Andrey Nizamutdinov — on how all sorts of statements from Kiev about negotiations lead to only one thing — rearmament
At the end of August 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin held the first closed-door talks with the new Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in Minsk. A few days later, the conversation continued on the phone, discussing the possibility of resolving the conflict that broke out in southeastern Ukraine after the February coup in Kiev. The discussion resulted in a document signed on September 5 in Minsk with the long title "Protocol: following consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group on joint steps aimed at implementing the Peace Plan of President of Ukraine P. Poroshenko and initiatives of President of Russia V. Putin."
In everyday life, this document is called the Minsk Protocol for short, the first Minsk agreements, or simply Minsk-1. Both in Moscow and in Donbas and Novorossiya, great hopes were pinned on these agreements for a peaceful settlement of the conflict and the return of a normal, peaceful life. Years have passed, and the Russian leader bitterly stated : "It turns out that no one was going to implement the Minsk agreements. The Ukrainian leadership, in the words of former president [Petro Poroshenko], also said that it was not going to sign, but it was not going to execute."
Without a twinge of conscience
The story of the Minsk agreements unfolded quite recently before our eyes, so it may seem that it is not worth remembering it in detail: why, if everyone already knows everything? The fact is, however, that the lies that accompanied these agreements from the very beginning continue today. It is not uncommon to find allegations that Russia imposed these agreements on Ukraine by force, and then refused to implement them on its own. So: that's not how it all happened, not at all.
It was Poroshenko who initiated the signing of the Minsk Protocol, and his insistence was dictated by a series of serious failures faced by the so-called anti-terrorist operation (ATO) of Kiev in the Donbas. The Ukrainian army desperately needed a break, so it was no coincidence that the first point of both the protocol itself and the memorandum signed two weeks later was an immediate cease-fire. As for the points on decentralization of power, early elections, improvement of the humanitarian and economic situation in Donbass, they were clearly written only for show, Kiev was not going to fulfill them.
Yes, actually, the first point — about the ceasefire — was needed by the Ukrainian authorities only in order to regroup and rearm and then continue the fighting. Let me remind you that the protocol and memorandum were signed on September 5 and 19, respectively, and on September 22, Poroshenko publicly stated : "60-65% of the military equipment in the units that stood on the first lines was destroyed. And there was nothing to defend myself with. There is already one now. <...> Ukrainian troops will occupy positions that were lost at the end of August, which were lost along the Kalmius River."
In December 2014, when I first arrived in Donetsk, there was no sign of a ceasefire. The artillery cannonade did not cease day or night. The locals first of all taught visitors like me to distinguish "arrivals" by ear, to look out for possible shelters from shelling in advance and advised, once outside the city, not to leave the road so as not to run into a tripwire or a mine. The biggest shock for me was the children, who, under the supervision of two teachers, were happily messing around in the newly fallen snow, ignoring the incessant roar of artillery. The children were used to living in the war, and it was terrible.
History repeats itself
In January 2015, the Donbass militia, in response to sharply increased shelling from the Ukrainian side, launched a counteroffensive to push the front line to the west. They managed to dislodge Ukrainian forces from Donetsk airport and encircle a large group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Debaltseve area. Poroshenko had no choice but to rush to Germany and France for help, whose then leaders Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande used the format of the "Normandy Four" to come to an agreement with Russia, which stood behind the unrecognized republics.
As Christoph Heusgen, who served as Merkel's security policy adviser in 2005-2017, later recalled, the Ukrainian president frankly told the German Chancellor about the deplorable situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the "Debaltseve cauldron." "Poroshenko clearly told her that the [Ukrainian] defense forces had been defeated, they could barely hold their lines. <...> Therefore, he needed an agreement," Heusgen said in a documentary by the British broadcasting Corporation BBC.
