Donbas warfare to continue for year at least, Volker says

The warfare in Donbas will likely continue for at
least a year, the U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker said in an
interview published on the politico.com news site on Nov. 27. When asked to
estimate the likelihood of the warfare continuing, he said “at least 80%.”
Volker confirmed that the Russians rejected 26 out of 29 points to resolve the
conflict during a Nov. 13 meeting with his counterpart Vladislav Surkov, which
he called a step back.

“I don’t know what the next step after this is,” he
said. “It could that that happened for completely other reasons having nothing
to do with Ukraine, just where we are in our U.S.-Russian relationship. It
could have had to do with the lack of a bilateral meeting between President
Putin and President Trump,” Volker said, adding that his next meeting with
Surkov will occur in December.

The same day the politico.com interview was published,
the Washington Post reported that Volker said the U.S. government won’t support
the presence of Russian citizens in a UN peacekeeping force in Donbas.

Zenon Zawada: It’s
refreshing to see that Volker isn’t offering any optimistic spin about the
warfare ending before the 2019 elections in Ukraine. The warfare will be a useful
tool for Putin to influence the vote. Meanwhile, Volker’s comment that the U.S.
won’t accept any Russian peacekeepers all but eliminates any hope for that
method of resolving the conflict, which we never expected to be successful
anyhow.

Here’s our most likely scenario for the Donbas
conflict: European legislative bodies gradually relax sanctions over the next
few years, owing to the rise of Far Right parties (fueled by an ongoing flood
of migrants and related terrorist attacks) and a desire by European businessmen
to make up for lost trade with Russia. Meanwhile, a Russian-oriented
parliamentary opposition emerges in the Ukrainian parliament as a result of the
vote in October 2019.

Realizing the tide in
Europe is turning towards Putin, U.S. policymakers opt for a frozen conflict in
Donbas (on a de facto basis) as the best solution to a messy situation. Though
U.S. sanctions will remain in place, Russia will not budge from Donbas or
Crimea.