Russia demands November elections in Donbas at Minsk talks

20 September 2018

The Russian government endorsed the elections in Donbas in violation of the Minsk Accords at the Sept. 19 meeting of the Trilateral Contract Group, Ukrainian representative Iryna Gerashchenko reported on her Facebook page the same day. The Ukrainian position is that the accords only allow for local elections to be held in Donbas, not for prime minister or parliament. Recall, the legislatures of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics voted to hold elections on Nov. 11 after Russia reportedly spent the summer putting them off while President Putin negotiated with Western leaders. 

 

“We should install order and hold elections there,” Russian representative Boris Gryzlov said at the meeting, Gerashchenko reported, referring to the statement as a Freudian slip considering Russia has claimed that it has no presence in Donbas. The OSCE representative said the Donbas elections would undermine not only the Minsk Accords, but peace talks altogether, she said.

 

Russian President Putin discussed resolving the armed conflict in Donbas with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a Sept. 19 phone call, the Kremlin press service reported. Putin addressed "the need for Kyiv to secure the special status of Donbas," referring to the goal of the Minsk Accords. He also expressed his concern over the murder of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of the self-declared Donetsk republic. Both sides expressed their mutual intent to resolve the conflict, including in the Normandy Four format.

 

Zenon Zawada: With the Donbas elections, either Putin is raising the ante in his talks with German Chancellor Merkel on a UN peacekeeping mission, or these negotiations are merely Putin’s latest stalling tactic. In which case, Putin has until mid-October to cancel the elections in favor of a peacekeeping mission to fulfil the Minsk Accords. If he decides to hold the elections, any hopes for a UN peacekeeping mission, or peace agreement, will be postponed until 2020, after next year’s elections in Ukraine.

 

What Putin will decide in the coming weeks is unclear to most anyone. On the one hand, Russia is suffering from sanctions, particularly its oligarchs, who are being forced to dispose of their property. In fulfilling the Minsk Accords, Russia can succeed in returning Ukraine to its sphere of influence. On the other hand, the populist-nationalist trend in Europe is working in Russia’s favor in the mid term. If his regime survives the next five years, Putin can count on more Western legislatures aligning with him.