The Minsk Agree­ments 10 Years After: 10 Lessons learned for future Negoti­a­tions with Moscow

On the night of 12 February 2015, the ‘Package of Measures for the Imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments’, or ‘Minsk II’ for short, was signed. The agreement was intended to end the war in eastern Ukraine and bring about a political solution to the conflict.

The major Russian attack on 24 February 2022 also sealed the end of ‘Minsk’. The idea that Putin was prepared to reach an arrangement that respected Ukraine’s sover­eignty proved to be a fatal illusion. For him, negoti­a­tions were and are merely the contin­u­ation of war by other means.

What are the lessons to be learnt from the failure of the agreement — also with a view to renewed negoti­a­tions with Russia on an end to the war in Ukraine? The most important lesson: Europe must do every­thing it can to ensure that Ukraine can negotiate from a position of military strength. And it must be clear what is not up for negoti­ation: Ukraine’s sover­eignty and security, including its integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.

By Johannes Regen­brecht [1]

Contents

Why talk about Minsk now?

Minsk: The background

The interests of the conflict parties

Minsk II: form and content

Imple­men­tation of the Minsk agree­ments – a mixed record

Why did the Minsk process fail?

Trump and a ‘Peace Settlement’

Ten Lessons from Minsk

Why talk about Minsk now?

It was 10 years ago – the long night of Minsk from 11 to 12 February 2015, when the massive, post-Soviet pomp of the presi­dential palace in Minsk was the backdrop of a 17-hour negoti­a­tions marathon between Russia and Ukraine on a ceasefire and political settlement. At the negoti­ating table sat German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande. As well as the presi­dents of Ukraine and Russia, Poroshenko and Putin. In the format of the so-called ‘Normandy Four’.

The Minsk Agreement of 12 February 2015, or more precisely the ‘Package of Measures for the Imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments’ or ‘Minsk II’ for short, has triggered a great deal of criticism. Critical voices have grown louder since Russia’s brutal, large-scale war of aggression against Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, rendering the Minsk Agree­ments obsolete at a stroke. The ceasefire has proven to be extremely fragile. There was no sustainable settlement to restore the sover­eignty and terri­torial integrity of Ukraine. The Minsk Agree­ments have even been described as ‘a manifes­tation of nihilism of inter­na­tional law and a cover for aggression’[2]. While Angela Merkel praised the Minsk II agreement at the end of 2022 as an attempt to ‘buy Ukraine time to become stronger’[3], in June 2021 Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s former commis­sioner for Ukraine (2013–2020) and the driving force behind Russia’s negoti­ating position in Minsk, blatantly described Minsk as ‘legit­imising the first partition of Ukraine’ in the wake of ‘Russia’s first open geopo­litical counter­attack’ on the West[4]. The opposite position to this is President Zelensky’s statement in August 2022 that Ukraine had agreed to a de facto loss of territory in Minsk and had thus fallen into a trap.

At the same time, Putin’s latest major offensive against Ukraine has buried the historical analysis and differ­en­tiated evalu­ation of the Minsk agree­ments. After all, in the light of the Zeiten­wende (“tidal shift”) and a funda­men­tally changed geopo­litical situation in Europe, who should still be inter­ested in a conflict settlement that has failed and been surpassed by history?

Such an attitude fails to recognise that the Zeiten­wende had come much earlier – at the latest in August 2008 with Russia’s attack on Georgia, followed by the illegal annex­ation of Crimea in February and the incursion into the densely populated Donbas region since April 2014. Putin had already shattered the European peace order with these early aggres­sions, not just with the launch of the large-scale attack on Ukraine three years ago. Focusing only on 24 February 2022 would narrow our perspective on the big picture of Putin’s quest for hegemony. For him, his current war against Ukraine is just another, albeit crucial, stage in Russia’s continuous political and military escalation against the West.[5] In this context, a review of the Minsk Agree­ments is also of current relevance, shortly after President Trump took office, who had already announced a ‘peace deal’ with Putin during his election campaign and appointed former General Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.[6]

Looking back at Minsk could provide answers to important questions. Are there any ‘lessons learned’ from Minsk for future negoti­a­tions to end the war? What conclu­sions can we draw from the weaknesses and misjudge­ments, but also from the possible strengths of the Western position in the context of the Minsk Agreement? Can Russia’s approach at the time provide clues to Moscow’s future negoti­ating strategies?

Minsk: The background

At the beginning of February 2015, Germany and France threw their combined political weight behind the Minsk II initiative in order to halt the most dangerous military escalation in Europe since the Second World War. The background and trigger for the German-French initiative was the failure of ‘Minsk I’, a ceasefire agreement of 5–19 September 2014. The so-called ‘Minsk Protocol’ (5 September) had been adopted by the OSCE Trilateral Contact Group, chaired by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagli­avini[7], meeting in Minsk. The ‘Protocol’ was accom­panied by technical provi­sions for the imple­men­tation of the ceasefire, the ‘Minsk Memorandum’ of 19 September 2014, which in particular also defined a ceasefire line (‘line of contact’).[8]

The ceasefire had barely come into force when the so-called ‘separatists’, in reality Moscow’s henchmen armed, financed and controlled by Russia, launched new waves of attacks with the support of regular Russian units[9]. As a result, the front line increas­ingly shifted westwards, especially in the area south of Donetsk, away from the contact line estab­lished in Minsk in September. In January 2015, further offen­sives followed, which a weakened Ukraine was unable to counter much. The main targets were the newly built Donetsk airport, which was almost completely destroyed by heavy fighting and finally captured by the separatists on 22 January, and the strategic transport hub of Debaltseve on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the front line. The ‘separatists’ finally managed to capture this important railway and road link between their strong­holds of Donetsk and Luhansk on 18 February 2015 – three days after the ceasefire came into effect (!). A partic­u­larly terrible incident was the missile attack on civilians in the port and indus­trial city of Mariupol on 24 January, which left 29 dead and numerous injured. In response to the dramat­i­cally increasing military pressure from the pro-Moscow separatists, calls grew louder in Brussels and Washington for further sanctions against Russia and for  arms deliv­eries to Kyiv.

