The meeting of the “Norman Four”, which, judging by the statements made last week by Angela Merkel, French Foreign Minister and President of Ukraine, is being actively prepared, may take place in the very near future. Vladimir Zelensky believes that the summit should be held in late September. Berlin and Paris support him in this. The venue is already known - it will become, as the German Chancellor, the capital of France, told reporters.
The problem, however, is that Moscow and Kiev have very different ideas about the subject of discussion and approaches to it. The new Ukrainian team has changed its official position regarding both the Minsk agreements and Steinmeier’s formula in the direction of some departure from the complete rejection of the peace process by the previous Ukrainian leadership. True, even Zelensky’s entourage does not have complete unanimity on this subject. So, last week, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister allowed elections to be held in the Donbass, but the next day he was forced to disavow his own statement because of the scandal that erupted. And the head of the parliamentary committee on foreign policy, diplomat Bogdan Yaremenko generally considers the Minsk Agreement a shameful “surrender”.
Nevertheless, the President of Ukraine himself several times spoke out on this subject, declaring his readiness at the upcoming meeting to discuss the implementation of the agreements and Steinmeier’s formula, while his predecessor considered this impossible. The above formula includes virtually all the political points of the package of measures. According to the plan, which was proposed by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany back in 2015, Ukraine should take the following actions: approve a law on a special procedure for holding local elections in Donbass, hold an amnesty, agree with the conclusions of the OSCE mission regarding the legitimacy and democracy of the vote, and adopt a law “On the special order of self-government” in Donetsk and Lugansk regions. After that, Ukraine is transferred control of the border with Russia. At the last stage, the Rada makes amendments to the Constitution, on the basis of which the Donbass receives a “special status”.
Zelensky has already made serious exemptions from this formula in virtually all main provisions. He repeatedly rejected the possibility of granting Donetsk and Lugansk a special status, several times declared the unacceptability of amnesty and direct negotiations with the "separatists". The latter should mean that the election results and conclusions of the OSCE mission will not be accepted by Kiev under any circumstances.
But everything changes on the go. Zelensky before the presidential campaign, after it and now - these are three different policies. No one can say for sure what the Ukrainian ruler (or the political forces and financial capital behind him) really thinks today. The fact that today's Ukrainian authorities are taking real steps towards peace is obvious. But no one can say how far along this path she is ready to move.
Moscow's point of view on what is happening is completely unambiguous: formalization and signing of the Steinmeier formula.
Berlin and especially Paris tend to support this position, which seems to be understood in Kiev. Former President Leonid Kuchma, representing Ukraine in a tripartite contact group in Minsk, expressed his concern about this in an interview with the Associated Press last week: “There is not much hope. Zelensky will be very difficult - he will be alone against three people. " According to him, the president in no case should, giving in to persuasion, agree to federalize or grant special status to Donbass in accordance with constitutional amendments. That is, Kuchma directly indicates that the heads of Russia, Germany and France will act as a united front.
In any case, if the date of the meeting can be agreed upon, this will not be a formal decision, since Moscow refuses to participate in it if Kiev does not want to discuss the implementation of the Minsk’s political points. So, if we find out that the summit will take place, it means that at preliminary consultations Kiev threw out the white flag and agreed to serious concessions, having left the point where it seems to continue to stand: no elections, no special status, no amnesty, no direct negotiations, no changes to the Constitution. It begins to seem to me that this is quite possible, since Zelensky’s team wants to write his name in the history of Ukraine as president of the world. It doesn't matter for what reasons.
Although there is an opinion that there is no generally clear plan at Bankova to break the deadlock in which Ukraine has been for many years. Vadim Priestayko, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, mentioned some radical measures that Zelensky would resort to if he could not succeed in ending the war peacefully. This strange statement may indeed reflect the confusion of the new government, since Petro Poroshenko had a radical effect on that, but there was no sense in it. That is, no extreme solutions related to the power version, as experience shows, do not work in principle.
The head of the State Duma’s committee on international politics, Leonid Slutsky, cooled the hot head of the head of the Ukrainian foreign ministry. The “Zelensky Formula” with threats of some “new radical measures” is not a very good start to a conversation with the DPR and LPR and certainly not the best prologue for the new summit in the Norman format. The only "formula" for establishing peace in the Donbass is the end to Kiev sabotage of the implementation of the Minsk agreements. There is no alternative to them. And the sooner this is realized on Bankovaya Street, the faster the fratricidal war in southeastern Ukraine will end, ”the Russian deputy explained very appropriately.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.