Exactly ten years ago, the representative of Ukraine signed the first Minsk agreements (and then the second ones, which were even more beneficial to the Kremlin). Hereʼs how it was (and hopefully wonʼt happen again)

On September 5, 2014, in Minsk, representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE signed a protocol on the "resolution of the conflict in Donbas". Ukraine was in a weak negotiating position: the day before, Russian troops inflicted several significant defeats on the Ukrainians in the Donbas — the most terrible of them near Ilovaysk. During the negotiations, Moscow forced Kyiv to grant "special status" (that is, autonomy with great powers) to the "peopleʼs republics." According to the Kremlinʼs plan, this was to become a poison pill for Ukrainian politics and bring a pro-Russian elite to power in Ukraine. The Western countries, in turn, wanted to end the war as soon as possible and hoped that Ukraine and Russia would eventually be able to reach a certain compromise. Babel briefly tells about the history and prerequisites for signing the first and second Minsk agreements at the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

In the summer of 2014, Ukrainian military and volunteer battalions seized the initiative in Donbas and began to push back pro-Russian militants. They liberated almost the entire south of Donetsk region and came close to Luhansk. In addition, they began to restore control over the Russian-Ukrainian border.

On June 20, 2014, the then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko presented the "Peace Plan for the Settlement of the Situation in the Eastern Regions of Ukraine". Here are its main points:

• amnesty for those who surrendered their weapons and did not commit serious crimes;
• release of hostages;
• disarmament and a guaranteed corridor for the exit of Russian mercenaries;
• liberation of administrative buildings and resumption of activities of local authorities;
• establishment of a 10-kilometer buffer zone on the border with Russia;
• decentralization of power and early local and parliamentary elections;
• coordination with representatives of Donbas governorsʼ candidacies before the elections.

The Kremlin clearly did not like this scenario. Therefore, Russia first started shelling Ukrainian troops along the border from its territory. And since August, regular units of the Russian army have already entered the territory of Ukraine and inflicted several defeats on the Ukrainians, the most massive — near Ilovaysk.

It was at the height of the fighting near Ilovaysk, on August 26, 2014, that Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin met in Minsk. As a result of their negotiations, the representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE signed the Minsk Protocol or Minsk-1 in the same Minsk on September 5, 2014.

The first clause stated that the parties should immediately cease fire. And then the document in some ways repeated Poroshenkoʼs peace plan. For example, monitoring the Russian-Ukrainian border and creating security zones there under the control of the OSCE. The main innovation was the words about "special status". Ukraine undertook to adopt the law "On special status for certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions".

According to experts, the main task of Russia in the Minsk agreements was to undermine the sovereignty of Ukraine. The plan looked something like this: "LPR" and "DPR" receive wide autonomy within Ukraine, but essentially remain a pro-Russian Trojan horse. This gives the Kremlin the opportunity to influence Ukrainian politics, to prevent accession to NATO and the EU, to destabilize the situation in other Ukrainian regions, prompting them to demand the same "special status" for themselves. This, in turn, will weaken the central government in Kyiv.

For this, Russia tried to legitimize the "LPR/DPR", make their representatives full participants in the negotiations with Ukraine and present the war in Donbas as an internal conflict. Russia positioned itself exclusively as a mediator-peacemaker like the OSCE. Therefore, at the request of the Russians, the signatures of Oleksandr Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnytskyi were also included in the Minsk documents, but as private individuals, and not as leaders of the self-proclaimed "republics".

After Minsk-1, the Kremlin did not get the desired result, so it continued to act according to a similar scenario — it resumed fighting on the frontline to force Kyiv to negotiate again on its terms. At the beginning of February 2015, the fiercest battles were fought for the Donetsk airport and Debaltseve, where the Russian military together with militants tried to surround the Ukrainians.

Now, in Minsk, Putin not only threatened Poroshenko to destroy the Ukrainian army, but also intimidated two other representatives of the "Normandy four", Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, with a large-scale war in Europe. In the end, under pressure from the Kremlin, the second Minsk agreement was adopted, which for Ukraine was much worse than the first one.

Instead of a buffer zone on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the OSCE now had to monitor only the disarmament on the contact line. Ukraine could restore control over the state border after holding local elections. But the most important thing is that Ukraine had to enshrine in the Constitution "a special status for certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions" and agree on it beforehand with the representatives of these districts.

The Kremlin was so sure of its victory that it did not stop there. In May 2015, Russia put forward additional conditions under the guise of proposals from the "LPR/DPR": local self-government bodies in Donbas can have their own statutes, which, for example, allow them to conclude agreements with foreign countries, have their own budget, hold local elections and referenda. Subsequently, they began to demand their own parliament and government for the "separate regions". Instead, Kyiv was supposed to finance these regions and enshrine their neutral status in the Ukrainian Constitution. For Ukraine, such demands were, of course, completely unacceptable.

As for the countries of the West, the main thing for them at that time was to stop the war. Therefore, they agreed to Minsk-2, hoping that Kyiv and Moscow would later reach some sort of compromise. Russia may be encouraged to do so by, for example, the sanctions of the United States and the European Union, which are tied to the Minsk agreements. The West even proposed its own compromise options, such as the "Steinmeier formula".

But no compromise was reached. The cornerstone was the fact that the Minsk agreements do not specify the order in which they should be implemented. Therefore, Ukraine insisted that first of all, it is necessary to fulfill the security points that come first in the document — to cease fire and withdraw heavy weapons. For Russia, the most important part was the political part — holding local elections and consolidating the special status of Donbas, which is spelled out in points 9 and 11 of Minsk-2. In addition, there was a legal conflict regarding the document. On the one hand, the Minsk agreements were purely political agreements, not an international treaty. On the other hand, they have become an internationally recognized "conflict resolution mechanism."

Petro Poroshenko believes that the main task of the Minsk agreements in the circumstances at that time was to create a respite for Ukraine in the war with Russia. "Our task was, first of all, to remove the threat or at least postpone the war. Knock out eight years for us to restore economic growth and build the strength of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This was the first task — and it was achieved," Poroshenko said in June 2022.

The current head of state, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, initially criticized the documents and negotiation formats that he inherited from his predecessor. In 2019, he proposed to rewrite the Minsk agreements and expand the "Normandy format", involving the USA and Great Britain. Russia rejected these proposals.

After all, in February 2022, Putin essentially put an end to the Minsk agreements, recognizing the "independence of the LPR/DPR" and launching a full-scale war against Ukraine. In November of the same year, during a speech at the G20 summit, Zelenskyy said that now Ukraine will not agree to any new "Minsk Agreements".

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.

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