The deadlock of the Minsk agreements and the games of the interested parties

The Minsk agreements concluded in 2014, providing for a peaceful settlement in Donbass, stalled from the very beginning and so far not a single point has been implemented. The settlement format adopted then, in which Russia, Germany and France acted as guarantors, did not ensure the implementation of the political, military and administrative aspects of the agreements.

Over the past months, there has been a lot of noise around the agreements and statements that are involved in the conflict between the parties, talking about the next stage of exacerbation.



The question is, to what extent did the agreements meet the interests of the parties involved in the conflict and what goals did the parties pursue?

Surkov's revelations

In this regard, the revelations of the former Kremlin curator of Ukraine Surkov, who, on the instructions of the president, played the main role of the architect of the Minsk agreements, are interesting. They are also interesting because he expounds them in his interviews after his resignation, not being a civil servant.

In an interview on February 20, 2020, he said that back in 2013, long before the events began, it was felt that there was a serious struggle with the West around Ukraine, and in what borders or how many Ukrainians there would be - the questions are open and Russia will have to solve them one way or another. And to the question of whether Donbass will return to Ukraine, he gave a clear answer -


That is, initially, the presence of Donbass as part of Ukraine was not seriously considered, and Surkov only confirmed this in subsequent interviews.

The most significant were the two interviews he gave in June this year. The first was on the June 12 telegram channel WarGonzo, in which he admires his work:


Surkov stipulates that


According to him,


At the same time, the author is silent that the provisions on the "independence" of Donbass provided for by the agreements are, to put it mildly, strained, and this law has not yet been put into effect, the term is being extended every year, and another procedure for its extension is due in December.

Further, Surkov asserts that Ukraine “can only be returned by force” and the force can be different “Not only military. There is also the power of the special services, it is different. There is a so-called soft power ... There is a power of economic influence, political influence. " In this he is absolutely right, in the short term, without coercion, Ukraine itself will not reformat itself.

In a second interview on June 19 with the Financial Times, Surkov stressed that


Surkov believes that the Minsk agreements are the first act that "legalized the first partition of Ukraine." This is the future of Ukraine, he sees:


He indirectly admits that the Minsk Agreements included requirements that were unfulfillable for Kiev.

In one of his conversations with journalists, he directly says that this was the hook on which Ukraine was hung and which was swallowed by the Western countries in an effort to preserve the "territorial integrity of Ukraine."

At the conceptual level, Surkov promoted the long-running idea of ​​the collapse of the political system of Ukraine from the inside through the introduction of a destructive core in the form of Donbass and Novorossiya, but relied on the corrupt Ukrainian elite, for whom this idea was like death.

Positions of the parties

It is worth recalling that Minsk-1 was signed in September 2014 after the defeat of the Ukrainian army in the "cauldrons" near Saur Mogila and the Ilovaisk militia of Donbass with the participation of several Russian battalion tactical groups, the composition of whose members was never disclosed, only Zakharchenko said on the eve that “in Donbass after training, 1 militias returned. "

Minsk-2 was signed in February 2015 after the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Debaltseve "cauldron" and Poroshenko after stormy 16-hour negotiations, there was nothing left to do but sign an agreement. True, now is not 2014, and the situation in Ukraine and in the republics has fundamentally changed.

At that stage, the Russian leadership focused on the transformation of Ukraine into a federal (confederate) state, and the Donbass, returned to it with a special status, was to become the locomotive of this process. But these hopes did not come true.

The West was not going to give Ukraine in such a reformatted form, understanding what this would lead to, and used the Minsk agreements for its own purposes, hanging Russia on a hook, agreeing to the approval of the agreements by the UN Security Council. Russia now cannot withdraw from the agreements without violating the Security Council resolution adopted on its initiative.

They wanted to put a bridle on Ukraine, but they bridled themselves.

