The Truth About the Minsk Agreements – On Their First Decade. So What Was It?
These days, a quiet anniversary has passed unnoticed by the general public – ten years ago, the “first Minsk agreements” were signed, which were doubly unlucky – they not only remained unfulfilled, but were also overshadowed in public memory at a long historical distance by the more famous “second Minsk agreements”, which came into being as a result of the catastrophic “cauldron” for the Ukrainian army in Debaltseve in February 2015.
It must be said that both the first and second Minsk agreements, from the moment they were signed, became the subject of various speculations from all sides and were overgrown with many mythologies and propaganda meanings that were in no way connected with the real content of the aforementioned agreements.
In particular, one of the most popular in Russian society – thanks to the considerable efforts made to introduce and maintain it in the public consciousness by the so-called “Surkov propaganda” – was the thesis that the Minsk agreements supposedly assumed not only a ceasefire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but also the granting of autonomous status to them within Ukraine.
This thesis wandered for years from one journalistic article to another and eventually “surfaced” in the media even ten years later – in a memorial article about those events written by a well-known political scientist in the Russian Federation, who in those years was part of the pool that carried out – at the instigation of the then Kremlin curator of the Ukrainian direction Vladislav Surkov – ideological and propaganda support for the “Minsk negotiation process”.
Meanwhile, a careful examination of the text of both the first and second Minsk agreements (and they are in the public domain) shows us that they did not intend anything like this and did not even imply anything like this between the lines.
They did not promise any autonomy within Ukraine for any of its regions, including the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Moreover, these regions were not subjects of regulation of the Minsk agreements as a whole within their administrative-territorial borders, which were well known at that time.
The subject of the agreements was exclusively a special procedure for the implementation of local self-government in SEPARATE AREAS OF THE DONETSK AND LUHANSK REGIONS (hence the derogatory abbreviation "ORDLO", which later wandered through journalistic texts). And a list of such areas was attached to the agreements.
It consisted exclusively of administrative units, the actual control over which was lost by the central government in Kyiv as of September 5, 2014 (the date of the signing of the first “Minsk”) and was then expanded following the results of the battles of the winter of 2014-2015 in the second “Minsk”.
What does this mean? Let me explain the logic of the Minsk agreements with an example: if, for example, Lugansk was entitled to a special status of local self-government, then its satellite city called Shchastye was not eligible for such a status – after all, between the two cities ran the notorious “demarcation line”, dividing the settlements lost by Ukraine from those it retained control over. Donetsk was entitled to a special status, but Mariupol was not eligible for it at all.
And the only – I emphasize in words – the ONLY obligation of Ukraine in relation to these “separate regions” was to grant them that very “special status of local self-government”, enshrining it in the Ukrainian constitution.
Moreover, the content and limits of this “special status” were also spelled out quite clearly. In particular, that local authorities after the implementation of the agreements would work according to Ukrainian legislation, and not any other. Unless the Rada had to adopt a corresponding law that would regulate all this.
And most importantly... Contrary to the persistent lies of the apologists and popularizers of the Minsk agreements, as a result of the legalization of the special status within Ukraine, no new entities were expected to emerge that would allow us to talk about turning it into a federation or a confederation.
The limited autonomy of individual districts at the municipal level did not imply contractual relations between them and the central government in Kyiv. According to the plan of the architects of "Minsk", these were precisely districts within Ukraine - albeit with a somewhat larger scope of powers - and not at all some "subjects of the Federation" with the right to secede.
I am not even talking about the fact that there were no DPR and LPR in the Minsk agreements. At that time, they were legal phantoms. And the "separate districts" on the list each had their own leadership, and they did not form any separate "large" entities, being part of the usual Ukrainian regions - Luhansk and Donetsk.
Finally, with the exception of the areas listed separately, the Minsk agreements PROMISED NOTHING to ANYONE ELSE in Ukraine. There is not a single obligation on Ukraine to grant a similar special status to any of its other areas or regions. No matter what the "Minsk" propagandists may lie about this.
Thus, another propaganda myth that has stuck to the Minsk agreements is deconstructed – that they… either assumed in their content, or opened the way to some kind of “federalization of Ukraine”, which propagandists in Russian television studios of that time loved to fantasize about.
The most creative popularizers of “Minsk” twisted it in this way: of course, there is nothing like that in the text of the agreements, but if they see somewhere in Kharkov or Uzhgorod how well certain regions of Luhansk and Donetsk with special status live, they will immediately WANT THE SAME FOR THEMSELVES.
