France calls on Ukraine to organize Donbas elections by end-June

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called on Ukraine to organize local elections in the occupied districts of Donbas by the end of June. “The delay has taken too long,” he said during an April 19 meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua news site, citing Le Figaro.

Zenon Zawada: Russia is triumphing over Ukraine in its diplomacy with European powers like France. The Ukrainian government has failed to convince Western leaders that special elections won’t resolve the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine, and possibly make it worse. Moreover, we argue that such support from the French has emboldened the Russians in escalating the recent armed offensives in Donbas.

It’s hard to imagine how elections can be organized with armed fighting escalating in recent weeks, amid the ongoing presence of Russian armed forced and hardware. If they are organized, the local elections will merely swell public support for the pro-Western opposition in Ukraine and create the spark to mobilize mass protests against the government’s entire handling of the war, which the public is utterly dissatisfied in.

All this plays into the hands of the Russians, who are aiming to destabilize the political situation in Ukraine. Ideally, they would like to force a collapse in the government, which becomes more likely if the elections are organized and an attempt is made to introduce the special status. If the West wants a stable Ukraine, it should scrap the Minsk accords and go back to the drawing board.