In this context, immediate political action was required. The military escalation had to be stopped, and Moscow’s efforts to gain inter­na­tional recog­nition for the de facto regimes of the so-called separatist ‘People’s Republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk and to establish a ‘direct dialogue’ between Kyiv and the separatists had to be countered. Russia’s agenda would have resulted in the de facto secession of eastern Ukraine under Moscow’s control.

Merkel and the French President Hollande decided to travel to Kyiv and Moscow at short notice for prelim­inary talks with Poroshenko and Putin. If the talks went well, the four would meet in Minsk soon to agree on an opera­tional package for imple­menting the Minsk ceasefire agreement of September 2014, which should remain in force as a legal and political guide for conflict resolution. The basis for the negoti­a­tions was a Franco-German draft that was coordi­nated with Ukraine. Each further step in the negoti­a­tions was to be strictly bound to Kyiv’s consent.[10]

The entire negoti­ation process lasted only one week, from 5 February when Hollande and Merkel met with Poroshenko in Kyiv to the summit of the four Heads of State and Government in Minsk on 11–12 February. The talks went so quickly because the draft text, drawn up by Germany and France and coordi­nated with Kyiv, was essen­tially based on the Minsk Protocol, which in turn reflected key elements of a ‘peace plan’ previ­ously announced by Poroshenko.[11] The most difficult aspect of the agreement, as would later become apparent time and again, concerned the inter­linking of the ceasefire with a political process aimed at the Ukrainian government regaining control over the entire length of the Ukrainian-Russian border, and thus over the occupied terri­tories. As in Minsk I, Crimea was excluded from the agreement.

The political settlement focused on:

• A ‘special status’ with extensive rights and respon­si­bil­ities for the areas in question (combined with a reform of the Ukrainian consti­tution to decen­tralise administration).
• Arrange­ments for holding local elections in the region.
• Condi­tions for the recovery of control by the government of Ukraine over the approx­i­mately 400-kilometre-long section of the Ukrainian-Russian state border that adjoins the occupied territory.

There was no need to invent important insti­tu­tions or bodies for conflict resolution. They already existed:

• The ‘Normandy Format’ launched in June 2014 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Allied landings, with Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia providing a framework for negoti­a­tions and political guidance.
• A civilian, unarmed OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine (‘Special Monitoring Mission’, SMM) to monitor the ceasefire.
• The Trilateral Contact Group of the OSCE with Ukraine and Russia, initially under the leadership of OSCE Special Envoy Heidi Tagli­avini (with the involvement of the ‘separatists’), as a permanent opera­tional body for the ongoing follow-up to the military, political and economic aspects of the agreement.

The interests of the conflict parties

Ukraine proved to be militarily inferior, partic­u­larly in view of the open inter­vention of regular Russian troops. Setbacks included the encir­clement of Ilovaisk in August 2014, with numerous Ukrainian casualties, and later the massive military pressure exerted by the ‘separatists’ and Russia on the strategic transport hub of Debaltseve, as mentioned earlier. There was a strong and justified fear of Putin’s unbridled willingness to escalate and Russia’s propa­gated intention to establish a ‘New Russia’ (Новороссия, Novorossija) stretching from Kharkiv to Odesa.[12] Kyiv partic­u­larly wanted to avoid a long-term ‘freeze’ of the military status quo. The aim was to restore Ukrainian control over the state border and thus also over the previ­ously occupied terri­tories as a whole. In return, as reflected in the Minsk Protocol of 5 September 2014, Poroshenko was prepared, according to his ‘peace plan’, to strengthen the powers of local self-government in the disputed areas, to enact an amnesty law and to call early local elections in these regions.

Russia’s interests were diamet­ri­cally opposed to the political process as envisioned by Poroshenko and shared by Germany and France. Moscow sought to consol­idate its control over strategic parts of the Donbas in the long term and to ‘freeze’ the military conflict. In the political process, Russia aimed to legit­imise the separatist regime, which Putin wanted to elevate to an equal footing with his demand for a ‘direct dialogue’ with the Ukrainian government. Such a constel­lation would have given Moscow the oppor­tunity to escalate or de-escalate the conflict at any time in order to keep Kyiv under constant pressure, tie up important Ukrainian resources and thus signif­i­cantly slow down or completely prevent economic growth, reforms and rapprochement with the EU or NATO.[13]

Minsk II: form and content

The format of the negoti­a­tions and form of the agreement are on the credit side of the balance sheet. Integrated into the format of the Normandy Four (N4), Moscow was forced, as a warring party, to also talk to Kyiv on an equal footing. This meant that Moscow’s narrative that it was only playing the role of a ‘mediator’, and that Kyiv was only allowed to negotiate with the ‘people’s militia’ (‘separatists’) as a party to the conflict, since it was allegedly an internal Ukrainian conflict, could not come into play. However, the text of the agreement does not reflect the fact that Russia is also a party to the war and therefore does not impose any oblig­a­tions on Moscow. For example, Article 10, which stipu­lates the ‘withdrawal of all foreign armed forma­tions, military equipment and merce­naries from the territory of Ukraine’, makes no explicit reference to Russian military units or proxy troops stationed in Ukraine.[14] In Minsk, the ‘separatists’ were only indirectly involved, namely in the framework of the OSCE Trilateral Contact Group. This group had also met in the Belarusian capital and merely signed off on the text of the 13-point package of measures as dictated by the N4.[15] This meant that Poroshenko did not need to speak directly with the leaders of the ‘people’s republics’, which ‘would have amounted to recog­nition of the separatists’.[16] The package of measures was accom­panied by a supporting decla­ration in which the four heads of state and government, including Putin, pledged their uncon­di­tional ‘respect for the sover­eignty and terri­torial integrity of Ukraine’.[17]

Russia only imple­mented a late entry into force of the ceasefire (Art. 1) on 15 February 2015 at 00:00, two and a half days after the signing of Minsk II on 12 February, thus gaining time for the conquest of Debaltseve (see above).[18] That Putin ignored even this deadline shortly there­after is demon­strated by the fact that the ‘separatists’ or regular Russian troops did not lay down their arms until 18 February, that is, after the conquest of Debaltseve.

