Ukraine cease-fire to start midnight, Feb. 15

The heads of state of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine agreed today to attempt another cease-fire in the war in Ukraine’s Donbas region starting midnight, Feb. 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters. They also agreed to remove heavy weapons from the conflict line for Ukrainian soldiers, on one side, and the dividing line determined on Sept. 19 as part of the first Minsk cease-fire accords, he said. In addition, the Ukrainian government will conduct constitutional reforms to take into account the legal rights of those living in the Donbas region. More details of the agreement will emerge in the next hours.

 

Before Putin’s announcement, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told reporters this morning that Moscow’s demands were “unacceptable” and that he had no good news to report from the Feb. 11 Minsk summit that had extended all night and into this morning. The four heads of state converged yesterday evening to reach a new peace agreement that would end warring in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The leaders and their diplomats spent the entire night negotiating and concluded talks at 9:00 a.m. local time, when they transferred their preliminary agreement to the Trilateral Contact Group for review. Then they restarted talks at 9:30 a.m. The leaders decided not to engage in an official signing ceremony in front of journalists, as had been planned. The preliminary document will be released to the media at 12:00, news reports said.

 

A document found by reporters at the site of negotiations revealed possible details of the agreement, including a cease-fire starting Feb. 14, the removal of heavy arms and the creation of a security zone, Russian news reports said. The document also calls for full control of the border with Russia by Ukraine by the end of 2015 and the withdrawal of foreign arms and troops. “It was unclear whether the document, found in the palace where talks between the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia were taking place, was a final agreement, a discussion document or some kind of draft,” the Moscow Times reported this morning. The final agreement will consist of ten points, with 80 percent of its content agreed upon.

 

The signing ceremony was undermined by the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic, reported Yevropeyska Pravda, a Ukrainian news site, citing an anonymous Western diplomat. “(Aleksandr) Zakharchenko and (Igor) Plotnitsky aren’t signing the compromise reached by the leaders with Putin,” said the source. “They are doing this at the instruction of the Russians themselves, who are working to undermine the agreements and demonstrate that the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics are seemingly independent subjects of the talks. In a critical moment, we are observing cheap theatre. But to everyone here, it’s obvious that peace is not in the interest of Russia and its henchmen.”

 

The negotiations were concentrated on four main issues, reported the Associated Press the evening of Feb. 10. Firstly, the Ukrainian government demanded that the dividing line be established based on the September agreement, whereas the Russian government wants the line to include territory gained by the separatists since then. Secondly, Kyiv is willing to give the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics enhanced authority, but Moscow wants guarantees on autonomy and renewal of social payments and Ukrainian banking activity in Donbas. Thirdly, Kyiv wants to renew full renew full control over its border with Russia while Moscow wants the separatists to control the main points along their borders. Fourthly, Kyiv wants the removal of Russian soldiers and military hardware, while the Russian government continues to deny its involvement.

 

The Ukrainian demand to renew control over its border in those territories controlled by the separatists is unrealistic as long as fighting continues and other issues are unresolved, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Feb. 11 press conference, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. He called on the Ukrainian government to reach such an agreement with the separatist leaders themselves, who won’t allow the issue of border control become the main precondition for the other points in the negotiations.

 

Western leaders warned in recent days that the talks were the last chance to attempt peace in the Donbas, otherwise arms could be dispatched to the Ukrainian government and the violence could escalate. “The whole world is waiting: either the situation goes down the path of de-escalation, cease-fire and removal or arms, or the situation will practically turn topsy turvy,” Poroshenko said during his Feb. 11 meeting with Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, as reported by the Interfax-Ukayina news agency.

 

The Ukrainian government will pursue decentralization but it will never resemble the federalization that is being called for by the Russian government, Poroshenko told a Cabinet of Ministers meeting in Kyiv on Feb. 10. “The decentralization that we are developing won’t have anything in common with federalization. Ukraine was, is and will be a unitary state. This fully conforms to the attitude of the Ukrainian people,” he said, adding, “The idea of federalization is persistently trying to be exported from the neighboring state. At that, ironically, this state is the most centralized in the region. The term ‘federal’ is only on paper.”

 

Zenon Zawada: A document has to be signed today for all sides to save face. But it’s apparent to us that the sides won’t be able to agree on several critical issues, particularly with establishing the dividing line, the conditions for renewing border control, the conditions of autonomy and the removal of Russian soldiers and hardware. So we expect an unfolding of events similar to the Sept. 5 Minsk cease-fire accords, which involved a document that was violated within days of its signing that eventually became irrelevant.

 

On a diplomatic level, the conflict in the Donbas region requires an out-of-the-box solution, as many European leaders and experts have pointed out. Yet we don’t see that being pursued. At the very heart of this conflict is a single man, Putin, challenging the new global legal and political order established by Western leaders. Putin is unwilling to back down, based on his belief that control of Ukrainian territory is essential to Russian political, defense and economic interests. Unfortunately, the result will be what Poroshenko has suggested, which involves the conflict deteriorating with devastating effects for the economy and society of both Russia and Ukraine.