No matter how hard Surkov tries to show "a major diplomatic victory for Russia," the agreements turned into a stillborn document with irreconcilable and insurmountable contradictions that tied Russia's hands. The war has not ended, Donbass has become a territory unrecognized by anyone, which Russia cannot recognize or include in its composition, and even more so give it to Ukraine on the terms of the West, hence the duality of the position of the Russian state in the Ukrainian direction.

After seven years, it is clear that the Minsk agreements are a dead end. European guarantors do not influence this process in any way without the consent of the United States, and there is simply nothing to talk with them about. Only two great powers can resolve the Ukrainian crisis if they do, but so far no solution has been found.

The Americans needed the resisting Donbass to drag Russia into the war, until it succeeded. If they fail, they can defeat Russia in another area - agree to the inclusion of Donbass in Ukraine on the terms of agreements, and then the Ukrainian authorities will clean it up.

In this regard, the recent statement about the Donbass by the American "plenipotentiary" Avakov, who has returned to the political field, is interesting:


Through Avakov, the Americans send the message that they are ready to recognize the agreements (officials in Washington have said this more than once). The Ukrainian authorities will have to pass all the necessary laws. Amend the Constitution and include Donbass in Ukraine, and after a year or two, cancel everything and completely clean up the rebellious territory. The parliament has more than enough forces for this.

This is the tactic of "gradual steps" proposed in 2014 by the deputy governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region Filatov:


In this situation, the return of Donbass on the terms of agreements will lead to disaster, not immediately, but after some time, and Russia can hardly do anything, there will be no one to defend there.

If in 2014 it was still possible to assume the option of a peaceful return of Donbass, now after seven years of war, fierce confrontation and hatred for each other, it is difficult to imagine, or rather impossible. The Minsk agreements do not fulfill the function assigned to them, the Russian population of Donbass was held hostage to the situation, and every year it only gets worse. The decisions taken by Moscow on issuing Russian passports, opening up the Russian economic space and providing assistance somehow smooth the situation, but do not provide a fundamental solution to the problem of Donbass.

Since autumn, the guarantors of the Minsk agreements, Germany and France, have also taken a different position, stating that Russia is a party to the conflict in Donbass and must fulfill the obligations "imposed on it by the agreements." And this despite the fact that Russia is just like them, the guarantor of agreements and nothing more. They supported and support Ukraine in non-compliance with the requirements of the agreements and insisted on a meeting of the Normandy Four. Russia firmly adhered to the senselessness of such a meeting, since the decisions of previous meetings are not being implemented.

Merkel on November 18 expressed regret that the meeting never took place.


In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 18 published a correspondence with the German and French Foreign Ministries, from which it followed that the "guarantors" suddenly ceased to be satisfied with the language about the "internal Ukrainian conflict" and the "mediating role of Russia", and they were not ready to take responsibility for convincing Kiev to direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk. That is, the European partners are officially reneging on their obligations to guarantee Ukraine's implementation of the Minsk Agreements.

Putin also reacted to this, saying at the Foreign Ministry collegium that


That is, at the highest level, Moscow recognized the Minsk agreements as a dead end, and Russia began to take appropriate steps.

Back in June, Lavrov's deputy Ryabkov made a statement that Russia does not object to US participation in the Minsk format if the Americans influence Ukraine to comply with the terms of the Minsk agreements. In November, Ryabkov reiterated Russia's proposal, which was followed by a duplicitous response from the White House press secretary, Psaki - the United States welcomes a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Donbas on the basis of the Minsk agreements, but no concrete steps followed.

Provocative statements from the West

On the contrary, the West began in November an increasingly serious aggravation of the situation around Russia and Ukraine, and in some ways it began to resemble the aggravation of this spring.
They began to intensely blackmail Russia from all sides and accuse Russia of contrived preparations for an invasion of Ukraine, and there are many examples of this, here are some of them.

American journalist Davis on November 13 in his article predicted the possible reaction of the United States in the event of a war between Russia and Ukraine. In a bad scenario, the situation could even lead to a catastrophic exchange of nuclear strikes between the powers. The Commander of US Strategic Command, Admiral Richard, said that the United States should prepare for a nuclear war with Russia, and Chief of Staff of the United Kingdom, Carter, in an interview on November 17, stressed that the risk of a war between the West and Russia is higher than ever, even more likely than during the Cold war.