In essence, the ceasefire only provided for the withdrawal of heavy weapons (from 100mm calibre), but not for the disen­gagement of troops – a signif­icant weak point of the agreement. This meant that only strips of territory without artillery weapons could be created, but not completely demil­i­tarised security zones. The disen­gagement of troops at critical points was later addressed in the Trilateral Contact Group in a laborious and often frustrating process of detailed work.[19] The OSCE was tasked with monitoring and verifying the ceasefire and withdrawal (Art. 3), but, unlike in the Minsk Protocol of 5 September 2014 (Art. 4), it did not receive a new mandate to monitor the Ukrainian-Russian state border with the creation of security zones on both sides of the border.[20]

The key point in the regula­tions of the political process was the requirement that Ukraine should only be given control of its state border with Russia and thus control over its entire territory in the east after local elections have been held in the conflict areas (Art. 9). These local elections were to be held strictly ‘in accor­dance with Ukrainian law’ and a Ukrainian special status law for the conflict area (Art. 4), as well as in accor­dance with OSCE standards and under OSCE super­vision (Art. 12). Never­theless, the question is rightly raised in the research liter­ature as to whether and how democ­ratic elections under Ukrainian law and under the super­vision of the central election commission in Kyiv should have been possible with the separatists and Russian troops in power on the ground.[21] Furthermore, the drafting of the Ukrainian local election law, the design of certain elements of a consti­tu­tional reform and the wording of the special status law were to be carried out ‘in consul­tation’ or agreement with the ‘separatists’ (Art. 9,11,12). However, it must be borne in mind that, as with all highly contro­versial negoti­a­tions, the dynamics of the talks required compro­mises and constructive ambiguity.[22] Germany and France, or the EU, had no leverage against Russia other than sanctions to enforce their negoti­ating positions. At least Moscow was obviously unable to enforce its favoured concept of ‘autonomy’ for the occupied terri­tories. Instead, there is a reference to the provi­sions of the already adopted special status law of Ukraine (in a footnote to Art. 11).

The bottom line is that the restoration of Ukraine’s sover­eignty and terri­torial integrity was doubly conditioned:

• Russia’s de facto right to a say in Ukrainian legis­lation (electoral law, consti­tu­tional reform)
• and the proper conduct of local elections in accor­dance with OSCE standards under the occupation of Russia’s militias.

This meant that Moscow had the power to torpedo the political process at several points.

Imple­men­tation of the Minsk agree­ments – a mixed record

The Minsk Agree­ments were in place for eight and a half years. The imple­men­tation of the 13 points of the Minsk ‘Package of Measures’ served not only as the central benchmark for the appli­cation of EU sanctions against Russia, but also, to a large extent, as a guideline for the reori­en­tation of the West’s policy towards Russia as a whole. Germany and France, the European Union, NATO and the United States stuck to Minsk until the very end, and in the absence of suitable alter­na­tives, insisted on the imple­men­tation of the package of measures, as Chancellor Scholz did in Moscow on 15 February 2022. Just a few days later, the recog­nition of the ‘People’s Republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk on 21 February by Moscow and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from 24 February 2022 onwards rendered the Minsk Agree­ments null and void. They also dismantled the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, which had been working with great precision and strict neutrality, and the Trilateral Contact Group.

In the eight years since the Minsk summit, the ceasefire, though frequently violated by both sides, and, to some extent, the agree­ments on human­i­tarian issues such as the exchange of prisoners, have brought positive results. Of the approx­i­mately 14,000 people killed in the war against Ukraine before 24 February 2022, more than half were killed after the Minsk Package came into force on 15 February 2015.[23] According to UN figures, however, the number of deaths, partic­u­larly among the civilian population, fell signif­i­cantly after 2016.[24] Despite numerous ceasefire viola­tions that continued until early 2022, a fragile ceasefire line did form by around 2016, which never­theless ‘held’ until the start of the full scale Russian invasion on 24 February 2022. The major escalation feared by the West did not materi­alise – for the time being. In retro­spect, it was postponed until 2022, when the Putin regime felt it had amassed suffi­cient military strength and the political oppor­tunity presented itself.

The political part of the Minsk package failed because the Kremlin used it only as a vehicle to deepen the secession of the so-called ‘people’s republics’ from the Ukrainian state and to block progress towards the political, economic and human­i­tarian reinte­gration of the terri­tories. Moscow system­at­i­cally under­mined the imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments, which it officially committed to until February 2022, and misused them to advance its own geopo­litical agenda. Western diplomacy in support of Ukraine had therefore less and less of an impact. As a result, the political momentum at the inter­na­tional level decreased, after there had been a dense frequency of meetings from 2014 to 2016, partic­u­larly in the framework of the Normandy 4. The last N4 summit took place in Paris on 9 December 2019 and ended with lip service paid to Minsk that was uncon­vincing in both content and style.[25] The conflict resolution insti­tu­tions that have existed since 2014 – the Trilateral Contact Group and the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission – continued to work at the usual pace, but with increas­ingly few results. The imple­men­tation of the provi­sions on economic cooper­ation (see Article 8 on the full ‘resumption of social and economic relations’) had come to a complete stand­still since 15 March 2017, when Kyiv suspended economic exchanges with the non-government-controlled areas. The ‘economic blockade’ had been preceded, among other things, by the ‘nation­al­i­sation’ of Ukrainian companies by the de facto author­ities. Putin responded by recog­nising the identity cards and other personal documents issued by the separatists in the occupied parts of the Donbas.[26]

A glance at the Minsk political core topics shows how system­at­i­cally Moscow under­mined all attempts at an authentic and compre­hensive imple­men­tation of the political agenda.

