Russia moving towards frozen conflict in Donbas, Kuchma says

The Russian government’s decision to recognize the documents of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics will lead to a frozen conflict similar to Transnistria territory in Moldova, said on Feb. 27 Leonid Kuchma, the former Ukrainian president and Ukraine’s representative in the Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the conflict in Donbas. “The situation with the passports is a step” towards creating a frozen conflict, he said, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine.

Recall, the Ukrainian government condemned the Feb. 18 order by Russian President Putin recognizing the documents, stating it violating the logic of the Minsk Accords that seek to resolve the Donbas conflict.

Regarding sanctions, “Russia has already endured the difficult period” and has been able to find the “paths and trails” needed for the Russian markets, Kuchma said.

Zenon Zawada: We had long expected a frozen conflict to emerge in Donbas, as it’s a viable option for both the Russian and Ukrainian governments that will enable both sides to save face and avoid escalated warfare. We see this as the most likely scenario, particularly if the Trump administration strikes at least a partial compromise with Putin.

The big difference between Donbas and Transnistria is that the former involves sanctions that the Russians are still working to remove. 2017 is supposed to have been the year that sanctions topple the Russian economy, yet Kuchma has accurately assessed the Russian government to have adapted to survive them. Nonetheless, the sanctions remain a burden.

If life-threatening cracks somehow begin to emerge in the Russian economy from the sanctions, we believe it’s possible that Putin will unfreeze or reheat the conflict and expand the warfare as a means of distracting the Russian public and intimidate the West yet again.

Though Trump has cooled to Putin in recent weeks, we are confident his secretary of state will be working on a deal that will attempt to establish stability and cooperation with Russia, however elusive that might be.