Diplomats to determine next areas for forces withdrawal

The Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the conflict in
Donbas will meet on Dec. 18 in Minsk to identify the next areas for forces
withdrawal along the separation line, the date of the next ceasefire and the
list of war prisoners to be exchanged, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on
Dec. 13, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. Ukraine will also
submit a request to the OSCE to change the mandate of the special monitoring
mission so that it has more specific information on the forces withdrawal, he
said.

The Russian and Ukrainian presidents spoke alone for
10-15 minutes during the Normandy Format summit on Dec. 9, said on Dec. 15
Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a television interview. “They
are far from an understanding in a whole series of issues. They are using
different terminologies,” he said, as reported by the tass.ru news site.
“Afterwards, they were interrupted by (French) President Emmanuel Macron, who
insisted on continued work in the Normandy Format.”

The Russian government is systematically ignoring its
stable ceasefire commitments taken at the Dec. 9 Normandy Format summit in
Paris, the Joint Forces Operation press center said on Dec. 13 morning on its
Facebook page. “During the last 24 hours, the armed forces of the Russian
Federation violated four times the ceasefire regime. The enemy shot at our
subunits from tanks, grenade launchers, high-caliber machine guns and other
rifle arms,” the post said.

The Russian-backed forces also have been denying OSCE
observers access to the occupied territories, particularly the areas of forces
withdrawal, the press center said the same day. This weekend, at least one
Ukrainian soldier was killed, news reports said.

Zenon Zawada: The peace efforts on Donbas will be a slow process in which Russia
will be looking for small concessions from Ukraine at every step. In the
meantime, Russia will apply enormous pressure on President Zelensky in 2020,
with the “logic” that he needs to be brought under the Kremlin’s influence or
removed from power. This pressure will consist of making a natural gas deal as
painful as possible, as well as Russia continuing to violate its agreed upon
peace commitments, with the goal of undermining public trust in Zelensky. The
Kremlin will also be considering new avenues of pressure for Zelensky to capitulate,
and renewing others, such as tightening control of the Black and Azov seas.