by Alexander Semchenko
[REGNUM] The negotiations on Ukraine and the conditions for ending the military conflict have very symbolically become one of the main topics on the news agenda for the 10th anniversary of the "Second Minsk Agreements". And they are somewhat similar to the current situation, only now, instead of the heads of European powers, Donald Trump is on the front pages, persistently talking about the desire to stop the war by seating Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky at the negotiating table.
The US president is threatening new sanctions against Russia and the end of US aid to Ukraine if they leave the negotiating table without signing an agreement that Trump could present to the Nobel Committee as a decisive argument for awarding the peace prize. But just like ten years ago, foreign-sponsored military formations under the Ukrainian flag are in continuous retreat. Only in 2014-15 they were beaten by militias from the still unrecognized republics of Donbas, and now the Russian army is advancing.
And in this permanent defeat, which threatens the West with the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the war, the same reason for peace initiatives can be traced: Ukraine needs a respite, which will certainly be used to strengthen its military potential. In the same way, after the heavy defeats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Ilovaisk, Izvarino and Debaltseve, Petro Poroshenko, who had settled in Kiev, suddenly developed a burning desire to negotiate, rather than crush the rebellious people's republics with shells, bombs and missiles.
The successes of the Donetsk and Luhansk militias near Debaltseve led to the signing of the “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements” on February 12, 2015. But it did not bring peace because neither the ideology of war nor its active supporters had disappeared in Kiev, and the situation itself did not contribute to a change in the course of post-Maidan Ukraine. It only gained time to reorganize the paramilitary formations under its control and reformat the consciousness of the majority of the Ukrainian population towards greater radicalism.
And this is exactly the case when a good knowledge of history allows you not to repeat mistakes when its wheel makes its next turn.
FALSE TRUCE
The "second Minsk" received a serial number because the first peace plan failed - neither Ukraine nor those who stand behind it were going to make peace. On June 27, 2014, an agreement on a ceasefire and political settlement of contradictions between Donbass and the Kyiv regime was signed in Donetsk.
In particular, the discussion was about a ceasefire, as well as amnesty and protection of the rights of the Russian-speaking population. However, literally a few days later, the "patriots of Ukraine" as part of the volunteer battalions resume military operations, and on July 17, the Malaysian Boeing flight MH-17 crashes in the skies over Donetsk Oblast. Accusations are immediately made against Russia and the Donetsk rebels, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the "volunteers" increase their pressure.
Amnesty and the Russian language immediately fall off the agenda.
This technique was subsequently used many times, as it worked flawlessly, until 2022, when the Istanbul agreements were followed by a provocation in Bucha. Zelensky's regime used it as an excuse not to fulfill its obligations.
While openly crying over the victims of the air crash, Kyiv's armed forces did not hesitate to choose their targets and means of destruction. For example, in August 2014, a ballistic missile "Tochka-U" with a cluster warhead was launched at the Kirovsky district of Donetsk. Even earlier, similar missiles hit Lugansk, Snezhnoye, Shakhtyorsk.
However, at the end of August, military fortune turns away from Kiev, and as a result of several defeats, the nationalist army actually falls apart. The Izvarinsky and Ilovaisk cauldrons force Poroshenko to seek salvation in negotiations. On September 5, the first Minsk agreements were signed, which received a very remarkable official name : "Protocol on the results of consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group regarding joint steps aimed at implementing the Peace Plan of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and the initiatives of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin."
The People's Republics were very skeptical about this protocol; the June "peace" was enough for them to understand who they were dealing with. But Moscow, on whose support Donetsk and Lugansk relied, had a different opinion. As a result, the DPR and LPR stopped their offensive operations, and even the process of liquidating the People's Militia began. Some of the volunteers were disarmed, but most joined the newly created People's Militia.
This is fully consistent with the letter of the "Protocol...", which provides for decentralization in the sphere of public order protection - Russia, which controlled the implementation on its part, acted scrupulously. But Kyiv again distinguished itself with a "creative" approach. Instead of withdrawing troops, the Ukrainian Armed Forces occupied the territory of the Donetsk airport, which was actively used to strike directly at the capital of the DPR.
The militias were forced to engage in armed confrontation, regaining control of the airport only in January 2015, while Ukraine was actively promoting the myth of “cyborgs” and “heroic defense,” which in principle should not have happened.
Needless to say, the Ukrainian side did not even try to fulfill the points of the agreement on amnesty for the participants in the conflict and the release of hostages.
The situation with the eighth point of the Protocol, “Take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Donbass,” looks most mocking: from December 1, 2014, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, stopped paying pensions to residents of territories not controlled by Kiev.
And just after getting out of the cauldrons, the remnants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and national battalions again tried to organize an offensive on the DPR and LPR.
It all started again with a provocation. On January 22, 2015, at a checkpoint in the Volnovakha district, passengers of a scheduled bus rushed into a roadside shelter to take cover from a sudden Grad strike on a nearby field. A directional mine went off in the bushes, literally riddling both the people and the car.