Ukraine had already ‘delivered’ on its legis­lation just a few days after Minsk I. In September 2014, the Rada passed an amnesty law in imple­men­tation of Art. 6 of the Minsk Protocol, which has not yet been enacted. The adoption of a ‘special status law’ for the occupied terri­tories (Minsk Protocol, Art. 3) took place on 16 September, and it came into force on 18 October. Among other things, it provided for a guarantee of the free use of the Russian language in official, social, economic, and cultural life, provi­sions on the procedure for appointing court chair­persons and public prose­cutors, cooper­ation with neigh­bouring districts of local self-government in Russia, and the estab­lishment of a local ‘people’s militia’ to protect public security and order in accor­dance with Ukrainian law. It was initially adopted for a period of three years.[27] However, Kyiv suspended the special status provi­sions by law on 17 March 2015, which is under­standable in light of the fake elections in the non-government-controlled areas, as described below. Never­theless, Ukraine fulfilled another Minsk II commitment (Art. 4 para. 2) by passing a law defining the territory to which the special status law applies.[28] The ‘early local elections’ called for by a Ukrainian law (Minsk Protocol, Art. 9), which Kyiv had scheduled for 7 December 2014, was reduced to absurdity by the ‘separatists’ with the unautho­rised holding of elections on 2 November 2014.[29]## They thus put an end to the political process. The most difficult task proved to be anchoring the regula­tions on special status in the consti­tution of Ukraine (see Minsk Package, Art. 11). A corre­sponding draft by President Poroshenko led to violent protests in Kyiv in the summer of 2015 and has been on hold ever since.[30]

With the counter-proposals to the Ukrainian draft laws that the ‘separatists’ intro­duced to the Contact Group, Russia aimed to separate the occupied terri­tories as far as possible from the Ukrainian executive and to assign them attributes of autonomy up to and including de facto statehood. The following infor­mation on the Russian position is also based on a consul­tation with Ambas­sador (ret.) Dr Martin Sajdik, who headed the Trilateral Contact Group from 2015 to early 2020 as the OSCE Special Repre­sen­tative.[31]

Moscow repeatedly spoke publicly of an autonomy status for the Donbas, although the Minsk Agree­ments do not mention autonomy, only ‘decen­tral­i­sation’. However, Ukraine also fell behind in this process. The autonomy proposals of the separatists controlled by Moscow went far beyond the Minsk II agreement and ‘came close to a ‘legal­i­sation of the people’s republics’.[32]

With regard to the local elections, Kyiv insisted that the elections be held under the super­vision of Ukraine’s central electoral authority. The ‘separatists’, on the other hand, demanded largely autonomous organ­i­sation of the elections.

As part of the consti­tu­tional reform, Moscow demanded, among other things, that elections in the occupied terri­tories be decoupled from the central date of local elections in Ukraine and that far-reaching special status attributes be anchored in the consti­tution.[33]

With these maximalist demands, Russia not only accepted the failure of the political process to reinte­grate the occupied terri­tories into the Ukrainian state, but delib­er­ately brought it about. The failure of the Normandy process was not primarily due to the content of the Minsk Package of Measures, but to Moscow’s obstruc­tionist course, which repeatedly accused Ukraine of not fulfilling the agree­ments, but itself blocked progress by making unreal­istic maximum demands, creating faits accomplis (such as holding ‘elections’ on its own) or delegating political respon­si­bility to the allegedly indepen­dently acting ‘separatists’.

In this context, local elections under Ukrainian law have never been held. The ‘separatists’ also held the second round of elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’ with new elections of the ‘republic heads’ and ‘parlia­ments’ of both entities on 11 November 2018. The ‘DPR’ and ‘LPR’ expanded their dicta­torial pseudo-state struc­tures under largely complete depen­dence on Russia, thereby isolating themselves further and further from the statehood of Ukraine. The population on both sides of the contact line suffered not only from the numerous ceasefire viola­tions, but also, and above all, from the human­i­tarian harassment and restric­tions that resulted from the brutal front line, with its treach­erous landmines, cutting through the familiar living environment and providing only a few, completely overbur­dened and inade­quate crossings.[34]

Moscow further consol­i­dated the de facto separation of the non-government-controlled areas by issuing Russian passports to the Ukrainian population of the occupied Donbas, a process known as ‘passporti­sation’,[35] from April 2019. With the construction of the Crimean Bridge, which opened in 2018, Russia consol­i­dated its occupation of Crimea in violation of inter­na­tional law and at the same time cut off the eastern Ukrainian port cities on the Sea of Azov from their maritime connec­tions, as the bridge is too low for modern container ships to pass through. Inter­na­tional law experts consider the construction of the bridge and the incident of November 2018, when Russia refused passage through the Kerch Strait to three Ukrainian Navy ships and fired on them, to be in violation of inter­na­tional law and treaties.[36]

Why did the Minsk process fail?

