January 22, 2016

Proposals to resolve armed conflict in Donbas fail to impress experts

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KYIV – Top U.S. and Russian officials were literally brainstorming on new ways to resolve the armed conflict in Donbas on January 15, as described by Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov.

A solution has yet to emerge from the meeting in Kaliningrad between Mr. Surkov and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the details of which were not made public. Instead, other creative proposals have surfaced in recent weeks to solve the conflict, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) taking control of the Ukrainian side of the occupied border, as well as the United Nations dispatching humanitarian missions and possibly peacekeepers.

They haven’t made Ukrainian political experts any more optimistic. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has yet to propose to the Europeans an alternative to the current plan, which involves local elections in occupied Donbas, followed by de facto autonomy, said Oles Doniy, the head of the Center for Political Values Research in Kyiv.

“OSCE control of the border is not important and how the elections are held and who will control the border is irrelevant,” he said. “The main issue is holding the elections, which will enable amnesty and put the terrorists in charge of the police, prosecution and the courts. Merely fulfilling the elections will put an end to unitary Ukraine.”

Indeed Mr. Poroshenko is widely reported to be leading the work to prepare the conditions for local elections in occupied Donbas. He is also working to cobble together 300 votes (out of 450) in Parliament to approve constitutional amendments, among them a clause that establishes the legal basis to establish “specific procedures for self-governance” in the Donbas region.

Once the constitutional amendment creating the specific procedures is approved, all that’s required is a simple majority of 226 votes in the Verkhovna Rada to approve the corresponding law that establishes its legal framework.

Commonly referred to as the “Donbas special status,” and widely regarded as de facto autonomy, the framework in the occupied Donbas would provide amnesty to most of the Russian-backed terrorists and enable them to occupy law enforcement posts.

Local authorities could also form economic agreements with their counterparts in neighboring Russia, all the while receiving subsidies from Kyiv. Meanwhile, elected officials can’t be removed before their terms are up.

The law’s many critics believe it’s these conditions that will enable the Donbas leadership to foment conflict with Kyiv and stir further internal strife within Ukraine, serving the Kremlin’s ultimate aim of breaking the country up further.

In order for elections to be held, Mr. Poroshenko has set a minimum set of standards that need to be met by the Russian-backed terrorists and the Kremlin itself, which continues to deny its central role in the warfare.

These conditions were reiterated on January 20 by Iryna Herashchenko, the presidential ombudsman for peaceful resolution of the situation in occupied Donbas.They include ensuring the involvement of Ukrainian mass media and political parties, disarming fighters on the territory, removing foreign soldiers and military hardware, allowing OSCE monitors access to the occupied territory and restoring Ukrainian control over the border.

Political experts were divided over whether they think Moscow would abide by these conditions or even attempts at compromise.

The latter include giving control of the border to the OSCE instead of Ukraine, which the president said on January 14 was suggested to him by members of the European Union, and inviting U.N. peacekeepers, an earlier idea that was reiterated by the Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Volodymyr Yelchenko on Ukrainian television on January 7.

Mr. Doniy said the Russians will agree to these proposals because they don’t interfere with the main goal of holding elections and establishing the special status in the Donbas. He pointed out that Russia can influence any peacekeeping mission with its seat at the Security Council.

“The elections could even occur with the presence of Russian soldiers,” he said. “The international community will recognize these elections regardless, because the main thing is that they will be recognized by Russia and Poroshenko, who has done everything Putin has told him to do.”

Indeed, the OSCE has shown itself to be so ineffective in its monitoring missions so far that the Russians would gladly agree to hand over control of the border to that body, other experts said. However, they agreed that the Russians won’t agree to the presence of U.N. peacekeepers, which would significantly reduce its ability to maneuver.

“Peacekeepers would freeze the conflict and draw a line,” said Mykhailo Basarab, a Kyiv political consultant. “For Russia, it’s absolutely critical to resolve the conflict as soon as possible, but only on its own conditions of reintegrating the Donbas back into Ukraine with the specific procedures. The presence of peacekeepers would merely delay the fulfillment of this goal.”

With the current direction of events, the Donbas will become a frozen conflict similar to Transnistria in Moldova, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Mr. Basarab said.

“The Georgians recognize these lands as occupied, maintain their claim to the land, but the negotiations are frozen – all of which is worth considering for Donbas once it’s recognized that reintegration into Ukraine isn’t possible,” he said.

Mr. Basarab said he doesn’t expect the planned elections will be held successfully and agrees with German Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the failure to organize the elections may lead to escalated fighting. However, in Mr. Basarab’s view, that would be a pretext for Moscow to intensify aggression.

Such escalation can prompt the Europeans to exert further pressure on Kyiv, he said. Whether Ukraine emerges from the crisis intact will depend on the firmness of the current government’s resolve.

Mr. Doniy is far more pessimistic, stating that he doesn’t see any resolve on the part of the current government, or those who claim to be in the opposition, given that no alternative plans have been presented to the West other than the Donbas special status.

“Everything Putin has in mind is on track to being implemented,” he said. “Ukraine will be a country without prospects for the future, mired in corruption. The problems will be worsened by the installation of Russian agents.”

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