Donbas warfare needs to resolved in six months, Prystaiko says

Oleh Prystaiko, Ukraine’s new foreign minister, said
he will set the task for his diplomatic corps to make significant progress in
resolving the warfare in Donbas in the next six months. “Right now it’s not so
important how we will do this, whether by means of involving peacekeeping
missions or fulfilling the Minsk Accords. What’s critically important is
another matter – that we have a half-year for this. I am targeting the
diplomatic service for this half-year term,” he said in his address to
parliament on Aug. 29 just before the vote to approve him as foreign minister.

In the next stage of resolving the conflict in Donbas,
Ukrainian President Zelensky will propose a series of compromise steps,
primarily aimed at renewing ties with our own people that ended up on the other
side of the front lines, Prystaiko said in his remarks to parliament.
Significant efforts have already been made to restart the process of exchanging
prisoners, the Stanytsia Luhanska bridge is being renewed, infrastructure is
being renewed, social payments are being made, and a system of effective
information resistance is being worked on, he said. “I want to believe that
these steps, with the support of the international community, will give the
opportunity to open a new page in the process,” he said.

Zenon Zawada: With
Prystaiko setting the deadline for peace for six months, he has put the
Zelensky administration in an even more disadvantageous position in negotiating
an end to the warfare in Donbas. The first step in putting Ukraine at a
disadvantage was Zelensky vowing to make ending the warfare in Donbas his top
priority, which already makes him and his political team vulnerable to
criticism (and plummeting poll ratings) if they fail. (The other side of that
coin is that very campaign promise played a significant role in helping
Zelensky win the elections.)

Now Prystaiko has slapped a self-imposed deadline of
six months on Ukraine’s foreign policy team to resolve the warfare, in what can
only be considered a poor negotiating tactic. So not only does Russian
President Putin have leverage over Zelensky himself in extracting concessions
from him (lest he fail to deliver peace), but now Putin can take his time in
demanding these concessions (lest Ukraine’s diplomats fail to meet Prystaiko’s
deadline).

With these positions, the Zelensky administration is
well along the path to capitulation, with Prystaiko acknowledging in his Aug.
29 remarks that the president is preparing “a series of compromise steps.”
Moreover, Presidential Office Head Andriy Bohdan has mentioned compromises
that will be characterized as capitulation by critics and considered  not
to be returning Donbas on Ukraine’s terms, as had been promised by key Zelensky officials.

The question now is whether the U.S. leadership will
endorse Zelensky’s capitulation, as the European leadership is already along that path.
It’s apparent that U.S. President Trump personally would endorse the
capitulation, but his foreign policy team of anti-Putin hawks will resist.
Moreover, the U.S. Congress will be fiercely opposed to capitulating to Russia.
It’s not clear what Zelensky will decide if the U.S. refuses to support his
capitulation plans, but he will certainly be in a bind.