The agreement itself or later inter­pre­ta­tions such as the Stein­meier formula[37] were not the reasons why a sustainable conflict resolution did not succeed.[38] The main cause, as shown, was the systematic under­mining of the agreement by Russia and the ‘separatists’ controlled by Moscow. The West was not prepared to mobilise further strong means of exerting pressure and power, other than the imposition of sanctions, to enforce negoti­ating positions or to punish obstruction or viola­tions in the imple­men­tation. The EU sanctions were targeted, but insuf­fi­cient and did not prompt Moscow to change its behaviour.[39] Progress could not be achieved through persuasion, rational arguments and appeals to implement all parts of the Minsk package of measures alone. In addition, the public focus was strongly on the numerous ceasefire viola­tions by both sides, which came to light on an ongoing basis due to the close-knit network and daily trans­parent reporting by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM). These were repeatedly and clearly named and condemned at the political level, sometimes creating effective pressure. By contrast, the laborious talks on the political issues of Minsk, which took place behind closed doors in the N4 format or in the various working groups of the Trilateral Contact Group, were much less in the public spotlight. Moscow repeatedly called publicly for a ‘direct dialogue’ between Kyiv and the ‘separatists’, although it was clear to everyone that the self-appointed ‘repre­sen­ta­tives’ from Donetsk and Luhansk were Moscow’s agents, who could be replaced in a ruthless manner if they did not obey orders.[40]

The Minsk II agreement was not explicit enough in regulating the withdrawal of Russian weapons (and their monitoring), but also of regular troops, without which the ‘separatists” would not have been able to wage war success­fully in the first place.[41]

Russia was given too much leeway to keep repeating its narrative of the alleged ‘internal Ukrainian conflict’ with the necessity of ‘direct dialogue’ between the government of Ukraine and the ‘separatists’, thereby denying its respon­si­bility as a party to the conflict and as an aggressor. In this context, Russia’s refusal of inter­na­tional monitoring of the Russian-Ukrainian border, through which it pumped troops, weapons and other material into the occupied terri­tories of Ukraine without any control, was painfully noticeable.[42]

On the positive side, Germany, the EU and other Western states provided sustained support to Ukraine in strength­ening the economy and state budget, fighting corruption, enacting the associ­ation agreement with the EU, promoting civil society, strength­ening local self-government and lifting the visa requirement for Schengen countries. The resolute stand together in economic devel­opment and political struc­tural reforms under­mined one of Putin’s central war aims, the political and economic defeat of Ukraine.

The situation was different regarding military support for Ukraine. Germany categor­i­cally ruled out the provision of weapons to Ukraine in view of the principle of non-delivery of military equipment to conflict areas. Furthermore, there was a broad political consensus in Germany and France that, due to Russia’s military superi­ority, arms deliv­eries would only lead to a further escalation of the conflict to the detriment of Ukraine and European security. Finally, the Normandy process was overshadowed by Germany’s massive energy depen­dence on Russia. A scaling back of the Nordstream project was never on the agenda before 2022[43]. By signing an agreement with Gazprom in 2015 to build the second pipeline, one year after Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Germany became even more dependent.[44]

The funda­mental contra­diction of Minsk was that Putin sought to end Ukraine as an independent nation, denied it an independent historical and cultural identity and reduced its role to a vassal of Russia.[45] Conse­quently, he had no interest in a constructive political process in accor­dance with the letter and spirit of the Minsk Agree­ments. Such a process would have been possible if Moscow had imple­mented the agree­ments (despite their weaknesses) in good faith.

Trump and a ‘Peace Settlement’

With Trump’s announced initiative for conflict resolution[46], it remains to be seen whether and, if so, when it will come about. The negoti­ation scenario will of course be quite different from what it was in Minsk 10 years ago. To put it bluntly, the starting position will be more difficult and simpler than in Minsk:

• more difficult because much more is at stake for Ukraine and the West. Putin will stick to his unacceptable concept of dividing Europe, as set out in the Russian draft agreement of December 2021, into mutually demarcate spheres of influence between Russia and NATO[47]. Regarding Ukraine, Putin is likely to insist on the cession of the four Ukrainian regions that Russia claims without fully controlling them, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zapor­izhzhia, and for which Putin signed laws on 4 October 2022 which he claims incor­po­rated these terri­tories into Russia.[48] In addition, Russia is demanding neutrality and that Ukraine perma­nently renounce NATO membership, which would be tanta­mount to giving up its freedom of alignment, the core of its foreign policy sovereignty.
• Simpler (i.e. less complex), because unlike in Minsk, the cards are openly on the table. Only Russia and Ukraine are warring parties. The Russian denial of respon­si­bility through the ‘separatists’, who allegedly act indepen­dently, is no longer necessary. Putin’s geopo­litical concept with a Ukraine to be ‘neutralised’ is also obvious. Russia will no longer be able to hide its own imperial ambitions in negotiations.

Ten Lessons from Minsk

The most important lesson is the premise for the following 10 points: The West, especially Europe, must do every­thing to ensure that Ukraine can lead possible negoti­a­tions from a position of military strength. Back then, Ukraine had to negotiate and make conces­sions from a position of weakness, which gave Russia the upper hand. This must not be repeated.

1) Negoti­a­tions must not be allowed to degen­erate into a bilateral agreement between Washington and Moscow over the head of Kyiv. Ukraine must have an equal place at the table from the outset. Otherwise, the West would fall into the same trap that Putin set in Moscow on 6 February 2015. Ignoring the German-French-Ukrainian draft of the Minsk II agreement, he presented Merkel and Hollande with a text written by Moscow and proposed declaring a ceasefire without involving Ukraine. The German Chancellor and the French President, however, insisted that further negoti­a­tions be based on the joint Franco-German draft produced with Poroshenko.[49]

2) Unlike in Minsk, Russia must be clearly named in its role as a warring party in the text of a future agreement and must commit to clearly defined oblig­a­tions, the non-fulfilment of which must be punishable by drastic, likewise clearly named sanctions. An agreement should therefore take the form of a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Russia. A deterrent precedent is the draft of a ‘Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine’ negotiated in Istanbul on 15 April 2022.[50] This is designed as an agreement between a number of ‘guarantor states’, including Russia (!), on the one hand, and Ukraine, on the other, as parties to the agreement. Ukraine is burdened with a plethora of oblig­a­tions, while Russia only ever enters into commit­ments in conjunction with the other guarantor states, such as the USA, and otherwise reserves the veto right (!) against the use of military force by guarantor states called upon by Ukraine for assistance.

