Russia in 2014.
On July 22, the Trilateral Contact Group has agreed to implement a new ceasefire starting on July 27. The ceasefire was breached within less than an hour.
“I assure you, with full responsibility, that I do not intend to continue to participate in this endless spectacle,” wrote Kozak, referring to the advisor meetings.
