Ukraine committed to restoring control of occupied border, president says

To resolve the armed conflict in Donbas, certain members of the EU Council proposed allowing the OSCE to take control of the Russian-Ukrainian border in the occupied territory, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko revealed at a Jan. 14 press conference in Kyiv. Nonetheless, Ukraine is committed to regaining control of its border in occupied Donbas, he said. “The key position has to be ceasing the occupation and controlling the border,” he said. “I have no doubt that once Russian armies leave, once illegal formations have their arms removed, once we take control of the border, people will see that life has changed.”

At the same press conference, Poroshenko acknowledged meeting on Jan. 11 with Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, despite Gryzlov being individually targeted by EU sanctions and despite Ukraine’s ban on Russian flights. He said he stressed Ukraine’s demand to restore control of the border and the need to set a new timeline to fulfill the Minsk accords.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland may meet with Vladyslav Surkov, an advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss resolving the armed conflict in Donbas and the fulfillment of the Minsk accords, reported the kommersant.ru news site, citing two anonymous sources.

Zenon Zawada: The recent high level meetings indicate that Western, Russian and Ukrainian leaders are trying to agree on the format for the local elections planned for occupied Donbas. We can only imagine how difficult this process is, considering that Moscow is unlikely to agree to remove its soldiers (that it denies are present) and surrender control of the border, even to the OSCE. Without these conditions, the elections will lose credibility on the international level, and certainly among the Ukrainian public.

Poroshenko’s Jan. 14 statements on restoring border control are important because they can become his instrument in resisting the demands of the Normandy format (Hollande, Merkel, Poroshenko, Putin) to hold elections in occupied Donbas. Poroshenko knows that he faces enormous domestic opposition should he fail to ensure to (1) remove Russian soldiers, (2) disarm the Donbas terrorists and (3) wrest control of the border from Russian-backed forces. 

Poroshenko can pre-empt this brewing internal political conflict by demanding the fulfillment of any one of these three conditions by the West and Russia. Their refusal (most likely, Russia’s refusal) could give him the pretext to avoid pursuing the organization of elections, which will mobilize the public behind him rather than potentially igniting a violent domestic conflict (with paramilitary or nationalist forces). It’s this very delicate political situation that leads us to believe the low likelihood of these elections being organized and held.