U.S.-Russia talks helpful, needed and positive, Russian aide says

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian leaders on May 12 for four hours in the resort city of Sochi to discuss various international conflicts, particularly in Ukraine. There were no breakthroughs “but nonetheless it’s a show of the first signs of understanding that two large countries should return to normal cooperation,” said Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president. He described the talks as “very helpful, needed and positive,” though U.S. involvement in the Normandy talks involving Ukraine was not mentioned, Interfax reported. They did discuss Russia’s position on dispatching U.N. peacekeepers to Donbas, he said. Kerry met with Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, news reports said.

After the talks, Kerry indicated to journalists after that the U.S. won’t support the Ukrainian government if it chose to renew military activity in Donbas. “If President (Petro) Poroshenko supports some military operations there now, then we’d advise him to think first before taking such actions because the Minsk accords would then be under serious threat,” he said, as reported by the Russian service of the BBC. The comment came after Poroshenko attended the screening of a film about the battle over the Donetsk airport and told the audience that the Ukrainian military will “free the airport” from separatist control.

At the same time, Kerry acknowledged the cease-fire regime is being violated by the separatist side, particularly in its refusal to remove heavy artillery. Kerry called Poroshenko to discuss further steps to de-escalate the conflict in Donbas, as well as steps to ensure the complete fulfillment of the Minsk cease-fire accords, the president’s press service reported.

Zenon Zawada: That the Russians view the talks as positive is a good sign for the near-term. In our view, it means that the conflict in Donbas will remain frozen at its current stage. It also means that an arrangement has been reached that eliminates the need for the U.S. to deliver military hardware to defend the port city of Mariupol, which is near the border of the separatist-occupied territory. That some kind of agreement exists is apparent from the fact that the separatists have refrained from aggressive actions in Mariupol, limiting the fighting to control surrounding villages.

Poroshenko is notorious for making outlandish statements that have mass appeal, the latest being his May 12 claim to retake control of the territory of the Donetsk airport. It’s clear that the public is frustrated from the daily reports of soldiers dying despite a cease-fire being in place and Poroshenko is trying to assuage such frustration with such populist statements promising victory. Yet Kerry can rest assured that the Ukrainian military won’t take any actions without clearance from the U.S. government.