{"id":70158,"date":"2025-01-31T09:50:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T08:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/10-jahre-abkommen-von-minsk-10-lehren-fuer-verhandlungen-mit-moskau\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T13:55:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T12:55:38","slug":"the-minsk-agreements-10-years-after-10-lessons-learned-for-future-negotiations-with-moscow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libmod.de\/en\/the-minsk-agreements-10-years-after-10-lessons-learned-for-future-negotiations-with-moscow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Minsk Agree\u00adments 10 Years After: 10 Lessons learned for future Negoti\u00ada\u00adtions with Moscow"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Minsk Normandy Talks Feb 2015 Bild: Kreml.ru CC-BY\u20114\u20130<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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On the night of 12 February 2015, the \u2018Package of Measures for the Imple\u00admen\u00adtation of the Minsk Agree\u00adments\u2019, or \u2018Minsk II\u2019 for short, was signed. The agreement was intended to end the war in eastern Ukraine and bring about a political solution to the conflict.<\/h3>\n

The major Russian attack on 24 February 2022 also sealed the end of \u2018Minsk\u2019. The idea that Putin was prepared to reach an arrangement that respected Ukraine\u2019s sover\u00adeignty proved to be a fatal illusion. For him, negoti\u00ada\u00adtions were and are merely the contin\u00adu\u00adation of war by other means.<\/p>\n

What are the lessons to be learnt from the failure of the agreement \u2014 also with a view to renewed negoti\u00ada\u00adtions with Russia on an end to the war in Ukraine? The most important lesson: Europe must do every\u00adthing it can to ensure that Ukraine can negotiate from a position of military strength. And it must be clear what is not up for negoti\u00adation: Ukraine\u2019s sover\u00adeignty and security, including its integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.<\/p>\n

By Johannes Regen\u00adbrecht [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Contents<\/h3>\n

Why talk about Minsk now?<\/a><\/p>\n

Minsk: The background<\/a><\/p>\n

The interests of the conflict parties<\/a><\/p>\n

Minsk II: form and content<\/a><\/p>\n

Imple\u00admen\u00adtation of the Minsk agree\u00adments \u2013 a mixed record<\/a><\/p>\n

Why did the Minsk process fail?<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump and a \u2018Peace Settlement\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Ten Lessons<\/span> from Minsk<\/a><\/p>\n

Why talk about Minsk now?<\/h3>\n

It was 10 years ago \u2013 the long night of Minsk from 11 to 12 February 2015, when the massive, post-Soviet pomp of the presi\u00addential palace in Minsk was the backdrop of a 17-hour negoti\u00ada\u00adtions marathon between Russia and Ukraine on a ceasefire and political settlement. At the negoti\u00adating table sat German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande. As well as the presi\u00addents of Ukraine and Russia, Poroshenko and Putin. In the format of the so-called \u2018Normandy Four\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Minsk Agreement of 12 February 2015, or more precisely the \u2018Package of Measures for the Imple\u00admen\u00adtation of the Minsk Agree\u00adments\u2019 or \u2018Minsk II\u2019 for short, has triggered a great deal of criticism. Critical voices have grown louder since Russia\u2019s brutal, large-scale war of aggression against Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, rendering the Minsk Agree\u00adments obsolete at a stroke. The ceasefire has proven to be extremely fragile. There was no sustainable settlement to restore the sover\u00adeignty and terri\u00adtorial integrity of Ukraine. The Minsk Agree\u00adments have even been described as \u2018a manifes\u00adtation of nihilism of inter\u00adna\u00adtional law and a cover for aggression\u2019[2]<\/a>. While Angela Merkel praised the Minsk II agreement at the end of 2022 as an attempt to \u2018buy Ukraine time to become stronger\u2019[3]<\/a>, in June 2021 Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin\u2019s former commis\u00adsioner for Ukraine (2013\u20132020) and the driving force behind Russia\u2019s negoti\u00adating position in Minsk, blatantly described Minsk as \u2018legit\u00adimising the first partition of Ukraine\u2019 in the wake of \u2018Russia\u2019s first open geopo\u00adlitical counter\u00adattack\u2019 on the West[4]<\/a>. The opposite position to this is President Zelen\u00adsky\u2019s statement in August 2022 that Ukraine had agreed to a de facto<\/em> loss of territory in Minsk and had thus fallen into a trap.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Putin\u2019s latest major offensive against Ukraine has buried the historical analysis and differ\u00aden\u00adtiated evalu\u00adation of the Minsk agree\u00adments. After all, in the light of the Zeiten\u00adwende<\/em> (\u201ctidal shift\u201d) and a funda\u00admen\u00adtally changed geopo\u00adlitical situation in Europe, who should still be inter\u00adested in a conflict settlement that has failed and been surpassed by history?<\/p>\n

