On Tuesday, Ukraine announced a key agreement with eastern separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk. Under the deal, there will be troop withdrawals from two locations, and snap local elections for the eastern areas.
The local election is meant to be the beginning of a normalization of the region, ending years of strife. This is not the first time local elections were proposed as a way to resolve the situation, and it may still face the same problem as before.
Former President Poroshenko reneged on the promise of local elections, claiming they were conditional on a full disarmament and surrender to the government beforehand. The separatists rejected this, suspecting that after they were taken over, the elections would be canceled anyhow.
Zelensky seems to be demanding less, allowing all candidates to run and the OSCE to certify the vote. He is, however, conditioning the vote on control over the Ukraine-Russian border.
It will not work if it violates Minsk agreement. The elections are nice, but elections for what? The existing functions established by Donetsk and Luhansk? Or pre-Maidan rules?
Minsk agreement calls for a constitutional change to protect of the inhabitants’ rights and regional autonomy. The problem under Poroshenko was inability of Parliament to pass needed change. They felt that other regions will want the same, which was an excuse. Europe is full of special minority status regions. Any example would do. Without such guarantees — giving them control of the border would be dangerous.
It remains to be seen just who controls him. He had a mentor, a tycoon that ran into trouble with previous president — and went into exile to Israel,
Very interesting.
Hmmm….
One needs to read foreign newspapers to realize that this is a 100% sham agreement from Russia. Yes, there might be elections on autonomy in East Ukraine but the issue of the location of the border between Ukraine and Russia has not been resolved and it is always border issues which trigger wars. Zelinski’s government demands that the rebels of Eastern Ukraine accept Ukraine’s borders with Russia “as before” which means that the Ukrainian armed forces must be allowed to enter Eastern Ukraine unopposed. The rebels have already answered with a loud NO WAY.
Hence there is no viable agreement and protest marches against Zelenski have already started in Kiiv.
What will President Trump do now on the border issue? Support Zelinski? Support Putin? Stay neutral?
This is a huge step forward, they will take it, it will bring much good, and Putin doesn’t want war. If that means pushing the border issue aside for a while, it’s worth it to the people who need stability so they can rebuild.
Luhansk and Donetsk are independent republics. Their elections shouldn’t be any of Kiev’s goddamn business. I don’t like the smell of this.
Ukraine is the key to everything that’s happened in the past five years geopolitically. From NATO’s heightened aggression to Russiagate, Ukrainegate, Trump impeachment etc.