Negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Pyotr Poroshenko are due to be held in Minsk on 26 August 2014, however they are not likely to result in the announcement of the peace process in Donbass.
Negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Pyotr Poroshenko are due to be held in Minsk on 26 August 2014, however they are not likely to result in the announcement of the peace process in Donbass.
The irony is that both Moscow and Kiev need the transition from civil war to negotiations with a view to a peace agreement. Russia has long and consistently supported the idea of preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine (within the post-Crimea borders) on condition of the country’s federalisation. According to the Kremlin’s calculations, which are supported by numerous international experts, in this case Russia would minimize its risks regardless of how the situation in Ukraine develops. If Kiev manages to cope with all its economic and social problems, Ukraine’s federal status would at least ensure the neutral and not anti-Russian nature of the Ukrainian state in which anti-Russian forces in the west of the country would be balanced by pro-Russian ones. If the country continues to disintegrate, federal institutions would make it easier for the Russian-speaking regions to secede from Ukraine and become Novorossiya (New Russia) or even integrate into Russia.
For Pyotr Poroshenko a peace agreement is the only way to bring an end to the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) which instead of restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity has merely strengthened disintegration processes. It is a drain on the budget (its official cost is estimated at $5.2 million a day), is destroying the industrial infrastructure of Donbass, whose exports account for the bulk of Ukraine’s currency earnings (according to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, it would cost $8 billion to rehabilitate the region). In addition, the ATO leads to the further dispersal of power and the strengthening of so-called “volunteer battalions”, which long ago turned into private armies of oligarchs and are already presenting demands to Kiev. It cannot be ruled out that several months of multiple setbacks in Donbass and a groundswell of popular discontent in Ukraine (caused by the dire economic situation and lack of central heating in winter as Kiev has not found a replacement for Russian gas) could lead to a new Maidan.
However, despite the shared interests of Russia and Ukraine, Pyotr Poroshenko is unlikely to start peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin. This is not so much because the backdrop for the Ukrainian side tends to weaken its position (Ukrainian troops are suffering heavy defeats instead of military victories in the declared blitzkrieg), but because the country’s elites, as usual, are pursuing short-term and not long-term interests. Whereas before Maidan there was a chance of medium-term planning spanning one electoral cycle, the horizon has now been shortened to several weeks. Pyotr Poroshenko is concerned not about what will happen in December, but what will happen in early autumn when early elections for the Supreme Rada (parliament) will be held. If the Ukrainian president abandons plans to take Donetsk and Lugansk, his electorate, radicalized by the Ukrainian media, will turn away from him and vote for his political opponents. Washington will not support him because it wants the civil war in Ukraine to continue. Americans need Ukraine to destabilize relations between Russia and the European Union.
Even so, the fact that a final agreement is unlikely to be signed in Minsk does not mean that the summit is useless. Pyotr Poroshenko and Vladimir Putin will at least have a chance to exchange opinions one-on-one and perhaps will try to draw certain red lines that are not to be crossed. In addition, reaching a mutual understanding on certain issues in Minsk would help in future meetings, for example, in early September 2014 in Paris where they have already been invited by French President Francois Hollande.