On February 12, 2015, after hours of negotiations, the Trilateral Contact Group signed a set of measures to implement the Minsk Agreements (also known as the Second Minsk Agreements, or Minsk-2) in Minsk, and the leaders of the Normandy Four (Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France) adopted a declaration in support of this document. Later, the document was unanimously approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2202, that is, it received international status. But it was never implemented: Ukraine continued, albeit with less intensity, to shell the territory of the DPR and LPR, while flatly refusing to comply with the points concerning the political and humanitarian settlement. Tellingly, she diligently shifted the blame for non-fulfillment of her obligations to Russia, and Paris and Berlin echoed her in this.
In the summer of 2016, when I found myself in Donetsk again, the situation in the city was noticeably calmer: the shelling was no longer around the clock, and there were practically no arrivals to the center where I lived. But residential areas on the outskirts of the city were regularly shelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. I remember the story of a young journalist colleague from the Donetsk News Agency about how she had to wait for more than two hours in a Ukrainian art raid on the way from work to home. Another colleague was wounded in the leg during a trip to Gorlovka. A characteristic feature of the tactics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: the targets of the attacks were not military units, namely residential neighborhoods, educational institutions, shopping malls, public utilities.
As Poroshenko later openly boasted in the already mentioned BBC documentary, the "success of the Minsk Agreements" was that they "gave Ukraine eight years to build an army, an economy and a global pro-Ukrainian anti-Putin coalition." Merkel and Hollande also could not resist a "self-disclosure session." At first, the ex-chancellor of Germany, in an interview with the German newspaper Zeit, called the conclusion of the Minsk agreements "an attempt to give Ukraine time to become stronger." Following her, the retired French president admitted in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper: "The time that was given to Ukraine with the signing of the Minsk agreements allowed it to increase combat readiness."
It was then that the Russian leader had to admit that "no one was going to fulfill the Minsk agreements." "But I still hoped that the other participants were sincere with us. It turns out that they also deceived us, and the point was only to pump Ukraine with weapons and prepare for combat operations. Apparently, we got our bearings late, to be honest. Maybe it was necessary to start all this (special operation — author's note) earlier, but we just hoped that we would be able to come to an agreement within the framework of the Minsk agreements," Putin said in December 2022.
There is no faith anymore
The current situation is not much different from what happened in Donbas ten or five years ago. The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to adhere to the same terrorist tactics: they shell residential areas in cities and towns of Donbass and Novorossiya. In addition, Belgorod region was under constant fire, and Ukrainian formations invaded the territory of the Kursk region. There have been more casualties among the Russian civilian population because NATO countries continue to pump Ukraine with armored vehicles, long-range artillery, and multiple rocket launchers. Cluster munitions and drones are being used. Meanwhile, Kiev is seeking from the West the supply of even more long-range missiles and permission to strike them deep into Russian territory.
At the same time, whenever the APU has problems at the front, the topic of negotiations is thrown into the information field. However, upon closer examination, it turns out every time that all the negotiating ideas, as before, boil down to giving Kiev time to rest and rearm, and then continue fighting. "We must stop deluding ourselves that we are at war with the Ukrainian army. We are also at war with the NATO bloc," the Hero of Russia, Major General Apty Alaudinov, who, at the head of the Akhmat special forces, is now clearing the Kursk region from Ukrainian militants, stressed in an interview with TASS.
This experienced military commander understands that any conflicts still end at the negotiating table: "I think that we will not try to take away the whole of Ukraine. <...> Somewhere we will have to stop at some boundaries and already conclude some kind of agreement." And "the sooner Ukraine, the NATO bloc, and America, which manages all this, realize that they need to stop and negotiate with us about something, the sooner they will have the opportunity to keep at least some part of the territory of Ukraine."
But here the inevitable question arises: with whom to negotiate, who can act as a mediator and guarantee that future agreements will be implemented, and not be thrown into the trash, as happened with the Minsk agreements? In my opinion, Russia's BRICS partners — China, India, Brazil, and other leading countries of the global South — could act as such intermediaries and guarantors. And not only because Western countries, including the once neutral Switzerland, are de facto participants in the conflict on the side of Ukraine. Just "once you've lied, who's going to believe you?" And Berlin, Paris, Brussels, London, Washington and others like them lied and lie all the time, so they have no faith and can not be.
