U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kyiv today, a visit to be followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francoise Hollande. The high-level visits fuel speculation that the West is trying to broker an agreement that restarts diplomatic negotiations to bring an end to Russia's nearly year-long war against Ukraine.
Several news agencies reported that Merkel and Hollande would be staying the night in Kyiv and then flying to Moscow on Feb. 6 to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.m
The flurry of diplomatic activity comes ahead of this weekend’s annual Munich Security Conference in Germany. It also comes at a time of an intensified military offensive by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east, which has further shredded the September Minsk accords that called for a permanent cease-fire, withdrawal of weapons and troops by Russia, secure borders between Ukraine and Russia and some political autonomy for separatist-held areas of the Donbas.
Russia’s renewed military offensive this year is seen as the Kremlin’s attempt to scuttle the Minsk peace accords and force more concessions from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, including a federalization of Ukraine’s eastern regions that could give the Moscow proxies power to veto Ukraine’s foreign policy shift to the West, including the prospect of joining the European Union and NATO in the future.
Poroshenko has categorically refused to let Moscow dictate Ukraine’s foreign policy and has vowed to retake the separatist-held areas of the eastern Donbas. The war has claimed more than 5,000 lives on the Ukrainian side and at least that many, by unofficial estimates, on the Russian side.
The West, by contrast, has insisted that Moscow adhere to the Minsk agreements signed by its ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov.
If Putin does not agree to a diplomatic solution to end the war quickly, the West is expected to toughen economic sanctions against Russia. Support is also growing in the West to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons needed to defend its territory against the war prosecuted by Russian proxies and Russian soldiers.
However, Merkel and Hollande this week publicly said they will not supply Ukraine with weapons and U.S. President Barack Obama has opposed the delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine from America. NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has said military assistance to Ukraine is up to the military alliance’s 28 member nations to decide individually.
Timothy Ash, the head of emerging market research for Standard Bank in London, said: “Ion’t think Merkel would get on the plane unless she thought that Putin was going to offer something. Kind of in the last-chance saloon. Maybe all this talk about the US arming the Ukrainians is driving Merkel and Hollande to go to Moscow to say to Putin you have a chance to back down now, or some NATO countries will begin to selectively arm Ukraine.”
