The mainstream mass media cover the Minsk summit as a meeting that resulted with nothing. Is it possible that the journalists have missed some important details? Radio VR is looking into the issue with Kirill Koktysh, Political analyst based with MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, and Manuel Ochsenreiter, Editor in Chief of German monthly ZUERST! Newsmagazine.
Kirill Koktysh: Well, actually, the results are quite significant and these are the maximum results that could be achieved. The main result is that the parties agreed to call a spade a spade. They admitted that the humanitarian catastrophe is a humanitarian catastrophe and it should be managed as a catastrophe, but not as a regular development. Of course, the additional reason to do this for Ukraine, was the fact that the new part of the Ukrainian troops is encircled now, which means that the humanitarian catastrophe is a real threat not only for Donetsk and Lugansk self-proclaimed republics, but also for the significant part of the Ukrainian troops.
The other questions on the agenda weren’t prepared and the result was that the parties agreed to continue communication on these items as well. If you take into account the problem of the relations’ harmonization between the EU and the Customs Union, actually the EU denied the very existence of this problem. So, this question wasn’t prepared, because the EU so far didn’t acknowledge the possibility of revising this treaty and there is the stalemate in these negotiations.
But as the two parties agreed that this problem should be discussed and resolved in this or that way, this means that the working groups will start a process on this, as well as on the other items. The result that the counterparts agreed to negotiate and not to struggle, and admitted some problems – that is the maximum result that could be achieved on such negotiations.
Also, there are the results of the second place, the strong regional results. I mean, the results for Minsk, as they are the hosting capital for the negotiations. A quite significant development was that Catherine Ashton met with President Lukashenko without any preconditions. So, actually, the EU legitimized the Belarus President and admitted Belarus as a part of the negotiation process.
For Minsk it would mean a possible claim to be a center of the east European political process. Probably, on the next stage they could discuss the matter that Minsk could be the center of the new eastern partnership, because the current structure of the eastern partnership is compromised and it seems to me that it is more dead than alive.
So, this means that the partnership’s structure of the whole eastern Europe could be revised and could be rebuilt on a different foundation, first of all, avoiding the mistake that the eastern partnership did when Russia was excluded from the negotiation process, and which led to the hard consequences and Russia views this partnership as a union against Russia, but a union for cooperation with Russia and as well with the West. So, this means that a new cooperation structure, if it would emerge with Minsk as the center, would include Russia as well.
For Minsk it is a straight road to realize its ambitions as the east European center, as the center of communication between the East and the West. Of course, it could be only at the next stage and in case if Minsk would manage this resource that was granted to it. But this development could reshape the very map of the Eastern Europe. This development is very essential.
So, we can say that the negotiations brought two results. First of all, they started the political phase of the Ukrainian conflict, because, it seems to me, all the sides admitted that a military decision is not a decision at all, which means that a political decision should be searched for and should be found. And the second result is that Minsk stopped being so terrible for Europe, stopped being the last dictatorship in Europe and started being a new regional east European center. So, this second claim is not less essential than the first one.
You are saying that all parties have recognized that a political solution is the only solution, it has no alternatives. However, this meeting has not been attended by any US representatives. Do you think that the American advisors to the Ukrainian Government would agree that there is no military solution?
Kirill Koktysh: It seems to me that this would be the choice of the Ukrainian power, because in the previous period, when Kiev was strongly listening to the advisers from Washington, it led to the development of a war. But now it is obvious that a war is not a solution and the Ukrainian power simply hasn’t got enough resources to settle this conflict in a military manner.
So, this means that Europe started playing its role which actually it had to play initially. And Europe started dealing with it, because, after all, Europe along with Russia, are the two sides that would pay for the Ukrainian conflict under all circumstances, in the best-case scenario and in the worst-case scenario. This means that Europe started being the manager of the Ukrainian crisis. And after all, it is a Ukrainian matter and not an American one. So, of course, it would be Kiev’s choice but, obviously, together with Europe, Kiev can maintain peace much sooner and much more effectively, than relying on the American advisors only.
