Minsk talks today to address Donbas elections, status, amnesty

The Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the Donbas conflict will meet in Minsk today. The delegation from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic plan to discuss amnesty, the new election law and the special status, said Denys Pushilin, among the republic’s leaders, as reported by the tass.ru news site on Oct. 5. Other topics for discussion are renewing strategically important railroad crossings, electricity supply to the frontlines and removing mines from a water conduit.

The new election law will be based on Ukrainian legislation and OSCE principles, taking into account the unique situation in Donbas, said on Oct. 5 Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, the deputy head of the presidential administration. The elections are supposed to occur when the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are no longer occupied, he said. The preparation for elections should occur simultaneously with the removal of Russian soldiers and Ukraine’s restoring control of its border, he said.

The Russian government is asking the separatists to consider conducting their local elections based on new terms and conditions and is waiting for their reaction, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Oct. 5, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. “Other than the terms of local elections, the special status of Donbas has key significance, in the same parameters as agreed to on paper, at that,” he said. “It’s impossible to depart from them. That should be on a permanent basis. Not a year, not two or three. It’s written black on white in Minsk.”

Both sides in the Donbas war began on Oct. 4 to withdraw their tanks from the conflict line, said on Oct. 5 Georgiy Tuka, the head of the Luhansk Military-Civil Administration. Instead, the Russian-backed terrorists are using the current ceasefire to rotate their soldiers, improve their military preparedness, relocate hardware, and engage in construction projects, said on Oct. 5 Dmytro Tymchuk, the coordinator of the Information Resistance news site. In particular, military hardware is being accumulated on the Azov Sea coast, he said.

Zenon Zawada: It’s hard to imagine the Ukrainian government agreeing to elections with the presence of Russian soldiers. So we are not optimistic on legitimate elections being held successfully. It’s also hard to imagine Ukraine’s parliament agreeing to the Donbas special status before Russian soldiers being removed and border control being restored. So that’s another obstacle to fulfilling the Minsk accords. And even if that happens, it’s hard to imagine 300 out of 450 MPs agreeing to the conditions of the Donbas special status/specific order, as stated in the Minsk accords.

Overall, it’s positive that a successful ceasefire has been in place since Sept. 1. And it’s also positive that weapons and hardware are being withdrawn from the conflict line. Yet this conflict is far from over, and we believe it can be re-escalated when the Russian president sees the need to do so. We are confident that he will keep that the option of re-escalation available to him. In the meantime, for as long as the ceasefire is in place, we can refer to the situation as a “frozen conflict.”