As expected, the negotiation process has reached an impasse in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG, Minsk Group) that tries to resolve the conflict in the east of Ukraine ongoing for more than six years now.
The talks have faced a stalemate in the same way as many times before when Russia resorted to demanding Ukraine to fulfill the points of the Russian agenda yet with no intention to make any concessions from the Russian side.
However, Russia is applying these tactics for the first time during the tenure of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had previously believed that his predecessors were not interested in finding a consensus with Russia to resolve the conflict.
Russia wants Donbas elections
After President Zelenskyy appointed former President Leonid Kravchuk as the chief representative of Ukraine in the Minsk group, the Russian side blocked the negotiation process on 19 August demanding to remove the ban on the local elections in the occupied territories from the Verkhovna Rada’s resolution on the 2020 elections.Russia sees the local elections under Ukrainian laws yet without Ukrainian control as a way of legitimizing the figureheads it had installed in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Fokin dismissed from TCG
Euromaidan Press published many an article exploring the topic of the Russian involvement in the hostilities in the Donbas, here are few of those:
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Giving his explanations to the legislators on 29 September, Vitold Fokin didn't dispel doubts regarding his pro-Russian position, and even said that Russia doesn't fight against Ukraine in the Donbas,
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Fokin's statements made the Committee initiate the appeal to the President to remove Fokin from the Trilateral Contact Group."As for the war. I am not a politician and I cannot give any definition of this. Therefore, I have not seen any confirmation that there is a war between Russia and Ukraine," Vitold Fokin said to MPs.
On the same day, head of the Ukrainian President's Office Andriy Yermak wrote on Facebook that he believes that Fokin should resign.
Moreover, the petition on the President’s website demanding to dismiss Fokin was approaching the 25,000-signature threshold. On 30 September, President Zelenskyy dismissed Vitold Fokin from the TCG by his decree.Unauthorized recording of talks
At the meeting, the Russian side told about its recording activities and, moreover, the head of the Russian delegation [Gryzlov] announced his intention to “unilaterally release audio and video recordings of the talks,” says Interfax-Ukraine.
War is going on
As all eyes are now on another post-Soviet conflict, the once frozen Nagorny Karabakh war in Azerbaijan that has now escalated to the full-scale action after 30 years of relative peace and fruitless negotiations, the war in the Donbas still continues despite the largely observed ceasefire.At least four Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives in the Donbas in September, three of them died in landmine blasts, one was killed by a bullet shot from the Russian positions. Ten more were wounded. In total, some 60 fire attacks on Ukrainian positions took place during the months.
Core issue of the Minsk negotiation platform
Russia's goal in the Minsk talks isn't ending the war and bringing peace to the Donbas, since Russia end the war and establish peace in the region by withdrawing its forces and ending support for the militants there. This is not happening because Russia needs to have control of the region even after its return under Ukrainian control.Russia effectively remains at the same negotiating positions in the Minsk group throughout the years, making no concessions while pressing on Ukraine to fulfill the Russian demands which can basically be distilled down to granting autonomy to the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donbas in order to both retain Russia’s control of the region and have a say in the domestic politics of entire Ukraine.
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Read also: The quick way to quasi-recognition of Donetsk-Luhansk’s armed formations: a play-by-play account
Russia’s main bargaining chip in the TCG for pushing its political agenda has been the blockage of the negotiations on non-political issues such as the prisoner exchange, meanwhile, its main tool to press on Ukraine has been the escalation of hostilities at the frontline.
Minsk-2 is the real problem for Ukraine, not “Steinmeier’s formula” | Infographics[/box-right] The representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and OSCE signed the Minsk protocol, the unofficial deal that was meant to de-escalate the situation in the Donbas, in September 2014 after the major Russian offensive in the Donbas that involved regular units of the Russian army. The Package of Measures to revive the Minsk accords was signed months later in February 2015 amid the large-scale Russian offensive on Debaltseve, the main railway hub of the Donbas, and the operation to take control of Donetsk Airport. After signing the second batch of the Minsk documents, the hostilities largely reduced to trench warfare without serious offensive operations, however, multiple ceasefires regularly negotiated by the TCG were coming to an end after escalations in the warzone to be re-negotiated once again.
As the Minsk accords have points that Russia can't fulfill without losing its control of the Donbas, such as withdrawal of its forces and equipment from Ukraine and handing over the control of the state border, this effectively gave Ukraine an opportunity to demand that Russia fulfill its obligations first. Without the Russian concessions, Ukraine isn't willing to fulfill the paragraphs favored by Russia, for example giving autonomy to the occupied areas and conducting local elections there. Thus, this deal is impossible to implement until one of the sides makes serious concessions.
As a result, Ukraine has been claiming its commitment to fulfilling the Minsk deal that has never been ratified officially, while Russia keeps insisting that it's not a party to the conflict and wants Ukraine to negotiate directly with the occupation administrations of Luhansk and Donetsk.
"The Humanitarian Working Group considered issues related to the mutual release and exchange of conflict-related detainees. The discussion did not bring results. It is unacceptable that political considerations are preconditions for resolving humanitarian issues."
Read more: The armed conflict in Ukraine’s easternmost historical region of the Donbas made up by Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts started in 2014 soon after Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. Since its beginning, the war claimed more than 13,000 lives and displaced almost 2 million people. Russia keeps denying its involvement in the conflict. The occupied territories of two Ukrainian regions are officially known as ORDLO or Certain Areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts.