Such an attitude fails to recognise that the Zeiten\u00adwende<\/em> had come much earlier \u2013 at the latest in August 2008 with Russia\u2019s attack on Georgia, followed by the illegal annex\u00adation 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 aggres\u00adsions, 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\u2019s quest for hegemony. For him, his current war against Ukraine is just another, albeit crucial, stage in Russia\u2019s continuous political and military escalation against the West.[5]<\/a> In this context, a review of the Minsk Agree\u00adments is also of current relevance, shortly after President Trump took office, who had already announced a \u2018peace deal\u2019 with Putin during his election campaign and appointed former General Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking back at Minsk could provide answers to important questions. Are there any \u2018lessons learned\u2019 from Minsk for future negoti\u00ada\u00adtions to end the war? What conclu\u00adsions can we draw from the weaknesses and misjudge\u00adments, but also from the possible strengths of the Western position in the context of the Minsk Agreement?<\/span> Can Russia\u2019s approach at the time provide clues to Moscow\u2019s future negoti\u00adating strategies?<\/p>\n

Minsk: The background<\/h3>\n

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 \u2018Minsk I\u2019, a ceasefire agreement of 5\u201319 September 2014. The so-called \u2018Minsk Protocol\u2019 (5 September) had been adopted by the OSCE Trilateral Contact Group, chaired by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagli\u00adavini[7]<\/a>, meeting in Minsk. The \u2018Protocol\u2019 was accom\u00adpanied by technical provi\u00adsions for the imple\u00admen\u00adtation of the ceasefire, the \u2018Minsk Memorandum\u2019 of 19 September 2014, which in particular also defined a ceasefire line (\u2018line of contact\u2019).[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

The ceasefire had barely come into force when the so-called \u2018separatists\u2019, in reality Moscow\u2019s henchmen armed, financed and controlled by Russia, launched new waves of attacks with the support of regular Russian units[9]<\/a>. As a result, the front line increas\u00adingly shifted westwards, especially in the area south of Donetsk, away from the contact line estab\u00adlished in Minsk in September. In January 2015, further offen\u00adsives 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 \u2018separatists\u2019 finally managed to capture this important railway and road link between their strong\u00adholds of Donetsk and Luhansk on 18 February 2015 \u2013 three days after the ceasefire came into effect (!). A partic\u00adu\u00adlarly terrible incident was the missile attack on civilians in the port and indus\u00adtrial city of Mariupol on 24 January, which left 29 dead and numerous injured. In response to the dramat\u00adi\u00adcally increasing military pressure from the pro-Moscow separatists, calls grew louder in Brussels and Washington for further sanctions against Russia and for  arms deliv\u00aderies to Kyiv.<\/p>\n

In this context, immediate political action was required. The military escalation had to be stopped, and Moscow\u2019s efforts to gain inter\u00adna\u00adtional recog\u00adnition for the de facto regimes of the so-called separatist \u2018People\u2019s Republics\u2019 of Donetsk and Luhansk and to establish a \u2018direct dialogue\u2019 between Kyiv and the separatists had to be countered. Russia\u2019s agenda would have resulted in the de facto secession of eastern Ukraine under Moscow\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

Merkel and the French President Hollande decided to travel to Kyiv and Moscow at short notice for prelim\u00adinary talks with Poroshenko and Putin. If the talks went well, the four would meet in Minsk soon to agree on an opera\u00adtional package for imple\u00admenting 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 negoti\u00ada\u00adtions was a Franco-German draft that was coordi\u00adnated with Ukraine. Each further step in the negoti\u00ada\u00adtions was to be strictly bound to Kyiv\u2019s consent.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

The entire negoti\u00adation 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\u201312 February. The talks went so quickly because the draft text, drawn up by Germany and France and coordi\u00adnated with Kyiv, was essen\u00adtially based on the Minsk Protocol, which in turn reflected key elements of a \u2018peace plan\u2019 previ\u00adously announced by Poroshenko.[11] <\/a>The most difficult aspect of the agreement, as would later become apparent time and again, concerned the inter\u00adlinking 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 terri\u00adtories. As in Minsk I, Crimea was excluded from the agreement.<\/p>\n

The political settlement focused on:<\/p>\n