3) No Minsk III with ‘feder­al­i­sation’ of Ukraine. Any direct or indirect Russian say in the shaping of Ukraine’s domestic order and political consti­tution must be ruled out.

4) Decisions regarding Ukraine’s prospects for EU and NATO membership should only be made with, and not against, Ukraine.

5) The European Union should promptly define its role in negoti­ating and imple­menting the agreement, partic­u­larly regarding the provision of peace­keeping forces (see below). It would be reckless to wait for Trump to ‘assign’ a role to the EU. A division of labour analogous to Minsk, with Brussels’ respon­si­bility limited only to the sanctions regime, must be ruled out. The EU must take full respon­si­bility for security in its immediate neigh­bourhood. This includes direct partic­i­pation in negoti­a­tions and active advocacy of European interests.

6) Without means of exerting pressure, the agreement would be as toothless as Minsk. In addition to credible and realistic security guarantees, this includes drastic sanctions, but also the continued supply of weapons to Ukraine in order to sustainably strengthen its defence capabilities.

7) For effective monitoring of the ceasefire, an armed inter­na­tional military monitoring force with a clear mandate and compre­hensive access and monitoring capabil­ities on both sides of the contact line must be estab­lished. A civilian, unarmed monitoring mission with limited access to the Russian-controlled area, such as the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, would be insuf­fi­cient. In addition to the withdrawal of heavy weapons, the topic of troop disen­gagement, which was left out of the Minsk agree­ments, should play an important role. The aim is to create a demil­i­tarised security zone of suffi­cient depth on both sides of the line of contact under the super­vision of the inter­na­tional peace­keeping force.

8) The inter­na­tional peace­keeping force should include a European contingent as well as a strong military US presence to anchor the transat­lantic dimension of joint respon­si­bility for the stability of the ceasefire and the indivis­i­bility of NATO. Allies of Russia should also be repre­sented. This would drasti­cally increase the cost to Russia of attacking the peace­keepers. The security of the force, but also its opera­tional capability and accep­tance, would be signif­i­cantly strengthened.

9) The imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments has shown that the uncon­trolled flow of Russian weapons and troops across the part of the Ukrainian-Russian border not controlled by Kyiv into the occupied terri­tories was the central security gap. The agreement should therefore also provide for inter­na­tional monitoring of the Russian-Ukrainian state border.

10) The agreement should be flanked by disar­mament and arms control provi­sions with the necessary verifi­cation regime as the beginning of a process of restoring security in Ukraine and Europe.

Footnotes

[1] The author is a former civil servant of the German Federal Foreign Office. As Special Repre­sen­tative  for Ukraine (2014–2016), he was involved in negoti­a­tions and the early phase of imple­men­tation of the Minsk II agreement. However, the essay is based solely on publicly available sources and repre­sents only the personal view of the author.

[2] Hugo von Essen and Andreas Umland, ‘Why the Minsk Agree­ments Were Doomed to Fail from the Start.’ SIRIUS 2022, 6 (3), 282–292, here 282.

[3] Interview with Angela Merkel. DIE ZEIT 51/​2022. Merkel’s former foreign and security policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, believes that the poor reputation of the Minsk Agreement is unjus­tified. ‘It is as good or bad as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia guaranteed the terri­torial integrity of, among other countries, Ukraine, or the United Nations Charter. ‘Putin has thrown all three out, but that doesn’t make them bad. Putin is bad because he doesn’t respect inter­na­tional law.’ Website ntv, 8.2. 2024, https://www.n‑tv.de/politik/Heusgen-Es-darf-nicht-so-ausgehen-wie-im-Ersten-Weltkrieg-article24720868.html

[4] Henry Foy, Vladislav Surkov: An Overdose of Freedom is lethal to a State. Financial Times, 18 June 2021.

[5] Cf. in particular the video address by the President of the Russian Feder­ation on 24 February 2022, Обращение Президента Российской Федерации, www.kremlin.ru/multimedia/video/by-date/24.02.2022

[6] For an outline of the ‘Kellogg Doctrine’, see Keith Kellogg & Fred Fleitz, America First, Russia and Ukraine, Research Report/​Center for American Security, AFPI (America First Policy Institute), 9 April 2024, https://americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/Research_Report_-Ukraine_Research_GKK.pdf

[7] The Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) included repre­sen­ta­tives of Ukraine and Russia under the aegis of the OSCE, who spoke in this format with the leaders of the Russian-backed and armed ‘separatists’ from Donetsk and Luhansk.

[8] Final Protocol of the Trilateral Contact Group Consul­ta­tions on Joint Actions for the Imple­men­tation of the Peace Plan of the President of Ukraine, P. Poroshenko, and the Initia­tives of the President of the Russian Feder­ation, V. Putin, dated 5 September 2014. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/a/a/123258.pdf. Memorandum for the imple­men­tation of the protocol of the Trilateral Contact Group of 19 September 2014. https://www.osce.org/home/123806

[9] Russia repeatedly denied direct military inter­vention, but this has since been proven by numerous obser­va­tions and research. Relevant https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/ukraine/. The ‘Inter­na­tional Volunteer Community’ Inform­Napalm (founded in March 2014 by a Ukrainian journalist and a Georgian military expert) has maintained a database on the presence of Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014, based on open-source intel­li­gence. https://informnapalm.org/de/regulaere-russische-armee-in-der-ukraine-untersuchung-und-infografik/ Cf. detailed further sources and refer­ences in Sabine Fischer, Der Donbas-Konflikt. Wider­stre­i­tende Narrative und Inter­essen, schwieriger Frieden­sprozess. SWP-Studie 3, February 2019, Berlin, 25.

