... electoral campaign, V. Zelensky himself repeatedly failed to demonstrate a fundamental agenda for developing relations with Russia. Many of his statements are contradictory. For instance, on the one hand, he spoke about his desire to stop the bloodshed in Donbass, restore the infrastructure destroyed during his predecessor’s tenure and hold talks with the Russian president. On the other hand, the new leader said he would refuse to grant special status to the uncontrolled territories and that granting amnesty to the participants in the conflict in the self-proclaimed republics would be out of the question....
... countries, but, as far as possible, for the United States as well), the crucial task would be to acknowledge that, in the future, the scale and nature of western support for Kiev should be determined not so much by the degree of Kiev’s hostility toward Russia, but by the consistency and progress of the socioeconomic and political modernization of Ukraine. In other words, after a stable armistice in Donbass is achieved, European capitals and Washington should view Ukraine as an independent area of their foreign policy, and not as a convenient foothold in their geopolitical confrontation with Moscow. A “frozen” or even completely resolved conflict ...
...
Washington is resolved to damaging Russia under Putin as much as it can. The EU is more pragmatic. Its aim is to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine while making its relationship with Russia more predictable, if not more friendly. With that in mind, Russia could take steps to promote peace in the Donbass via the United Nations peacekeeping operation, for example.
Andrey Kortunov:
Will Donbass Live to See the UN Peacekeepers?
However, trust is a key concern in Moscow.
Would Brussels support Moscow’s initiative? Would this kind of move be sabotaged ...
... movements that might terrorize the DPR/LPR territories, threaten their political opponents and contribute to the spread of crime in the region. It is possible that this could be followed by new waves of refugees and internally displaced persons from Donbass towards Russia.
Peacekeepers as a pretext for revising the Minsk agreements.
The Ukrainian version of a possible peacekeeping operation raises numerous questions in Moscow linked to the future of the Minsk agreements. Russia suspects Kiev of attempting to use ...
.... Composition of the Peacekeeping Forces
Kiev also fears that Moscow could try to go further than simply including a Russian contingent in the peacekeeping mission by turning that contingent into the core of the peacekeeping forces, thus legalizing Russia's military presence in Donbass. As far as Kiev is concerned, the existing precedents of Russian peacekeepers having been deployed in Georgia and Moldova clearly demonstrate the political risks and long term negative repercussions of such a decision for “host” counties. ...
... establishment. But President Trump has demonstrated that he is willing to go against the tide. His stance on Ukraine is not obvious. Kiev is trying to downplay this vagueness to maintain the status quo in the U.S. posture or perhaps to make it even more anti-Russian. But the overriding priority is to prevent a radical change in U.S. policy.
More likely than not, the Ukrainian leaders are acting on the assumption that any military actions under the present conditions are a low-risk affair. The Donbass self-defense forces are highly unlikely to launch major counter-offensives like they did near Ilovaisk or Debaltsevo. Therefore, Ukraine is free to test the strength of the DPR and LPR defenses and achieve small, if visible, successes like occupying ...
... to sit and watch economic hardship in Ukraine lead to social tensions and ultimately to political upheavals overthrowing the Maidan-installed leadership in Kiev. Freezing the conflict for now looks like the best option for both the United States and Russia.
A frozen conflict in Donbass is not what the European Union wants. Europe insists on full implementation of the Minsk accords. However, it needs to face up to the harsh realities. Donbass rebels want a confederal status within Ukraine, complete with a veto on the country’s ...
... growth resumed in 2010 at about 5% a year, but in 2012 froze at 0.3%
[3]
. The situation in the country has become critical, and the beginning of military operations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions coupled with Crimea’s reunification with Russia only exacerbated it.
Crimea and Donbass: The price paid
In purely economic terms, the impact of Crimea’s secession from Ukraine has been relatively insignificant, and is estimated at about 3.8% of total GDP
[4]
. The region was not known for having a high standard of living, ...
... starting point for a peace settlement process through freezing the conflict. There are many obstacles on this road, however, which mean we cannot talk with any confidence about the stability of a settlement. A “freezing” of the conflict in Donbass, even if such a scenario is implemented, will be seriously different to the “freeze” that we can observe in Transnistria or Nagorno-Karabakh. The difference is that in this conflict the stakes for Russia are too high, and it is taking place not simply in the context of rivalry between the West and Russia in the post-Soviet area, but also in the situation of a serious mental break between Europe and the USA on the one hand and Russia on the other....
... the European Union, using the cumulative economic and political weight of the Eurasian countries.
Donbass
REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
Alexei Fenenko:
Is Ukrainian Crisis the Last for Russia?
The Ukrainian crisis has been worsened by the armed conflict in Donbass, leading more and more politicians in Russian and Ukraine to think about the need for a speedy settlement, even if this is not on the most favorable terms. Formally, the Russian leadership considers what is happening to be a strictly Ukrainian matter. But that does not mean it is being neutral....
