People’s Servant group emerges to oppose concessions on Donbas

A group of at least two dozen MPs (out of 248 total)
in the pro-presidential People’s Servant faction has emerged in opposition to
the current campaign to offer concessions to Russia in the Donbas peace talks,
the pravda.com.ua news site reported on Mar. 18, citing anonymous sources in
the faction. This group first published a statement on Mar. 13 opposing the
creation of a consultative group at the Trilateral Contact Group peace talks in
Minsk. At least 60 People’s Servant MPs signed that statement, with at least
seven retracting their signatures after a meeting the same evening with Andriy
Yermak, the President’s Office head. The anti-concessions group of MPs then
issued a Mar. 16 statement calling for the dismissal of Serhiy Syvokho, the
non-staff security adviser who organized a controversial
reconciliation forum in Kyiv on Mar. 12.

Yermak explained his negotiating strategy with the
Russians during the raucous Mar. 13 evening meeting with MPs, insisting his
plans – including for a consultative council – did not involve any alleged
capitulation or treason, the report said, citing People’s Servant faction head
David Arakhamia. “At the faction meeting, Mr. Yermak promised that if there is
any signing of documents, we will have a separate faction meeting on that
issue,” Arakhamia said. “He will explain to everyone what is our strategy, and
what we are trying to do. We will vote, including as a faction, in order for
him to understand whether he has support or not, and only afterwards will there
be some actions done in Minsk.” Yermak views those opposed to him as either aligned
with former President Poroshenko, or the globalist financier George Soros, said
an anonymous source.

Despite the opposition to the consultative council,
its creation remains on Yermak’s agenda, the report said. Adjustments to the Mar.
11 protocol, signed by Yermak and Ukraine’s lead negotiator Leonid Kuchma and
calling for the council’s creation, “look unlikely with respect to the concerns
of the part of the faction,” the report said. “Meanwhile, the (People’s
Servant) faction itself continues to undergo a silent period of decay. In the
president’s force, ‘clubs with interests’ are separating all the more clearly.
Keeping them in the bounds of a single faction will be all the more difficult,”
the report concluded.

Zenon Zawada: What’s
apparent from this episode is that while Yermak will clear with the People’s
Servant faction his key concessions in reaching peace with the Russians, he has
enough support nonetheless to ignore the anti-concessions group. Moreover, this
group of MPs hasn’t demonstrated much resolve, considering they could have
surrendered their mandates already. (It’s possible they think that remaining in
the faction will give them the ability to change some people’s minds.)

Even if they do eventually, possibly costing the
faction its technical majority of 226 votes, President Zelensky will be able to
approve legislation with the help of two groups of MPs that have emerged (22
MPs with Renaissance, loyal to Ihor Kolomoisky, and 17 MPs with Trust). They
proved reliable this week when offering votes to approve two key appointments.

So we don’t see parliament as being able to halt
the plans of Zelensky and Yermak to offer significant concessions to Russia in
what we consider to be dangerous plans to fulfill the Minsk Accords. It will be
the street that decides whether they will get their way. And it remains unclear
what actions the pro-Western resistance has in store, and what the reaction
will be from both Bankova Street, and the Kremlin.