Visiting Moscow on Monday and Kyiv on Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron of France threw his full support behind a reinvigorated Minsk protocol peace process.
As he massed approximately `130,000 troops on, and within, Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin welcomed Macron’s overture. Ukraine, understandably, is far less sure about following France’s lead. Kyiv’s problem is quite clear: Beyond the diplomatic niceties and Macron’s jet-setting pursuit of peace, the Minsk peace process has been heavily influenced by what Russia wants rather than by what a just peace might actually entail.
Signed in 2015, while Ukraine faced a coalescence of Franco-German economic-political pressure and Russian military pressure within its borders, the Minsk II accords are heavily skewed in Putin’s favor. Indeed, as Duncan Allan documents, Russia’s manipulation of the 2015 negotiations was so extraordinarily successful that the Kremlin was able even to avoid committing its own name to the document!
That doesn’t mean the accords should be abandoned entirely. But it does mean that Russia must accept reciprocal concessions in return for sacrifices by Kyiv.
That means moving to a Minsk III protocol.
As a prerequisite for Ukrainian compromises, Russia must remove all military and intelligence personnel currently stationed in Ukraine’s occupied southeastern Donbas region. It must also withdraw those forces now encircling Ukraine. Why?
Well, it should be a pretty basic understanding that a negotiation at the tip of the barrel of a gun is not a negotiation but rather a submission to extortion. Russia must also issue a clarifying commitment, legally binding in nature (as Putin so adores), that it will uphold its commitments under any Minsk III protocol. As an extension, and in the context of the continuing Russian-led military offensives that have afflicted Ukraine since Minsk II was agreed to, a Minsk III protocol must, should President Volodymyr Zelensky seek it, waive Ukraine’s Minsk II commitment that it will pursue a constitutional amendment to remain a neutral state. If Putin wanted that commitment to have a rationale for Kyiv in 2022, he shouldn’t have spent the past seven years sending GRU snipers to kill Ukrainian soldiers on the Donbas contact line. This is not complicated.
Still, if Russia is willing to do these things, Ukraine should come to the table with its own compromises. But Kyiv has every right to be wary of Macron’s current negotiating track. No democratic government should be expected to sacrifice its sovereign authority simply because the European Union lacks the stomach to pressure Vladimir Putin.
And that, I fear, is what we’re seeing at present.
