By Brooklyn Collard, international liaison officer at AISP/SPIA, Master’s student in Political Science at Lumière Lyon 2 University, under the supervision of AISP/SPIA President Laurent Attar-Bayrou.
On July 22, 2020, Ukraine and Russia signed a new ceasefire agreement to take effect on July 27. For six years now, the war in Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine where the regular army is fighting Russian-backed separatist forces, has caused 13,000 deaths and more than 30,000 injuries. The last ceasefire, provided for in the Minsk agreements of February 2015, was never fully respected. How should we view this umpteenth ceasefire? Does it really mark the end of the war? Let’s examine the complex geopolitical issues and national and international political manoeuvring to understand the challenges of resolving the Ukrainian conflict.
Donbass is a Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine. It comprises two oblasts (provinces): Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast. These territories have been self-proclaimed autonomous regions since 2014 and have received support from Russia ever since[3]. In this context, the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are claimed by Ukraine and not recognized by the international community. On Europe’s eastern border, their armed groups have been fighting the Ukrainian regular army since that date. Until 2014, Ukraine had been a peaceful country with no armed conflict on its territory since World War II.
However, it is the country’s internal divisions and tensions, inherited from its historical path, that are now fuelling the war in Donbass, through the actions of national and international actors.
Anna Colin Lebenev and Ioulia Shukan’s work emphasises how Ukraine’s understanding of 20th-century history is split between a rather repressive view of the USSR on the one hand, and a rather heroic interpretation of the Soviet past on the other [4]. The west of the country is marked by a rural imprint, while the east and southeast are home to the large industries that date back to the Soviet era. Over time, political actors have taken advantage of this social and electoral divide and seized upon it. As a result, there is still a split within Ukraine between those who support a Ukraine oriented towards the Russian-speaking part of the country and its Soviet past, and those who are particularly attached to liberal and Western values and oriented towards Europe.
The Orange Revolution in 2004 crystallised this divide by bringing the pro-Western camp to power. Following the announcement of the results of the second round of the presidential election in November 2004, a series of political demonstrations broke out across the country. Participants denounced Viktor Yanukovych’s electoral fraud. These upheavals led to the Supreme Court annulling the election and organizing a new one in December of the same year in favour of Viktor Yushchenko. The Orange Revolution marked Ukraine’s rapprochement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
In November 2013, in Kiev and many other cities across Ukraine, citizens mobilised to protest President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the association agreement with the EU, which symbolically turned him away from Europe and closer to Russia. Gradually, the protests turned into broader criticism of the government, denouncing corruption and violence against protesters. These protests are perceived in the East, through images conveyed by the Russian media, as a nationalist and repressive movement.
As a result, counter-revolutionary groups, taking the form of counter-mobilizations and self-defense groups, were formed and supported by local authorities. After the victory of the Maidan revolution, marked by the flight of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, the society remained in a state of insurrection with the loss of the monopoly of legitimate violence by state institutions.
Russian intervention plunged Ukraine into a lasting conflict[8]. In March 2014, Russia carried out a military operation to annex Crimea. Armed groups, led by Russian figures, supported and carried out occupations of public buildings in the east and south, encouraging secessionist movements. Russia supplied the separatist forces with modern weapons such as drones and jamming devices. In April 2014, the authorities in Kiev launched an anti-insurgency campaign in the legal form of an anti-terrorist operation[10]. Since then, Ukraine has been at war since 2014, with separatist troops from the self-proclaimed autonomous republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the Russian army, sometimes opposing Ukrainian forces.
In an article published in 2017, Céline Marangé looks back at how the seizure of Crimea and its annexation to the Russian Federation was perceived, as early as March 2014, as a challenge to the international order[11]. From Russia’s point of view, these operations are aimed at containing NATO’s expansion. From the perspective of Europe and the West more broadly, Moscow’s manoeuvres threaten the principles of international law and relations between states by deviating from the 1975 Helsinki Conference, which affirmed the inviolability of borders, respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the non-use of threats and force.
Talks have so far failed to end the conflict in Ukraine. In September 2014, the Minsk Protocol, which provided for an immediate ceasefire, was not respected. Similarly, the Minsk II agreements, concluded in February 2015 between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President François Hollande, did not lead to a quick solution to the conflict. Nevertheless, these talks provided an opportunity to agree on reducing the use of heavy weapons. Although they did not participate directly in the negotiations, the self-proclaimed leaders of the secessionist territories of Donbass, Alexander Zakharchenko for the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Igor Plotnitski for the Popular Republic of Lougansk (LNR) were present and consulted in Minsk[13]. In eastern Ukraine, a new ceasefire was implemented in July 2020. Since the early elections in July 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky’s party has held an absolute majority in Parliament. However, the bill proposing greater autonomy for Donbass continues to crystallise opposition.
Many points of disagreement remain between the two countries. Although the Normandy format quadripartite negotiations in December 2019 did not resolve the conflict, they did bring about some major advances, such as several prisoner exchanges between Kiev and Moscow. Although dialogue between Russia and Ukraine and the political will to move forward in resolving the conflict seem to have been restored since the election of Volodymyr Zelensky, disagreements persist and prolong the conflict.
