Prospects for peace negotiations in the Russia-Ukraine War as of the end of March
Wolfgang Zellner has a good analysis of the current state of the political debate in the EU over the Russia-Ukraine War and the prospects for peace negotiations.1
On the one hand, there are loud calls for negotiations as if there had never been any – despite the Minsk agreements, the Istanbul communiqué, the grain agreement and ongoing prisoner exchanges. On the other hand, Western governments have so far agreed that Ukraine alone can and should decide on negotiations. "This assertion is intended to discourage the opponent, but it is inconsistent and obscures differences that are obvious," says Jürgen Habermas, on the other hand. "Above all, it can deceive us about the need to take our own initiatives for negotiations."
Zellner mentions three key current initiatives on the diplomatic front:
The UN General Assembly Resolution of February 23, 20232
China's peace proposal put forward the next day, February 243
An offer by Great Britain, France, and Germany to provide some kind of wider security assurances to Ukraine and encouraging negotiations. 45
We could add just from the last few days Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's invitation to Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping to visit Ukraine6 and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's very public statement7 that the US was willing to accept a peace agreement that didn't immediately return all Russian-occupied territories to Ukraine, as long as Ukraine accepts the deal.
Zellner writes that while Russia currently shows no sign of being willing to enter serious negotiations for peace:
Nevertheless, since Russia's subjugation is ruled out, negotiations remain indispensable for future peace. However, in order for them to have any chance of success, it is necessary to make sure of the agreements that have already been reached – and failed – in particular, the Minsk process and the Istanbul communiqué. Because only if lessons are learned from these mistakes can future negotiations be successful at all.
Much of Zellner’s article analyzes the two past processes, the Minsk Accords and the Istanbul Communiqué proposal, which provide critically important background for negotiations over the current Russia-Ukraine War. Despite the Russia-must-be-crushed rhetoric we hear during the current conflict, particularly from Poland and the Baltic countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union, as well as in the normal hawkish lobbying from arms manufacturers, the West did not just sit idly and passively accept Russia’s 2014 territorial conquests in Crimea and parts of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk).
Minsk Accords
The Minsk Accords include agreements of September 2014 and February 2015, known now as Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, aimed at stabilizing the military situation in Donetsk and Luhansk. They were negotiated by what is called the “Normandy Format”: Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany. They set up a Trilateral Contact Group consisting of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the latter of which was authorized to have a Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) observing the situation. As Zellner rightly notes, “The ceasefire was never fully enforced, however.” Violations on both sides were chronic. “The OSCE’s SMM did not register a single day without violations of the ceasefire, except for a few less in thé fall of 2020.”8 The Minsk Accords did not cover Crimea at all. But, “All participants including Russia recognised the occupied regions of Donbas as belonging to the territory of the Ukrainian state.“9
Zellner writes, “Overall, from a Western perspective, the Minsk process was based on the assessment that Russia was ready to resolve the conflict politically – a fundamental miscalculation, as we have known since February 24, 2022.”
Istanbul Communiqué
Sabine Fischer describes the Ukrainian proposal known as the Istanbul Communiqué:
[U]nder immense military pressure, the Ukrainian side agreed to send a delegation to Gomel in Belarus on 28 February [2002, four days after the new Russian invasion]. Further meetings were held on 3 and 7 March; subsequently the talks continued online. On 10 March the two foreign ministers, Dmytro Kuleba and Sergey Lavrov, met in Ankara. On 29 March the delegations reconvened under Turkish mediation in Istanbul. There the Ukrainian side presented a ten-point “Istanbul Communiqué” outlining conditions for a cease-fire, permanent Ukrainian neutrality and international security guarantees. It also proposed clarifying the status of Crimea within fifteen years. Remaining points of contention were to be resolved at a meeting of the two presidents. The text did not include the Ukrainian demand for Russian forces to withdraw to behind the line of contact as of 23 February 2022.
The Istanbul Communiqué laid out Ukraine’s position and its response to the original Russian ultimatum. The document offered far-reaching concessions. Participants in the talks emphasized that the Communiqué had been pre-agreed by the parties and could have formed the basis for a negotiated settlement.10 [my emphasis]
The Istanbul Communiqué called for formal security guarantees from the standing members of the Security Council (US, Russia, China, Britain, France) as well as from several other countries, including a commitment to take military action against violations.
Zellner and Fischer are relying here on Farida Rustamova’s description of the proposal.11 In the same issue of Blätter, Paul Schäfer cautions, “As of today, we do not have an official, authorized [version] document available.” But he finds the proposal as related by Rustamova to be consistent with other known official Ukrainian statements at the time.12 Schäfer does question the claim made elsewhere, including in a far-right German newspaper, the Ostpreußische Zeitung, that the West in the person of Boris Johnson sabotaged the deal.
Russia refused to enter into peace negotiations at that time. One would hope it goes without saying that in a few years we are likely to know many more details about the negotiations than we do now. Schäfer cites several instances from the relevant time period in which Russia publicly stated its unwillingness to engage in peace negotiations. He also cites a Foreign Affairs article by Fiona Hill and Angela Stent13 that refers to behind-the-scenes diplomatic dealings with Russia. But he agrees with Hill and Stent that their analysis doesn’t support the specific claims that the United States was bent on sinking diplomatic negotiations at that time.
Lessons for current negotiations
Zellner stresses from the failure of the Minsk Accords ceasefire arrangements that a more robust and verifiable set of agreements on the positioning of troops and armaments needs to be established, with third-party monitoring and evenually a UN peacekeeping mission.