In turn, British Prime Minister Johnson said on November 18 that the possible "military adventurism" of Russia near the borders of Ukraine and Poland would be a "tragic mistake", and on November 14, the British newspaper The Mirror reported that a British special forces task force of up to 600 people was ready to be deployed in Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion.

US Department of State Chief Blinken met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba and announced the movement of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine, warning Moscow against "repeating the 2014 mistake" when it "accumulated forces along the border, crossed it and infiltrated sovereign Ukrainian territory."

The American senator, head of the International Affairs Committee Menendez, on November 20 proposed to impose sanctions against Russia in the event that the Russian government carries out a military escalation or other hostile actions against Ukraine. The American edition of the WSJ reported on November 20 that US intelligence is serious about the threat of a Russian "invasion" of Ukraine, and Washington is pushing European partners to develop a package of measures to contain Moscow.

In addition, Ukraine began to strenuously pedal the adoption of a law on a transitional period in the Donbass, which contradicts the agreements and establishes the occupation regime of Kiev in the Donbass. Moscow warned that the adoption of this law would be regarded as Kiev's withdrawal from the Minsk agreements.

With its provocative actions, the West, on the one hand, provokes a local conflict between Russia and Ukraine in order to lower a new iron curtain from Russia, on the other hand, it tries to inflict the most serious reputational and diplomatic damage, fixing the image of the aggressor behind it.

Russia's answer

Russia had no choice but to defend its interests and give a worthy response to the blackmail and intrigues of the West.

At the Foreign Ministry collegium, Putin stressed that in recent years Western countries have begun to heed Russia's concerns and warnings.


Putin accused NATO of destroying the dialogue mechanism, that the alliance is showing an emphatically confrontational attitude towards Russia, "persistently" bringing its military infrastructure closer to the Russian borders.

At a press conference on November 19, Lavrov said that the Russian side will not tolerate the encouragement of militaristic sentiments in Ukraine, which include the organization of certain military training missions. A spokesman for Peskov stressed that NATO made promises to Russia on non-proliferation further to the East, but did not fulfill the promises. According to him, at the moment there is a rapid process of arming Ukraine, which forces Moscow to respond.

The West's escalation of tension around Russia in an attempt to accuse it of preparing aggression against Ukraine with the imposition of a discussion about Moscow's desire to disrupt the implementation of the Minsk agreements, as well as a tough response from Russia to far-fetched accusations, suggest that the dead-end path of agreements no longer suits either the West or Russia ...

The past years have shown that a compromise between Russia and the West over Ukraine and Donbass on the basis of the Minsk agreements is impossible.

The Minsk process seems to have exhausted itself and is dying, the parties understand the futility of actions within the framework of the Minsk process and are trying to close it, accusing each other of violating the agreed provisions. Moscow needs a mechanism to terminate the agreements not on its initiative. The West and the Ukraine it is urging on needs the same thing, but through the fault of Russia, hence the mutual accusations of breaking the agreements.

So far, neither side has succeeded.

Hence the escalation of tension. At this stage, we are not talking about the implementation of agreements, but the struggle over whose fault they will formally or informally cease to operate. Moscow has come to the conclusion that there can be no compromise on Donbass in this format, and will look for other options.

With its latest statements, the Russian leadership demonstrates that it is not on its way with European guarantors and is not averse to discussing this problem with the American overlord of Ukraine.

A spokesman for Peskov on November 19 confirmed that the Ukrainian issue will be discussed at a meeting between Putin and Biden in December, as there are too many disputes over Ukraine. It is possible that at the meeting of the two leaders, Ukraine may become one of the main topics of negotiations to ensure global stability. To what extent they can find mutually acceptable solutions and the further fate of the long-suffering Donbass will depend.