[10] The chronology of the negoti­a­tions follows the account in Angela Merkel, Freiheit. Cologne 2024, 484f.

[11] Ibid.

[12] On the enigmatic term ‘New Russia’, see Oleksandr Zabirko, Russkij Mir und Novorossija. Theol­o­gische und nation­al­is­tische Konzepte russischer (Außen-)Politik. In: Heinz-Gerhard Justen­hoven (ed.), Kampf um die Ukraine. Ringen um Selbst­bes­timmung und geopoli­tische Inter­essen, Baden-Baden 2018, 63–77: ‘Novorossija [is, inserted by the author] is actually a historical Russian term for the steppe areas north of the Black and Azov Seas, which were incor­po­rated into the Russian Empire in the middle and at the end of the 18th century. But beyond the seemingly harmless geographical branding, this term is now becoming the slogan of a struggle for new political realities – indeed, for military empow­erment.’ Ibid., 63.

[13] Cf. for example Sabine Fischer, l.c. The interests of Russia are well summarised by the former US ambas­sador to Kyiv (1998–2000), Steven Pifer, in Ukrinform of 18 April 2016. https://www.ukrinform. net/rubric-polytics/2002161-pifer-its-in-Russias-interest-to-freeze-conflict-in-donbas.html. Cf. also the above quote from Surkov, according to which the aggression against Ukraine is only one facet of Russia’s geopo­litical confrontation with the West (endnote 4).

[14] Cf. Sabine Fischer, op. cit., 13.

[15] Cf. Angela Merkel, op. cit., 485.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Statement by the Presi­dents of the Russian Feder­ation, Ukraine, and the French Republic and the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in support of the Package of Measures to Implement the Minsk Agree­ments, adopted in Minsk on 12 February 2015. https://www.bpb. de/the­men/eu­ropa/ukraine-analy­sen/201881/­doku­men­tation-das-minsker-abkommen-vom-12-februar-2015/

[18] For details on Putin’s behaviour and playing off the separatists during the Minsk negoti­a­tions, see Merkel, op. cit., 492, who summarises: ‘It was clear that Putin absolutely wanted to conquer Debaltseve, which later happened.’

[19] Cf. e.g. the press statement of the head of the Trilateral Contact Group, Martin Sajdik, of 19 December 2019 (on the TCG meeting in Minsk the previous day): ‘So, the Security Working Group started discus­sions to define three additional disen­gagement areas. ... This year, we have also made progress with regard to the disen­gagement of forces and hardware in Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske, including mine clearance and the removal of forti­fi­ca­tions.’ https://www.osce.org/chairmanship/442552

[20] Article 4 of the Minsk Protocol, which remained in full force and was not replaced by the Minsk II agreement (it is titled ‘Package of Measures for the Imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments’, emphasis added by the authors), reads: ‘Ensuring continuous monitoring on the Ukrainian-Russian state border and verifi­cation by the OSCE, with the creation of a security zone in the border areas of Ukraine and the Russian Feder­ation’. The mandate of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which was set up at an early stage by decision of the OSCE Permanent Council No. 1117 of 21 March 2014, covers the entire territory of Ukraine. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/d/6/116747.pdf

[21] Cf. for example Heiko Pleines (Research Centre for Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen), The Imple­men­tation of the Minsk Agree­ments: What is Possible? In: Ukraine-Analysen 261 (14 February 2022): ‘The requirement that local elections in the ‘people’s republics” should be held according to democ­ratic standards makes their imple­men­tation de facto impos­sible, since the current rulers will not risk an election defeat. At the same time, it has become increas­ingly clear that ‘DNR” and ‘LNR” are dependent on Russia both militarily and econom­i­cally. This also raises the question of the extent to which Ukraine should be obliged to coordinate the consti­tu­tional reform for decen­tral­i­sation with repre­sen­ta­tives of the separatists who lack democ­ratic legitimacy.’

[22] For example, it remains unclear when exactly and for whom the special status law is to be enacted ‘by the end of 2015”: for the de facto rulers, i.e. the separatists, or only for democ­ra­t­i­cally legit­imate repre­sen­ta­tives of local author­ities, who are to be elected in local elections, also to be held by the end of 2015, in accor­dance with a law of Ukraine (which would also have to be agreed with local ‘repre­sen­ta­tives’) and OSCE standards? See package of measures Art. 11 and 9. See also below, footnote 37 (Stein­meier formula).

[23] Cf. Sabine Fischer, Peace Talks Between Russia and Ukraine: Mission Impos­sible. SWP Comment 65, November 2022, 2.

[24] According to UN figures, a total of 3404 civilians lost their lives in Donbas between 14 April 2014 and 31 December 2021, including the 298 people killed when the Malaysian airliner MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014. Cf. Office of the United Nations High Commis­sioner for Human Rights, Conflict related Casualties in Ukraine, 27 January 2022.

[25] https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/service/archiv/gemeinsam-vereinbarte-schlussfolgerungen-des-gipfeltreffens-von-paris-im-normandie-format-1705068

[26] Presen­tation according to Sabine Fischer, Der Donbas-Konflikt. Wider­stre­i­tende Narrative und Inter­essen, schwieriger Frieden­sprozess. Berlin, SWP-Studie 3, February 2019, 11.

[27] ‘Law on the Special Status of Certain Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions (16 September 2014). In: Ukraine-Analysen 136, 17 September 2014, 9f. For further details, see Otto Luchterhand, The Minsk Agree­ments on the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine (Donbas) from the Perspective of Inter­na­tional Law, Scien­tific Contri­bu­tions of the Wismar Institute for Eastern Studies, Ost/​Letter 2/​2019 (December 2019), 32.

[28] Ibid., 41.

