Ukraine entered 2015 fighting for its life.
Blasted by Russian guns, weighed down by an economic crisis and beset by uncertainty, Ukrainians held the line in the war-torn Donbas, while pushing forward with long-overdue domestic reforms to create a market economy, rebuild its military and establish rule of law.
For many, it was a year of terrible sacrifice and loss, in spite of the Minsk II peace agreement signed in February. The deal was designed to stop the war, but never did.
The year has also seen attempts to create a new national police force and a dedicated anti-corruption prosecutor’s office. Major flaws, however, stymied the two initiatives.
Battle of Donetsk airport
The beginning of the year marked an escalation on the war front that led to a big defeat for Ukraine.
After 242 days of intense clashes with Russian-backed militants, those Ukrainian soldiers who survived had to retreat from the demolished Donetsk airport. The battles claimed the lives of 100 men, while more than 400 were injured.
In spite of the withdrawal, the battle became a symbol of strength of those Ukrainian servicemen who took part in it. For their bravery and fortitude, they were dubbed cyborgs.
After the battle ended in mid-January 2015, the airport — which had been renovated prior to the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship co-hosted by Ukraine — was totally demolished.
Battle of Debaltseve
Right after the battle for the Donetsk airport ended, a new one broke out in a strategic city of Debaltseve, some 100 kilometers northeast of Donetsk. As a result, the Russian-backed forces seized the city in mid-February 2015.
Ukrainian soldiers had to give up their positions after a month-long fierce battle that killed 110 and injured 270 Ukrainians.
At the beginning of February, under pressure from the West, Ukraine and Russia agreed on a three-day ceasefire so that the local citizens who suffered under the shelling were able to get away. However, only few managed to escape.
Overall, at least 500 civilians were killed amid these hostilities.
Street-level police reform
Long-awaited in Ukraine, the National Police of Ukraine was established in November, replacing a force largely seen as corrupt. The most noticeable changes were in patrol police, which got new uniforms, higher salaries and Toyota patrol cars donated by the Japanese government.
Ukraine invited Georgian officials, who had successfully rooted out police corruption, to come to Kyiv and help.
However, soon the reform came to be seen as cosmetic, since the corrupt veteran employees of the Interior Ministry remained in place under Arsen Avakov, the minister of dubious reputation. The 300,000-member ministry has not excelled, to put it mildly, at solving big crimes.
Signing Minsk Protocol II
At the beginning of 2015, the Trilateral Contact Group — Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — amended the Minsk Protocol peace package with a detailed and specified guide on how to implement it. Minsk II was intended to revive its forerunner, Minsk I, and was also signed by the representatives of Russia-backed forces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
However, the agreements accomplished little — let alone a cease-fire.
Apart from that, the biggest dispute between the sides is on the order in which to fulfill the peace plan. Ukraine insists on Russia and its proxy forces to withdraw first to give Ukraine access to these territories. This would allow Ukraine to guarantee the security and transparency for conducting honest local elections in the Donbas. Russia, in turn, wants it to be vice versa so that it can legitimize the illegitimate Donetsk authorities.
Taking prisoners
Russia’s courts convicted two Crimea-born citizens of Ukraine charging them with plotting terrorist acts. Moscow’s move was internationally recognized as political persecution, and the two convicts as political prisoners because there only crime was to assert Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula.
Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and anarchist and anti-fascist activist Olexandr Kolchenko were sentenced to 20 and 10 years in Russia’s prison. The two had been imprisoned for four years and were released only in 2019 in a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.
Decentralization
One of the goals of post-EuroMaidan Ukraine was to give more power to local authorities, a process that began in 2014.
In 2015, Ukraine enabled the voluntary amalgamation of territorial communities, also known as hromadas; budget codes were amended to provide more funding to local budgets.
The 2015 decentralization bill authored by ex-President Petro Poroshenko sparked violent protests, due to a provision that would pave the way for more self-determination for the occupied Donbas regions. One of the demonstrators threw a grenade that killed three national guardsmen and wounded dozens of people.
Legislative battles over the execution of decentralization are ongoing to this day.
Ukraine held local elections in October that year under new rules adopted in July, defining the type of elections that must take place at every local administrative level. Elections did not happen in Crimea nor in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that Ukraine couldn’t control. The elections in Mariupol and Krasnoarmeysk were delayed until November.
Blockade of Donbas
In January, Ukraine introduced transport restrictions in the conflict area. People getting into the Russian-controlled areas required special permits to pass. This decreased access to food and medication for those living there.
The restrictions were even toughened in March, which reportedly led to vehicles carrying food and medicine to be turned away. These restrictions had foreshadowed the total economic blockade imposed on the occupied territories two years later.
Blockade of Crimea
In September, frustrated with inaction against Russian occupying forces in Crimea, Crimean Tatar activists seized control of three checkpoints on the border between mainland Ukraine and the peninsula. Tatars took down the blockade at the end of the year, because it had no effect on the situation.
In the fall, unknown people destroyed major power lines supplying electricity from Ukraine to Crimea, which left millions of people without power. Ukraine officially stopped supplying power to Crimea in 2016, the peninsula was linked to the Russian networks.
At the end of the year, Kyiv had imposed a restriction on the shipment of goods to Crimea, until a Kyiv administrative appeals court in June 2017 partly reversed that decision.
Unsuccessful prosecutor
In September, Ukraine created a Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s office within the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine.
Nazar Kholodnitsky was appointed to be the first anti-corruption prosecutor. While the move was meant to target the massive endemic corruption in the country, Kholodnytsky would prove to be largely ineffective at his job and the office would accomplish very little in the coming years. Moreover, Kholodnitsky is forever compromised after he was secretly recorded by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine coaching criminal suspects in how to evade charges.
Open public databases
In an effort to fight corruption, the government also opened access to all land and real estate property registries to the public. The move was a huge step towards transparency and the searchable databases were widely praised.
Financial crisis
A multifaceted economic crisis gripped Ukraine in 2015. Crises caused the hryvnia to plunge from Hr 15 per $1 to over Hr 33 per $1, while the country’s debt jumped to 100% of its gross domestic product.
Ukraine’s economy shrank by over 10% in 2015. The loss of two most industrial regions and a decline of trade with Russia contributed significantly to this economic downturn.
Amid a deep crisis of confidence in the banking sector, the National Bank of Ukraine continued its spree of shutting down banks it deemed insolvent, closing 33 banks — bringing to nearly 100, or half the pre-crisis total, the number of banks closed.
