20 June 2014
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko presented his peace plan on June 19 to the legitimate leaders of the war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Among its 14 points are constitutional amendments to decentralize government, eliminating the system of oblast and district state administrations as regional arms of the Presidential Administration. Instead, elected city councilmen would select an executive committee to fulfil legislation, Cabinet resolutions and executive decrees from Kyiv. The plan also calls for job creation and the region’s economic reconstruction, with prospects for EU investment.
“Of course, this plan will be difficult to fulfil without the support of the elites, the citizenry of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” said Iryna Gerashchenko, the presidential ombudsman to settle the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk. “That’s why it was very important to discuss it today.” Gerashchenko added that the peace plan could be expanded after the discussions, which will not involve the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which are terrorist organizations.
Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on June 19 the key points of the peace plan and the schedule for its fulfilment, the president’s press-service reported. Poroshenko stressed the need to release hostages and establishing a monitoring regime on the Russian-Ukrainian border. He called for a ceasefire as a needed precedent to implementing the peace plan. According to Ukrainian persident’s office statement, Putin expressed support for efforts to de-escalate the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk, the ceasefire process and fulfilling Poroshenko’s peace plan.
Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko’s peace plan targets the key measures needed to not only de-escalate the current armed conflict, but to produce a lasting peace that ensures that another violent uprising and armed conflict doesn’t recur. The decentralization of power is critical to a lasting peace in Ukraine, ensuring that no one individual usurps too much power.
We expect Putin to continue expressing verbal support for the plan and the separatists to uphold the ceasefire for a short period. Unfortunately however, we don’t expect the separatists to permanently lay down their arms because it’s not in their interest, nor in the interest of the Russian government. And we expect them to blame the collapse of a ceasefire on the Ukrainians.
At minimum, the Russian government wants to create a permanent gray zone in the Donbas region similar to Prydnistrovia in Moldova and South Ossetia in Georgia, which would serve as a destabilizing lever that would be lowered on the Kyiv government when necessary. In Putin’s best case, the Crimea and Donbas regions would serve as platforms to launch separatist activity in other southeastern oblasts. The Ukrainian government and military have been able to prevent such attempts.