He also suggests that an Istanbul Communiqué-style security guarantee would have to be established, noting:
From the point of view of the NATO states, such security guarantees should protect Ukraine militarily as well as possible without automatically drawing NATO into the war in the event of war. Thus, the guarantees raise the same problem as the current arms shipments, namely to maintain the fine line between supporting a combatant and participating in the war.
And he mentions that it would be extremely helpful in arranging such peace agreements if Russia would rescind its suspension on the New START nuclear-arms control agreement.
Another difficult but obviously important factor will be clear signals of what Russian actions will result in the end of which of the sanctions against Russia. Despite all the hype around “targeted” sanctions, the US approach to sanctions reminds a blunderbuss approach of dubious effectiveness, as well as raising serious questions of principle and morality. (In the Democracies vs. Autocracies framework of the New Cold Warriors, the Democracies presumably should worry about matters of principle and morality.)
Zellner also reminds us that the polite diplomatic fiction that only Ukraine will decide over the final peace agreement is mostly just that, a diplomatic fiction:
Undoubtedly, the territorial issues between Russia and Ukraine would have to be negotiated. Because of the fundamental security implications, however, NATO countries would find ways and means to make their voices heard – especially since Ukraine's capabilities to defend and retake its territory depend entirely on the West's willingness to provide continued military support. In all this, one thing is certain: not only the continuation of the war, but also such a comprehensive treaty is unthinkable absent the cooperation of Western states and especially the USA. [my emphasis]
This does not mean that the Ukrainian government is simply some kind of Western puppet regime. It means that there may be real differences between the perceived interest of the US and NATO countries and that of Ukraine. However, one of the previously obvious potential divergences of interest between the US and Ukraine - the goal publicly stated by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of weakening Russia as a key US goal in this conflict14 - seems to be at least downgraded in importance for the moment by Blinken’s new public position on interim territorial concessions.
Zellner, Wolfgang (2023): Frieden in der Ukraine: Der lange Weg zu Verhandlungen. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 04:2023, 87-96. <https://www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2023/april/frieden-in-der-ukraine-der-lange-weg-zu-verhandlungen> (Accessed: 2023-30-03). All translations from the German are mine.
UN General Assembly calls for immediate end to war in Ukraine. UN website 02/23/2023. <https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/02/1133847> (Accessed: 2023-30-03).
China calls for peace talks between Russia. and Ukraine. Le Monde 02/24/2023. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/china/article/2023/02/24/china-presents-peace-talks-proposal-to-end-the-conflict-in-ukraine_6017073_162.html> (Accessed: 2023-30-03).
France, Germany, and U.K. doubt Ukraine’s total victory: WSJ. TVP World. 02/24/2023. <https://tvpworld.com/66571628/france-germany-and-uk-doubt-ukraines-total-victory-wsj> (Accessed: 2023-30-03). TVP (TV Polonia is partially funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The article includes this obviously editorial comment, “Fortunately, other Ukrainian allies see Kyiv winning the war and Russia fully retreating from the country as the only possible outcome.” (my italics)
Pancevski, Bojan & Norman, Laurence (2023): NATO’s Biggest European Members Float Defense Pact With Ukraine. Wall Street Journal 02/24/2023. <https://www.wsj.com/articles/natos-biggest-european-members-float-defense-pact-with-ukraine-38966950?mod=e2tw> (Accessed: 2023-30-03). The WSJ article is behind subscription as of this writing.
Sforza, Lauren (2023). Ukraine’s Zelenskyy: Any Russian victory could be perilous. The Hill 03/29/2023. <https://thehill.com/policy/international/3923501-zelensky-invites-chinas-xi-to-visit-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2023-30-03).
Blinken, Anthony (2023): Secretary Antony J. Blinken Virtual Conversation on “Russia’s War on Ukraine: One Year Later” With Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. US State Department website 02/23/2023. <https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-virtual-conversation-on-russias-war-on-ukraine-one-year-later-with-jeffrey-goldberg-of-the-atlantic/> (Accessed: 2023-28-03).
In: Heinemann-Grüder, A & Crawford, C. and Peters, T.B., Lehren aus dem Ukrainekonflikt: Krisen vorbeugen, Gewalt verhindern, 2022, 105. Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich. (my translation from the German.) The exact date for that statement is not given; although the official publication year is 2022, the book was published on December 13, 2021. <https://shop.budrich.de/produkt/lehren-aus-dem-ukrainekonflikt/> (Accessed: 2023-30-03).
Fischer, Sabine (2022): From the Minsk Agreements to the Russian Invasion. Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) 08-Nov-2022, German original 28-Oct-2022. <https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/peace-talks-between-russia-and-ukraine-mission-impossible> (Accessed: 2023-30-03).
Ibid.
Rustamova, Farida (2022): Ukraine's 10-point plan. Faridaily 03/29/2022. <https://faridaily.substack.com/p/ukraines-10-point-plan> (Accessed 2023-30-03).
Schäfer, Paul (2023): Die Johnson-Legende: Wie der Westen angeblich einen Friedensvertrag verhinderte. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 04:2023, 97-106. <https://www.blaetter.de/ausgabe/2023/april/die-johnson-legende> (Accessed 2023-30-03). The translation from the German is mine.
Hill, Fiona & Angela Stent, Angela (2022): The World Putin Wants. Foreign Affairs 101:5, 101-122.
Sabbagh, Dan & Livingstone, Helen (2022): US pledges extra $713m for Ukraine war effort and to weaken Russia. The Guardian 04/25/2022. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/us-diplomats-to-return-to-ukraine-and-fresh-military-aid-unveiled-after-blinken-visit> (Accessed 2022-21-12).