Yermak, Kozak reach no agreement in talks to resolve Donbas war

Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s pointman to
resolve the war in Donbas, met and negotiated for six hours in Berlin on Jan.
12 with Dmitry Kozak, the Russian president’s pointman on the matter. An
exchange of thoughts on all the key issues occurred regarding the fulfillment
of the Minsk Accords and the agreements of the Normandy Four summit in Paris in
December 2019, Kozak said.

“Unfortunately, there is nothing to boast of. We were
unable to reach any final decisions. We agreed that new key approaches will be
prepared in forming a road map in the Trilateral Contact Group on an
all-encompassing resolution to the conflict. Each of the negotiation’s
participants outlined their position and indicated their principles approaches
to the prospect of resolving the conflict. But final decisions on any issue
have practically not been found so far,” Kozak said, as reported by the tass.ru
news site.

The President’s Office of Ukraine, headed by Yermak,
said in a statement afterwards the meeting was not simple, but it had a
constructive character. The statement didn’t offer any specifics. The meeting
also involved key political advisers to the heads of state of France and
Germany. Another meeting of Normandy Four political advisers is scheduled for
Jan. 22. The prior meeting of political advisers occurred on Sept. 11 in
Berlin.

Zenon Zawada: Same old
story here. It’s not clear what Yermak could have proposed to Kozak to reach
some kind of a breakthrough in resolving the war, but his room for maneuvering
is highly restricted. Western institutions won’t allow for any significant
concessions.

We are confident this stalemate in Donbas will
continue indefinitely, for as long as Russia’s president is Putin (who is using
it to undermine Zelensky’s presidency) and Ukraine’s president is Zelensky (who
can’t make the decision to capitulate to Russia, as much as he’d like to).