Putin calls for fulfilling Minsk Accords after blatant violation

Russian President Putin called upon the administration
of President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy to fulfill the Minsk Accords the day
after he decided to distribute Russian passports to millions of residents of
occupied Donbas, in violation of the peace agreement. “If the people who come
to power in Kyiv find in themselves the strength to fulfill the Minsk Accords,
then we will support this in every way and we will do everything to normalize
the situation in southeastern Ukraine,” he told an Apr. 25 press conference in
Vladivostok. “We want to, and we are ready for renewing relations to the
fullest extent. But we can’t do this unilaterally.” Recall, Putin signed on Apr. 24 a decree
simplifying the procedure for the permanent residents of the occupied
territories of Donetsk and Luhansk (collectively known as Donbas) to gain
Russian citizenship, in violation of Ukrainian and international law.

The Zelenskiy administration has two red lines that it
will not cross with Russia, which are surrendering Ukrainian territory and
citizens, as well as abandoning the Minsk Accords, campaign adviser Dmytro
Razumkov told a political talk show on Apr. 25. “We are not ready to trade, to
rent in the short- or long term, or offer for use Ukrainian lands and Ukrainian
citizens,” he said, specifically referring to the illegally annexed Crimea and
Russian-occupied Donbas. “That will never happen under a Zelenskiy presidency.”
As for the Minsk Accords, “too much is tied to them,” said Razumkov, stressing
that they serve as the basis for practically all Western sanctions being
imposed on Russia. “The most important thing is for us to not agree to abandon
Minsk,” he said. “If we adopt another (peace) process, all the sanctions will
be lost. Europe also has states that are tolerant to the Russian Federation. We
can’t allow this in any event.”

Zenon Zawada: Putin’s
decree extending citizenship to millions of residents in occupied Donbas has
enormous geopolitical implications, the most important of which is, in essence,
voiding the Minsk Accords and rendering them useless. Putin calling for the
Zelenskiy administration to fulfill the Minsk Accords is quite cynical
considering it will be impossible for Ukraine to fulfill them – by
reintegrating the occupied territories – with millions of Russian citizens
living there. As a result of Russia “gaining” its new citizenry in Donbas,
returning these territories to Ukrainian control will look unrealistic to the
global community, which is increasingly overlooking the illegal Crimean
annexation. This move needs to be interpreted as an attempt by Putin to raise
the geopolitical stakes and seek nothing less than eventual capitulation from
Zelenskiy, whose popularity was in large part due to his campaign promise to
halt the armed fighting in Donbas.  

In the first months of Zelenskiy’s presidency, we can
expect Putin to continue this rhetoric of demanding the upholding of the Minsk
Accords, while his actions will be aimed at violating them, bringing Zelenskiy
towards capitulation and collapsing Ukraine statehood altogether if he resists.
With the Minsk Accords impossible to fulfill, and having ruled out a new peace
agreement, Zelenskiy’s only viable option is to continue Poroshenko’s course of
resisting Russian aggression while maintaining Western support for intensifying
sanctions. But this course will disappoint his core electorate, largely based
in the southeast, which wants an end to warfare. And his political party will
continue to lose votes with every passing week until the October parliamentary
elections. If he decides to capitulate to Putin, he will win over his core
electorate but risks violent resistance from Ukraine’s pro-Western electorate.