[29] Cf. Andreas Umland/​Hugo von Essen, Russia’s Dictated Non-Peace for Ukraine in 2014–2022. Why the Minsk Agree­ments were Doomed from the Start and What Lessons They Teach. Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) 3/​2022, 4.

[30] Cf. Sabine Fischer, op. cit., 20.

[31] The exchange with Mr Sajdik took place on 8 January 2025.

[32] See Otto Luchterhand, op. cit., 34.

[33] On the consti­tu­tional reform, ibid., 44/​45: ‘Obviously drafted in the Kremlin under the direction of Surkov, they [the separatists] demand the inclusion of a Section X(1) on the ‘Legal status of certain districts in Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts’ with a higher status than the ‘Autonomous Republic of Crimea’ (Art. 1391 – Art. 1398) and, furthermore, the insertion of the special status powers they claim in other sections of the consti­tution, as well as the consti­tu­tional anchoring of Ukraine’s neutrality and non-alignment, as demanded by Moscow.’

[34] Sabine Fischer, op. cit., 1.

[35] By mid-2020, Russia had issued almost 200,000 passports to Ukrainians from the ‘people’s republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk. Cf. Fabian Burkhardt, Russia’s ‘Passporti­sation’ of the Donbas, SWP Aktuell 58, June 2020.

[36] Cf. e.g. Otto Luchterhand, Against Inter­na­tional Law. The Escalation of the Conflict in the Sea of Azov. In Osteuropa 1–2/2019, 3–22.

[37]  ‘It is about the question of the sequence between the entry into force of a special status law for the non-government-controlled areas of the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions and the holding of elections. The formula envisages that the special status law will provi­sionally enter into force on the day of the local elections and will become permanent after a positive assessment of the elections by the OSCE election obser­vation mission.’ Federal Foreign Office, Important agreement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, 8 October 2021, www.Auswaertiges-Amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/steinmeierformel/2253700

[38] The latter is claimed by Kristian Åtland, War, Diplomacy, and more War: Why did the Minsk Agree­ments fail? Inter­na­tional Politics, 15 November 2024, 16. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024–00637‑x

[39] A study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) concludes that the EU sanctions against Russia have had an impact (economic wealth has fallen by 1.4%), but that the potential has not been nearly exhausted. The pressure of sanctions could have been signif­i­cantly increased. Cf. Sonali Chowdhry, Julian Hinz, Joschka Wanner and Katrin Kamin, Sanktion­skoali­tionen erhöhen Kosten für Russland, aber Last der Mitglied­sländer sollte verteilt werden. DIW Wochen­bericht 8/​2024.

[40] Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, died in an explosion in a Donetsk restaurant on 31 August 2018. It is still unclear who was respon­sible for the attack. According to Ukrainian sources and the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the attack was preceded by a dispute between Zakharchenko and his Russian superiors, cf. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Wladimirowitsch_Sachartschenko. His death resulted in an even stronger political takeover of the ‘DNR’ by Russia. Cf. Analysis: The Murder of Separatist Leader Zakharchenko and its Conse­quences. Federal Agency for Civic Education/​International, 25 September 2018.

[41] Cf. package of measures Art. 10: ‘Withdrawal of all foreign armed forma­tions, military equipment, and merce­naries from the territory of Ukraine under the super­vision of the OSCE. Disarming all illegal groups.’

[42] The OSCE did maintain an obser­vation mission at the Russian border crossings Gukovo and Donetsk under a separate mandate from the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM); cf. Permanent Council Decision No. 1130, OSCE, 25 July 2014, www.osce.org/pc/121826. However, the section observed by the mission was only a few dozen metres long. See Andreas Umland, Achieve­ments and Limita­tions of the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. Swedish Institute of Inter­na­tional Affairs, UI Report 3/​2021.

[43] Cf. Stefan Meister and Wilfried Jilge, ‘Nach der Ostpolitik. Lehren aus der Vergan­genheit als Grundlage für eine neue Russland- und Osteu­ropa­politik,’ DGAP-Analyse 6/​December 2022, 8.

[44] Kirsten Westphal, Nord Stream 2 – Germany’s Dilemma. SWP Comment 2021/​C 32, 30 April 2021.

[45] Putin summed this up in his essay ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ (Об историческом единстве русских и украинцев), published on 12 July 2021. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181.

[46] Cf. Keith Kellogg & Fred Fleitz, op. cit.

[47] Agreement on Measures to ensure the Security of the Russian Feder­ation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organi­zation of 17 December 2021. https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/?lang=en

[48] http://en.kremlin.ru/acts/news/69516

[49] Angela Merkel, loc. cit., 487.

[50] Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine, Draft as of 4/​15/​2022, Sent to the President of the Russian Feder­ation on April 15, 2022. https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/a456d6dd8e27e830/e279a252-full.pdf

According to the text, Ukraine agreed to be declare ‘permanent neutrality’ while renouncing NATO membership and postponing the clari­fi­cation of the status of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine occupied by Moscow to a later date. Russia signalled its willingness to accept Ukraine’s accession to the EU and openness to direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy. Both sides subse­quently distanced themselves from this. The guarantor states listed – the UK, China, the USA, Belarus and Turkey – were not consulted (except for Russia [!], which is also listed as a guarantor state). The text was also problematic because military support for Ukraine in the event of an attack would have been subject to the consensus of all the guarantor states, including Russia; cf. Art. 5 of the draft. See also Inter­na­tional Crisis Group (author not specified), Toward a Plan B for Ukraine, 25 October 2024, 3. https://www.crisisgroup.org/sites/default/files/2024–10/ukraine-25x24-en.pdf. Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine, Draft as of 4/​15/​2022, Sent to the President of the Russian Feder­ation on April 15, 2022. See also Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, The Talks that Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine (25 April 2024). Foreign Affairs 103/​3 (May/​June 2024).