Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s former president and leader of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group, has presented a roadmap envisaging elections in occupied Donbas by March 31, 2021. While any chance of such elections being free and fair are effectively nil, the anger expressed in Parliament, and any accusations of “capitulation” or “treason” are probably premature, since the prerequisites in the roadmap are also impossible. The initial plan put forward by Russia, via its proxy “Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics” [hereinafter referred to as ORDLO], is equally unrealistic, albeit for different reasons.
The list of “joint steps” presented by Mr. Kravchuk on November 5 followed publication by the pro-Russian Strana.ua of an ORDLO roadmap containing 15 points presented two weeks earlier. These propose adding to Ukraine’s Constitution recognition of “special status” for the so-called “republics” until 2050 and the holding of elections without reinstatement of control over the border with Russia and very vague words about demilitarization.