Poroshenko immediately took a piece of bus paneling to Davos, Switzerland, telling about the treachery of the Donetsk militia - the tag Je suis Volnovakha was widely promoted on all social networks. And this became the basis for once again whipping up the militaristic hysteria.
The then head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, responded quite decisively. In particular, the DPR People's Militia launched a missile strike on the headquarters of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in Kiev-controlled Kramatorsk. In addition, two offensive operations were launched - Mariupol and Debaltseve, and the success of the latter again forced Poroshenko to ask for negotiations.
In fact, during the course of 24 hours of consultations, in which, in addition to the Ukrainian president, the presidents of Russia and France, as well as the chancellor of Germany, took part, the aforementioned “Complex…” was developed and signed on February 12, 2015.
"WORKING SCHEME" FOR PROVOCATIONS
The agreement stipulated that by the end of 2015 the war would cease, and Ukraine's sovereignty over Donetsk and Lugansk would be restored with some reservations. Donbass would retain preferences in the socio-cultural sphere, as well as in the sphere of public order protection. But the Ukrainian side did not want to agree even to such a trifle as the "right to linguistic self-determination".
From the first days after the signing of the "Complex..." it was clear that the regime that came to power as a result of the coup d'etat on February 22 and legitimized in the elections on May 25, 2014, was not interested in implementing it. The peace treaty was simply an opportunity to continue doing what "Maidan stood for."
After the start of the SVO, this was confirmed by the participants in the 2015 negotiations.
"The Minsk agreement of 2014 was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It also used this time to become stronger, as we can see today. The Ukraine of 2014-15 is not today's Ukraine. As we saw during the fighting in the Debaltseve area in 2015, Putin could have easily won then. And I very much doubt that NATO countries would have been able to do as much as they are doing now to help Ukraine," former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was an active participant in the negotiation process on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2015,told Die Zeit in December 2022
Her words were confirmed by former French President François Hollande, who, like Merkel, participated in the Minsk talks in February 2015. “Yes, Merkel is right. The Minsk agreements stopped the Russian offensive for a while,” he said in an interview with the Kyiv Independent. According to him, it was important “to know that the West would take advantage of this respite.” In December 2022, he acknowledged the success of this strategy, emphasizing that “the Ukrainian army is now not at all what it was in 2014, it is better equipped and trained - and this is due to the Minsk agreements.”
Their very essence was fundamentally at odds with Kyiv's new political agenda. Opponents from the nationalist camp blamed Poroshenko for literally every point - from the withdrawal of troops to the special status of rebellious regions, which "contradicts the constitution" - which was subsequently "put on hold" without any embarrassment.
And in order to block the very possibility of changing something, the puppeteers again resorted to murder according to the working scheme.
On August 31, 2015, members of the Verkhovna Rada gathered for an extraordinary session to amend the constitution to implement the Minsk agreements. A protest of "patriots" gathered in the street in front of the parliament, during which a representative of the Nazi party "Svoboda" threw a grenade at the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers. Four National Guardsmen were killed.
No one was held accountable for the murder, but the incident served as a pretext for removing the issue of special status from the Verkhovna Rada's agenda altogether.
The second thing that opponents of Minsk in Ukraine categorically opposed was holding free elections outside the control of Kiev, which was proposed in 2016 by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. A plebiscite under the control of the OSCE was to be held before the transfer of the territory of Donbass to the control of the armed forces of the Kiev regime. And this was the problem - the elections guaranteed that the Nazis would not gain any influence in the local governments of the regions outside their control.
Moscow assumed that the actual return of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the political life of Ukraine would fundamentally change it, restoring the balance lost in 2014. Without Crimea, the influence of the “Russian” party, of course, would not have reached the pre-Maidan level, but it would have threatened the political monopoly of the nationalists. Therefore, they talked about the need to limit civil rights in the uncontrolled territories after their inclusion in the orbit of the Kyiv authorities.
It is this narrative that has become one of the main ones in discussing the prospects for Ukraine's post-war development. And the demonization of Donbass residents, their dehumanization, has become mainstream in the media. A huge number of experts in various fields have started talking about the same thing: "Donbass needs gallows, not schools."
Incitement of hostility and hatred became the norm, any appeals to the inadmissibility of propaganda of discrimination were interpreted as "Kremlin narratives". The information war against Donbass became part of a large psychological special operation aimed at preparing Ukrainian society for war against Russia.
The Minsk agreements were initially based on the shaky foundation of unresolved fundamental problems. That is why Kyiv had no intention of implementing them, and Donbass, although it did so with gritting teeth, did not want to end up under the rule of people who had carried out a coup d'état and were guided by greed and hatred.
So, conditional new peace agreements are possible only when we clearly understand that we will not have to repeat them in another ten years.
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