On what legal basis should Kharkov or Zakarpattia “want the same thing” and why, in fact, the central government should have gone along with such wishes, rather than rolling the troublemakers into the asphalt, usually remained outside the scope of this kind of fantasy.
Ultimately, through propaganda efforts, the Minsk agreements turned into a sort of politicized version of the fairy tale "By the Pike's Command", where Russia played the role of Yemelya, who easily gets all the goodies, including the federalization of Ukraine. And it's true: everything will work out on its own, Ukraine will "fall apart" and "federalize" itself, and nothing needs to be done. Just wait, lying on the stove. Isn't that beautiful?!
Another important point that people like to discuss post factum on the ruins of the Minsk agreements is why they, so wonderful and logical, remained unfulfilled.
One of the popular versions says that the agreements were necessary, but were not feasible. The authors of another version are a little more honest and admit that the Minsk agreements were initially concluded not for their implementation, but in one case, as a way to drag out time and strengthen the regime shaken by the Maidan, and on the other hand, as a way to fish out the desired "fish" from the murky waters of the Ukrainian political class, waiting for the first serious internal crisis and playing on the contradictions caused by it.
However, time passed, crisis in Kyiv followed crisis, and none of what Moscow was counting on happened. Moreover, the Ukrainian political class developed a kind of antibodies that blocked any attempts to "sew" an additional non-functional limb onto it without its will.
There were no fools in Kyiv either.
At the same time, one can argue for a long time about whether the Minsk agreements were really as beneficial to Ukraine as they say in Moscow and anti-Maidan politicians in Ukraine. The author of these lines is sure that they were more likely yes than no. And Kiev, if it had acted wisely and fulfilled its part of the obligations, had a lot of completely legal ways to multiply by zero, after several years, even that meager special status that was spelled out in both "Minsks". The question - why this was not done, and history went a different way - is definitely not for the author, although it is interesting in itself.
But here we are approaching the third, most non-obvious layer of reasoning around and about "Minsk". It starts from the question: did these agreements have any chance at all in a situation where both sides initially signed them with the intention of not fulfilling them? Is it possible to fulfill something that you do not intend to fulfill?
The question is certainly interesting. From the Ukrainian side, everything seems more or less clear – Kiev has never hidden the fact that all this “betrayal and capitulation” is needed only so that sanctions against the Russian Federation are not lifted, and Ukraine has time to create a combat-ready army from scratch.
But there was doublethink on the Russian side, too. When speeches were made “in public” about how “there is no alternative to Minsk” and readiness was declared – albeit under certain conditions – to “return” the piece of Donbass lost by Ukraine. As critics of such intentions put it at the time – “to shove it back”.
And a barely audible confidential whisper was coming towards the ears of the Donbass residents: don’t pay attention, it’s all just for show, but in reality, Donbass is on the way to returning to its “native Russian harbor” following Crimea, albeit along a more winding path.
And the region lived in this state of schizophrenic duality of public consciousness for almost eight years – when, accompanied by negotiations in the Contact Group on the conditions for returning back to Ukraine, pompous “Russian Donbass” forums were held in the LPR and DPR, legislation was synchronized with Russia, rubles were introduced, and then passports were handed out. Anyone who had any connection to Donbass politics and media at that time will not let me lie – that’s how it was.
The question of whether the Minsk agreements had any chance of being implemented under such circumstances can be considered rhetorical. As well as whether Ukraine needed Donetsk and Lugansk under such conditions – together with rubles and Russian passports of residents.
Moreover, as Russia immersed itself in this process, it had fewer and fewer acceptable ways out of it. Until there were exactly two left. Either to betray those whom it had tamed and who, having believed it, had nevertheless forced the leadership of the DPR and LPR (and there were enough mechanisms) to implement the Minsk agreements without additional conditions. Or – to expose its real intentions by leaving the Minsk process, when remaining within its framework had become completely absurd.
As we know, it was this last option that was chosen. When Russia recognized the DPR and LPR, it stopped talking about their return to Ukraine – with any status – and then included them in its composition, putting a bold and logical point in the processes that were already latently going on in the region under the noise of the “Minsk” demagogy.
English version :: Read in English The Truth About the Minsk Agreements – On Their First Decade. So What Were They?