What does the 2015 Ukraine peace agreement say?

A peace deal for the never-ending separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine has come back to the fore after Russia moved troops along the country’s border and concerns mounted over a Russian invasion.

Leading officials from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met last week in Berlin to discuss how to implement the agreement signed in 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Here’s a look at the key points of the document and the issues in dispute about its application.

conflict in the east

After Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin president was ousted in February 2014, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and supporting a separatist insurgency in the Donbas region, an industrial zone in the country’s east where most of the population speaks Russian.

Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions fought harsh and devastating battles with the rebels with heavy artillery, armored vehicles and fighter planes.

Ukraine and the West accused Russia of supporting the separatists with troops and weapons. Moscow has denied the accusations, saying any Russian fighting in the conflict was a volunteer.

Amid the fighting, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. An international investigation concluded that the plane had been destroyed by a missile launched from a rebel-controlled area. The weapon, the experts pointed out, came to Ukraine from a military base in Russia, although Moscow flatly denied any involvement in the event.

The leaders of France and Germany began efforts to broker a truce in talks with Russia and Ukraine when they met in Normandy, France, in June 2014, in what became known as the Normandy format.

Battles and negotiations

After a major defeat of the Ukrainian troops in August 2014, representatives of Kiev and the rebels signed a truce in Minsk in September 2014.

The document, called Minsk I, called for a ceasefire supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the withdrawal of foreign fighters, an exchange of prisoners and hostages, an amnesty for insurgents and the promise of that the rebel regions would have a certain degree of autonomy.

The agreement quickly collapsed and full-scale fighting resumed. In January and February 2014, the Ukrainian troops suffered another major defeat in the Battle of Debaltseve.

France and Germany moved quickly to help broker another peace deal, and on February 12, 2015, representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the rebels signed an agreement calling for a new ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact between troops and rebels and clauses for a political solution. The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany signed a statement in support of the deal.

The clauses of the Minsk Agreement

The deal, called Minsk II, included an OSCE-monitored ceasefire, a withdrawal of heavy weapons and foreign fighters from the line of contact, and an exchange of prisoners.

In a major diplomatic achievement for Russia, the document forced Ukraine to grant special status to breakaway regions that would allow them to have their own police and give them the power to appoint prosecutors and judges. It also requires Kiev to offer a blanket amnesty for separatists and negotiate with the rebels the details of holding local elections.

It also stipulates that Ukraine could only regain control of the border with Russia in the rebel regions once they had achieved a degree of autonomy and held OSCE-monitored local elections, elections that would almost certainly keep the pro-Russian rebels in power. region of.

In another achievement for the Kremlin, the text did not include any obligations for Russia, which insists it is not a party to the conflict and describes it as an internal Ukrainian matter.

Many in Ukraine took a dim view of the deal, seeing it as a betrayal of the country’s interests and a blow to its territorial integrity. In practice, widespread dismay has blocked implementation of the agreement.

Moscow and Kiev cross accusations

Although the Minsk agreement helped end major battles, frequent skirmishes have continued, with both sides accusing each other. The two sides have negotiated a long series of truces, but all were quickly broken.

Ukraine has accused Russia of not withdrawing its troops from conflict zones from conflict zones. Moscow has flatly denied it has a presence there and has pointed to the deployment of Western military instructors to Ukraine.

While denying any military involvement in eastern Ukraine, Russia has offered political and economic support to the rebels and given citizenship to more than 700,000 people in the region.

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany expressed support for the Minsk agreement the last time they met, in December 2019 in Paris, but no visible progress has been made.

more conversations

Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelenskyy has pushed for another four-party summit, but the Kremlin says it would do no good unless Ukraine agrees to honor its obligations under the deal.

Amid tensions triggered by the Russian military deployment near Ukraine, France and Germany have intensified their efforts to negotiate more four-way talks in the eastern Ukraine conflict, which they see as a possible way to defuse the crisis.

Representatives of the four countries met on January 26 in Paris, and although no progress was made, they agreed to hold a new meeting in Berlin on Thursday with the aim of agreeing on a common interpretation of the Minsk agreements.

French President Emmanuel Macron tried to revive the Minsk agreement during his visits to Moscow and Kiev, describing it as “the only way to build peace and find a sustainable political solution.”

The pressure on Ukraine

The Ukrainian authorities, pressured by the West to implement the Minsk agreement, have been increasingly critical of the document.

The secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told The Associated Press last week that the agreement had been signed “at the point of a Russian gun” and warned that “compliance with the Minsk agreement means the destruction of the country. ”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba argued that Moscow intends to use the pact to reintegrate rebel regions into Ukraine and use them to block the country’s pro-Western aspirations, saying “this will not happen.”

Zelenskyy was more diplomatic but said he did not like any point in the document, a comment that drew a direct response from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Whether he likes it or not,” Putin joked, citing an explicit passage from Russian folklore. “He has to deliver what he promised.”