On the military front, the Minsk II agreements provide for a ceasefire, the creation of a demilitarized zone, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, monitoring of the ceasefire, and compliance with the demilitarization of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
On the political front, the agreements stipulate that a resolution on the special status of Donbass must be approved by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s unicameral parliament, within 30 days. They also provide for an amnesty law prohibiting any legal proceedings against those involved in the events in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk. On the humanitarian front, they envisage prisoner and hostage exchanges as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid. Control of the Russian-Ukrainian border remains the sticking point in discussions between Kiev and Moscow. The Minsk II agreements specify that the border will only be returned to Ukraine after local elections have been held in the regions concerned, which must take place after the adoption of constitutional reform. Once this has been done, the principle of decentralisation can be adopted in the Ukrainian Constitution, which would recognize a special status for the separatist entities. These clauses have been contested in Ukraine.
There is further disagreement over the order of the measures[16]. For Russia, the law on the special status of Donbass and constitutional reform are prerequisites for the demilitarisation of the region. They also refuse to relinquish control of the borders until an amnesty decree has been adopted. In this context, the Ukrainian authorities defend the opposite positions, considering that the reintegration of Donbass into Ukraine can only take place after demilitarisation and a return to civil peace.
The war has profoundly destabilized Ukraine. Trade and economic exchanges, which were focused on Russia, have had to be redirected. The economic crisis has caused a 35% devaluation of the national currency. Although the situation is stable today, the structural reforms and austerity policies recommended by Ukraine’s international lenders have led to a collapse in living standards. From a health and humanitarian perspective, the situation is alarming in certain regions of the country. The authorities in Kiev have been unable to restore state services and build the necessary infrastructure in the territories recaptured by the Ukrainian army. The population is sometimes deprived of water, electricity, or heating.
The institutional reforms undertaken by President Volodymyr Zelensky are facing internal resistance. This is particularly the case with the anti-corruption law, which is causing serious political and social tensions in the country. Last October, the Ukrainian newspaper Uagolos reported that the Constitutional Court of Ukraine had denied the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) access to the state registers required for special checks on the declarations of candidates for senior positions[19]. The appointment of candidates, and more specifically the chairpersons of oblast councils and their deputies, is only possible after these special inspections have been carried out.
It should be added that the war in Donbass is also an opportunity for the Ukrainian authorities to rebuild an effective defence apparatus and transform its armed forces by adapting to Western standards[20]. Céline Marangé points out that the country receives $60 million in military aid per year in addition to the assistance provided by NATO. American, British, and Canadian advisers are present on the ground to train troops and develop defence cooperation.
In short, this umpteenth ceasefire merely reflects the difficulties encountered by the states in the negotiations. However, it signals their shared desire to engage in a lasting peace process. This ceasefire could be an opportunity, if not to resolve the conflict, then to continue efforts to disengage the armed forces and to take greater account of the civilian population’s wishes regarding the outcome of the conflict in the talks, as well as their social and humanitarian needs.
Footnotes
[1] Agence France Presse, « Un nouveau cessez-le-feu précaire en Ukraine », Mediapart, [en ligne], https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/fil-dactualites/270720/un-nouveau-cessez-le-feu-precaire-en-ukraine. Consulté le 04 novembre 2020.
[2] Bruillot, Claude. Donbass : les difficiles retraits conjoints des troupes ukrainiennes et des séparatistes pro-russes, Le reportage de la rédaction, France Culture, 11 novembre 2020, 5 min.
[3] Sintes, Fabienne. Donbass. Une guerre qui dure malgré la reprise des pourparlers. Un jour dans le monde. France Inter, 11 mars 2020, 41 min.
[4] Colin Lebedev, Anna, et Ioulia, Shukan. « Introduction », Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest, vol. 2, no. 2, 2018, p. 7-20.
[5] Colin Lebedev, Anna, et Ioulia, Shukan., op cit., p. 7-20.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gacon, Julie. Dans le Donbass, comment vit la population civile ? Les enjeux internationaux, France Culture, 25 septembre 2020, 11 min.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Colin Lebedev, Anna, et Ioulia, Shukan., op cit., p. 7-20
[10] Ibid.
[11] Marangé, Céline. « Radioscopie du conflit dans le Donbass », Les Champs de Mars, vol. 29, no. 1, 2017, p. 13-29.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ledroit, Valentin, « Guerre en Ukraine : où en est l’Union européenne ? », Toute l’Europe, [en ligne], https://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/guerre-en-ukraine-ou-en-est-l-union-europeenne.html. Consulté le 15 novembre 2020.
[15] Marangé, Céline., op cit., p. 13-29.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Petrenko, Andriy, « La décision du CCU paralyse le travail des gouvernements locaux nouvellement nommés », Uagolos, [en ligne], https://uagolos.com/rishennia-ksu-paralizuie-robotu-novopryznachenykh-orhaniv-mistsevoho-samovriaduvannia/. Consulté le 03 novembre 2020.
[20] Marangé, Céline., op cit., p. 13-29.
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