Leaders may meet on Feb. 11 to resolve Russian-Ukrainian conflict

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet on Feb. 11 in Minsk with the goal of achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Donbas and establishing a set of measures to implement the September Minsk accords, reported on Feb. 8 the press service of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. A meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group to meet on Feb. 10 involving those who signed the September Minsk accords.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said she hopes progress will be made in fulfilling the Minsk ceasefire accords at the Feb. 11 summit in Minsk. She met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Feb. 8 to coordinate their positions ahead of the EU Foreign Ministers Council on Feb. 9 in Brussels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin left the door open for the Feb. 11 Minsk summit not occurring, reported the RIA Novosti news agency. “We agreed to try to organize a meeting in the same (Normandy) format between heads of state and governments in Minsk,” Putin said, referring to this weekend’s talks. “We will orient ourselves for Feb. 11 if we’re about to coordinate a series of positions that we intensively discussed recently,” Putin told Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on Feb. 8.

Merkel, Hollande and Putin agreed to amend the ceasefire conditions indicated in the September Minsk accords, reported the Deutsche Welle news agency on Feb. 6 following their meeting. Their work will continue based on a “possible common plan” that will take into account the positions of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine. A new document may emerge taking into account the positions of the various sides, said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian Presidential Administration. The peace plan proposed by Merkel and Hollande involved creating a demilitarized zone between 50 to 70 kilometers, Hollande told French television on Feb. 7. It also favors “extremely wide” autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, he said.

The fate of a new peace plan for Ukraine will be decided in the next two to three days, said on Feb. 8 German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as reported by the Deutsche Welle news agency. “We are truly at a crossroads,” he said, stating that the conflict could escalate instead of finding a peaceful resolution. The talks are the last chance to avoid a war if a long-lasting peace isn’t found, French President Hollande said in an interview published in the Le Figaro newspaper on Feb. 7

Russian soldiers are continuing to pour into Ukraine, OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier told the Deutsche Welle news agency in an interview published on Feb. 8. “It’s a very strange situation because we see many different people crossing the border and it’s hard to say who they are, what’s their mandate and why they’re doing it,” he said. “They are either ideologically motivated, have their own motivation or are organized in some way, which makes out attempts to understand what’s happening particularly difficult.”

Zenon Zawada: We are pessimistic on any progress on Feb. 11, with the biggest concern being the German and French agreement to grant Luhansk and Donetsk wide autonomy. It will undermine Ukrainian stability and Euro-integration efforts if these regions remain controlled by the separatists and within the borders of the Ukrainian state. In order for Ukrainian statehood and the economy to recover, the Ukrainian government must regain control of these territories, whose anti-Ukrainian activity will be fueled by the Kremlin.

We don’t see the Russian government agreeing to any scenario that allows Ukraine to move forward successfully with Euro-integration. So even if a compromise is reached, and even if it is upheld by all sides, it won’t serve Ukraine’s long-term interests. We see a zero-sum game in which the Russian military and political influence in Donbas must be eliminated.