The election of Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t brought peace to the Donbass. Shelling is still a daily reality for the local population, as well as sporadic fighting. Recently pro-Russia forces captured eight Ukrainian soldiers, and at this point it’s unlikely that the Minsk Agreements will be fully implemented any time soon.
Newly elected Ukrainian President has said that Ukraine must “thoroughly redistribute the maximum of its attention to the Donbass”. However, the Ukrainian army still hasn’t launched any massive military offensives on the territories controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic.
Some analysts believe there won’t be any major escalations at least until after the Ukrainian parliamentary elections, scheduled for July 21st. Small provocations, similar to the Strait of Kerch incident that took place at the end of last year, are quite possible, though.
In the meantime, Ukraine confirmed that “Donald Trump’s buddy” Victor Pinchuk has helped to persuade former President Leonid Kuchma to join the Minsk peace talks on the Donbass again. As per Kuchma, the priority of Ukraine should be the release of prisoners of war, including Ukrainian sailors who’re still being held captive in Russia. He predicted that the issue will be resolved soon.
According to some unofficial sources, Russia is willing to exchange Ukrainian sailors captured in Crimea at the Strait of Kerch for captured Russian soldiers. It remains to be seen if such exchange will take place after the elections in Ukraine.
Apart from the war prisoner release, the Pinchuk-Kuchma plan also proposes the end of the economic blockade of Donbass, imposed by Ukraine in 2017, but only under certain circumstances.
“We simply cannot talk now about lifting these restrictions, unless the conditions are met, unless the ruble zone is removed and the so-called pseudo-nationalization is lifted”, said Yulia Mendel, a press secretary for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At this point, it’s unlikely that the Russian backed self-proclaimed republics will obey to such demands from Kiev. The removal of the ruble zone, and the denationalization of Donbass companies, would potentially limit Russian influence on these territories, and it would be the beginning of the return of the Donbass under the Ukrainian control.
Some voices close to the Kremlin suggest that Russia should return the Donbass to Ukraine in exchange for a de facto Ukrainian recognition of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. Such option, at least at this point, doesn’t seem realistic. Zelensky already said that Crimea must be returned to Ukraine along with compensation from Russia. Even if the Kremlin stops supporting the self-proclaimed Donbass republic, there’s absolutely no guarantee that Ukraine, backed by the West, won’t try to reestablish control over Crimea, once the conflict in the Donbass in resolved. Therefore, any form of reintegration of the Donbass into Ukraine would be seen as a clear sign of Russian weakness, and would be a start of another conflict, but this time on a de-facto Russian soil.
Zelensky, on the other hand, is not ready to recognize the special status of Donbass, which is something that the Kremlin proposes. He’s aware that the Ukrainian society would see that as an open betrayal, and it’s unlikely that the West would support such idea. As long as the war in Donbass goes on, the EU and the US have a strong reason to keep imposing new packages of sanctions on Russia and weaken its economy. Russia is already spending a significant amount of money funding its proxies in the Donbass, and in the long term the price of keeping that territory under the Russian sphere of influence might be too high.
The Kremlin, however, has many years of experience with frozen and semi-frozen conflicts. It’s been supporting the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria for nearly three decades. Although the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic have many similarities with Transnistria, the main difference is that Moldova and Transnistria live in peace. Ukraine, unlike Moldova, is rebuilding its military, and is preparing for a possible military confrontation with Russia, be it over the Donbass or Crimea.
Photo: U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine