Political advisors to the presidents of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany — known as the Normandy Four — have met in Berlin to discuss progress on the Minsk agreements, a peace plan that aims to resolve the Kremlin’s war in the Donbas, which has taken 14,000 lives since 2014.
The goal of the meeting was to pave the way for another Normandy summit on ending the conflict. The previous summit was held in December in Paris, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time.
But after 11 hours of negotiations on July 3, the results were ambiguous at best, with Ukraine demonstrating a greater desire to stop the war than Russia.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Zelensky, said that the meeting “brought a (Normandy) summit one step closer.”
But Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of the Russian presidential administration, stated that “a breakthrough did not take place.”
Constitutional changes?
Before holding the next round of high-level Normandy peace talks, Kremlin officials want Ukraine to officially recognize the special status of the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reported on July 3. That would require changes to Ukraine’s constitution.
According to leaked unofficial documents of the Russian delegation obtained by the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative organization, and reviewed by Der Spiegel, Russia expects a draft on changes to the Ukrainian constitution by July 6.
That demand is unacceptable for Ukraine, Zelensky indicated on July 4 during a briefing.
“First, no one can demand anything from Ukraine. We are an independent country,” he said. “It seems to me that here everyone must work on their rhetoric. Moreover, this is already international rhetoric.”
At the same time, Zelensky praised the meeting overall, saying it had gone “not badly” and was “productive.”
Other Russian demands
The Dossier Center’s documents also indicate that Russia is demanding the implementation of the controversial “Steinmeier Formula,” a peace plan proposed by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier back in 2016, when he was Germany’s foreign minister. According to the formula, the occupied territories should hold free and fair local elections under Ukrainian legislation and then, in return, receive special self-governance status.
But there are complications. Ukraine wants to receive control over its border with Russia before local elections are held. Russia wants that to happen after the vote.
The Russian delegation in Berlin also insisted on further steps toward exchanging prisoners and more troop withdrawals from the Donbas region. By July 6, Ukrainian authorities should create a list of prisoners they want to exchange.
In addition, Kremlin officials want Ukraine to develop and come to an agreement with the Russian-backed militants who control parts of the Donbas on dozens of other laws regarding the occupied territories. “But this is not easy,” Kozak said.
Kozak also claimed that the Ukrainian delegation tried to set specific dates for the Normandy summit. “It’s very, very early to talk about this,” he said.
Before a summit can happen, Kozak said, Ukraine must do a “huge amount of work” to adopt all the decisions agreed upon during the December summit in Paris.
The Presidents of the Normandy Four countries met for the first time in 2016 to discuss how to stop the war in Donbas.
After being elected president in 2019, Zelensky made ending the war in Donbas one of his top priorities and promised fast results. This reinvigorated the peace process, but has yet to yield significant results.
According to the Ukrainian President’s Office, the delegations in Berlin “agreed on the need for real measures to ensure a full and comprehensive ceasefire.”
Soon the parties will agree upon an agenda for the work of the Tripartite Contact Group — a negotiating format that includes Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — which will hold a video conference meeting in the coming days.
