EU leaders agree to extend Minsk accords to 2016

The leaders of the Normandy Format – France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine – agreed during telephone talks to extend the Minsk accords to 2016, the kremlin.ru website reported on Dec. 30. “The leaders discussed in detail the situation in southeastern Ukraine, which remains tense and unstable in the context of fulfilling the Minsk accords on Feb. 12, 2015,” the statement said. “It was agreed to extend their term to 2016, with a stress on the importance of the further work on the Trilateral Contact Group with the goal of the full and all-encompassing fulfillment of the set of measures.” The foreign ministries have been ordered to conduct a review of the accords’ fulfillment, while personal contact between the leaders of the four countries will continue, the statement said. The Trilateral Contact Group consists of representatives of the Ukrainian government, the Russian-backed terrorists and the OSCE.

During the talks, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reported on the escalation in attacks on Ukrainian forces in recent weeks and the need for a total cease-fire, his press service reported on Dec. 30. The president agreed to the Trilateral Contact Group’s participation in organizing local elections in the occupied districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which should also involve the OSCE, the report said. These elections must involve Ukrainian parties, Ukrainian mass media, the Central Election Commission and international observers, Poroshenko said. He also called for an EU special mission to be dispatched for the elections to ensure order and safety, in accompaniment with the OSCE, which should have full access to all of the occupied territory and the border with Russia.

Poroshenko voiced his opposition to extending the Minsk accords to 2016 as late as September, as pointed out by a Dec. 30 report by the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news agency. “The theory of, ‘Let’s extend the fulfillment of the accords beyond Jan. 1 2016,’ means extending the occupation in my understanding. I don’t intend on going for that!,” the president tweeted on Sept. 13.

Zenon Zawada: It comes as no surprise that all sides extended the Minsk accords, which plays directly into the hands of Russian President Putin. With the extension, Putin can continue to manipulate the Donbas conflict in order to achieve his geopolitical goals, which he did rather well last year. As for Poroshenko, he has developed a solid reputation at this point for backtracking on most of his key promises. In this case, it’s evident that he’s doing all he can to accommodate the wishes of French President and German Chancellor. Extending the Minsk accords is needed to try to set up the local elections in Donbas.

Holding elections is the all-purpose remedy of the West for solving conflicts all over the globe, though that has proven to be quite a deficient approach in places like the Middle East. And unfortunately, we don’t foresee success in the Donbas region. Poroshenko’s call for an EU special mission to work in tandem with the OSCE in setting up the elections will make their potential for success more likely.

But a precondition for holding successful elections should be removing Russian soldiers and restoring Ukrainian control of the border, which we are confident will not happen since it will lead to the defeat of the Russian-backed forces. In yesterday’s statement, as reported by pravda.com.ua, Poroshenko called for removing foreign troops but did not clarify whether this should occur before or after the elections. He will face enormous opposition domestically if the elections are held under such questionable conditions as occupation forces being present.