You're reading: Peace remains elusive despite renewed push to end conflict

The West may be determined to bring Russia’s war against Ukraine to an end, or at least to a more manageable state, in 2016. But it’s not clear that Russia feels the same way.

Western leaders have again urged both Ukraine and Russia to fulfill the
second Minsk truce, signed on Feb. 12, yet widely ignored.

On Jan.
13, U.S. President Barack Obama in a telephone conversation with his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin urged Russia to fulfill its side of
the deal, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
François Hollandecalled on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to make progress on Ukraine’s commitments.

A year ago Ukraine was ready to cut off the Kremlin-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts amid fighting that has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014 when a Kremlin-engineered uprising started.

But on Jan. 14, Poroshenko said at a news conference in Kyiv that 2016 should be “the year of the return of Ukrainian sovereignty over the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,” including 400 kilometers of its eastern border that Russia now controls.

Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s envoy at the Trilateral Contact Group that includes Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, came to Kyiv this week for meetings.

The European Union applied sanctions again him in July 2014, yet he was welcome in Kyiv on Jan. 11. Gryzlov is a heavyweight in Russian politics, whose appointment to lead peace talks is part of what some see as a bid by the Kremlin to end the war.

It’s unclear, however, whether either Ukraine or Russia are ready to make concessions for lasting peace.

Ukraine is unwilling to grant amnesty to separatist fighters considered to be war criminals.

It will be also hard to secure the required 300 parliamentary votes for constitutional changes that would grant autonomy to separatist-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, even though special status is one of Ukraine’s obligations under the peace deal reached in the Belarusian capital. Parliament gave initial approval on Aug. 31, but has to vote for them again by Feb. 2.

Parliament also has to pass a law enabling Ukraine to hold local elections on separatist-controlled territories.

Poroshenko could dissolve parliament and announce snap elections if the ruling coalition falls apart and lawmakers fail to pass the laws required by Minsk II, said political analyst Kostiantyn Bondarenko.

Speaking on Jan. 14, Poroshenko said the Ukrainian military has photo and video evidence of Russian troops and armored vehicles still crossing into Ukraine. Regaining control over the border with Russia is key to restoring peace in the Donbas, he said.

But for Russia to surrender control would deprive Moscow of a way to pressure Ukraine not to join NATO, said Anna Pechenkina, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States.

“If the EU alleviates Russia’s commitment problem by guaranteeing that no further military integration of Ukraine will take place, and if the EU monitors Ukraine’s compliance with amnesty provision for the rebels, then under those conditions it may work,” she said.

Russian elites may also grow tired of the economic hardships and international estrangement that the war has caused.

“If the Russian elites perceive the Donbas as an important source of their legitimacy, then Russia is more likely to make a power shift in favor of the rebels, which will lead to another spell of heavy fighting,” Pechenkina said.

Leonid Poliakov, a military expert at the New Ukraine think tank and former deputy defense minister, said the Minsk II agreement gave Ukrainian forces a break. Poliakov said that if the peace process stalls again this year, limited-scale fighting is likely to resume in spring.

But Russia used the pause to re-arm separatist forces with old Soviet weapons, especially artillery systems. “Now they probably have the third biggest army in Europe in terms of amounts of weapons, after Russia and Turkey,” he said.

The first 2016 peace talks ended on Jan. 13 with an agreement to cease fire by midnight, and the exchange of 50 prisoners on both sides, as proposed by Ukraine. Instead, the Ukrainian military said separatists attacked them about 70 times, a record number of attacks over a 24-hour period this year.

Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post that the first steps in the peace process, including the cease-fire and removal of heavy weaponry from the separation line, have yet to be taken. While the mission recorded a decrease in fighting near Donetsk airport since late December, the situation has deteriorated near Horlivka in Donetsk Oblast.

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk contributed reporting to this story.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]