Trilateral Contact Group negotiations in Minsk made a certain breakthrough past Wednesday. The sides agreed to withdraw the personnel and hardware from the line of contact. The essential distinction of the long-discussed framework document is that it describes in detail the procedure of this withdrawal. As it is impossible to implement this plan along the entire line of disengagement, three local “pilot areas” were chosen. The sides are to disengage their means and forces in Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote, and Petrovske within 13 days.
“The novelty of this Framework Agreement is that if all this succeeds, there will be a qualitatively new process,” Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine’s representative in working subgroup on security of the Trilateral Contact Group, comments to The Day. “Military units are supposed to be withdrawn in such a way that snipers will not see one another and no visual provocations will be possible. And, in principle, this could be a positive sign for a future disengagement along the entire front line. I must say for fairness’s sake that these areas are neither the most difficult nor the easiest.”
To tell the truth, this document has also found its critics. For example, MP Dmytro Tymchuk noticed ambiguity in the agreement’s terminology – the occupier’s side is called “armed formations in some areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.” This is really a crying detail of the agreement, for in this case Ukraine (even in the person of its second president Leonid Kuchma) succumbs to the Russia-imposed idea of treating the Donbas war as an internal conflict. The Foreign Minister of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had been recently seen in Ural delivering a controversial lecture, said: “After a months-long stagnation, there has been some progress [in the Minsk process. – Ed.] again in the past week. I hope the months of hard work behind the scenes will bear fruit now. We had to understand that neither the statements of goodwill nor the pledges to withdraw weapons were sufficient to reach a lasting ceasefire.” The last point is particularly correct, for Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as the aggressor’s responsibility, needs to be clearly defined. Yet the world community prefers so far to chant mantras on reconciliation.
What really matters is to what extent this agreement will be a real guideline to a lasting ceasefire. This will depend on the sides’ motivation. On the other hand, one must understand that this kind of documents should be regarded as tactical – for saving the lives of Ukrainian citizens only. The strategic goal should be liberation of the Russian-occupied territories and a trial of criminals in the person of Vladimir Putin and his accomplices. But this requires not only a clear statement of its position by the Ukrainian side, but also intense pressure on the part of the world community.
We should also remember that the security group’s efforts helped save the life of many Ukrainian servicemen and civilians. For this reason, it is worthwhile to praise the performance of the security group which is making an all-out effort to keep the situation under control, but, at the same time, we must ask in no uncertain terms the top Ukrainian negotiators if they are aware of Ukraine’s ultimate goals in this super-difficult situation. For the salvation of lives does not yet mean the salvation of territories and statehood. Indeed, this requires a strategic position not only at the “front” of the Minsk negotiations, but also with respect to such things as increased defense capability, patriotic crystallization of the political milieu, and hard work in the juridical sphere. Unfortunately, the presence of overtly pro-Russian forces even in parliament shows that the aggressor can also assault Ukraine from behind.
Incidentally, representatives of some European countries’ foreign ministries recently visited the Donbas and made various statements. Maybe, not all of them had known before what was really going on in the Donbas, for many of them saw the obvious fact that it was impossible to hold elections on those territories. Any elections on the occupied territories are out of the question in the next five years under the existing circumstance even – let us stress this – in the conditions of a complete ceasefire and control over the entire Ukrainian-Russian border.
