Minsk talks fail to reach agreement on latest Donbas withdrawal

The Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the warfare in
Donbas could not agree upon a schedule for withdrawing forces in the Luhansk
region towns of Zolote and Petrivske during its Oct. 15 meeting in Minsk, the
Interfax-Ukraine news agency said. “Unfortunately, the sides couldn’t fulfill
the withdrawal of forces in Zolote and Petrivske that was agreed upon at the
last meeting of the contact group. However, the sides confirmed the intention
to withdraw forces on pilot sites,” said Martin Sajdik, the OSCE special
representative. He added that the schedule for withdrawal was discussed but
without agreement.

At the Minsk talks, the Ukrainian delegation stressed
its position on the need for a seven-day ceasefire before forces could be
withdrawn, said Ukrainian spokeswoman Darka Olifer, as reported by the
pravda.com.ua news site. Once a ceasefire is achieved, locations targeted for withdrawal
such as Zolote and Petrivske need to be demilitarized, while the Russian-backed
forces need to grant access to the OSCE special monitoring mission and
liquidate criminal gangs, she said. Instead of fulfilling these elementary
conditions, the Russian-backed forces are refusing to withdraw heavy artillery
from the separation line and are positioning tanks and mortars, she said. They
are also engaging in active shooting of Ukrainian positions and denying OSCE
monitors access, she said.

In fighting on Oct. 15, two Ukrainian soldiers were
killed by sniper fire while one was injured, the press service of the Joint
Forces Operation reported. Russian-backed fighters shot at Ukrainian positions
10 times with mortar fire, grenade launchers, high caliber machine guns and
rifle fire. Among the towns targeted was Zolote, which is supposed to be the
site of the next withdrawal of forces. That morning, Presidential Office Deputy
Head Yuriy Kostiuk confirmed with the hromadske.ua news site that plans for
withdrawal in Zolote and Petrivske are postponed indefinitely owing to
ceasefire violations.

Zenon Zawada: At this
point, the trends point to Zelensky being unable to fulfill his campaign
promise of ending the war in Donbas. It’s apparent that even if ceasefires and
withdrawals are eventually achieved in Zolote and Petrivske, they will occur
only after a slow and painstaking process. And yet scores of frontline towns
will have to be cleared in similar fashion.

The big question is what will be Zelensky’s political
strategy once he accepts the fact that he won’t be able to end the warfare.
Will he fully embrace Ukraine’s pro-Western course, at risk of losing his
electorate in the Russian-oriented southeast? Or will he follow the advice of
his main campaign sponsor, billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, and abandon cooperation
with the IMF.

President Putin has made the stakes of this
conflict a zero-sum game, no matter how much Zelensky wishes to avoid that. Any
attempt to straddle between Russia and the West will end in political disaster
for Zelensky and destabilization for Ukrainian statehood. Putin understands
this, which is why he is intensifying the pressure.