From the other side, of course, we should understand that Poroshenko is quite limited in his actions, because there are several groups which are struggling for power. And we can say that nominally we have one president who is now facing no political competition, because now the Verhovnaya Rada is dissolved, but actually there two or three powerful groups that are forming the politics in Ukraine. And of course, Poroshenko is under the strong pressure. The main threat for him is that, if he would claim that the negotiations were absolutely successful, he would immediately be accused of betrayal by his competitors.
This means that Poroshenko did what he could do under these circumstances. He claimed about a limited progress. That means that Ukraine didn’t trade its national interest and, after all, that is a good message for the Ukrainian electorate. But, of course, Poroshenko understands that the continuation of war would ruin his power, while a peace process could create a chance where he would remain the President. So, his pragmatic interest is to be a President of peace, to be such a political figure that would bring peace to Ukraine and not a war.
The additional argument is that actually Ukraine is in a pre-default state. This means that in a month or two it would face terrible challenges, like the lack of energy, lack of gas and coal and the financial crisis. So, Poroshenko is interested to settle this military headache as soon as possible, to be able to face other headaches, other terrible problems that Ukraine has to face currently.
So, these public explanations of the results of the negotiations are quite predictable. And they are actually showing that the Minsk process was as successful as it could be, because only limited results could be achieved and this was obvious from the very beginning.
As far as I understand, you have participated in some of the meetings, haven't you?
Kirill Koktysh: Yes.
What are your personal impressions?
Kirill Koktysh: My personal impression is that it was a very hard negotiation. Poroshenko was limited, because he was relying on the advices from the European commissioners, and this was quite obvious for an external observer. But the main result was that Europe agreed that this Ukrainian problem should be resolved and resolved with the Russian participation, because Russia is part of the process and Europe is also part of the process”.
Manuel Ochsenreiter:
In general, the political elite in Europe is supporting in a very strong way the Western position, supporting Washington. Of course, on different levels and dedicated in a different way. Some are more dedicated, like the Polish, for example, some are less dedicated, as it seems right now, for example, with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
At the Minsk meeting everybody was, of course, talking that they want peace, they want the truce. But there was no agreement. And while these people were talking in Minsk, the war went on in the eastern Ukraine.
And when we speak about the war in the eastern Ukraine, we should speak about the realities. There is the Ukrainian Government and Poroshenko. He is leading the so-called Anti-terror operation, the ATO, in eastern Ukraine, which is in reality a terrorist operation, because we see that he is using the so-called volunteer militias, like the battalion Azov, for example, where usual criminals from Europe join as volunteers, where people with long criminal records come and join it, and they are attacking the civilian areas. We see a lot of evidence that this so-called Anti-terror operation is aimed at civilians in the eastern Ukraine.
So, we have to say that Poroshenko is right now in war against his own population. And we shouldn’t forget this when all these heads of states are talking in Minsk. And we shouldn’t forget that right now there is no change and it looks like the decision would not be found at this nice meeting on the red carpet in Minsk, but somewhere on the battlefield in the Donetsk area.
As far as I understand, the European decision makers come to realize that it is Europe which is going to pay for Ukraine. I mean, there’s been the pressure coming from sanctions, there’s been the pressure coming from energy issues and business don’t look exactly happy about what is going on.
Manuel Ochsenreiter: First of all, we have to see that the political elite, the decision-makers - and I think that is a very important point which has more to do with psychology, than with politics - if you ask the decision makers how they define themselves, what interests they are working for, they will tell you things like – we are working for the Western interests, for human rights. They will tell you very in blurry terms about why they are doing something and what they are doing. And the more blurry the term is, the further away their work is from the European interests. I think this is a very important point.
For example, in Germany it takes a long-long time until a mainstream German politician will tell you – yes, I'm working for the German interests. He will say something about the European interests, about the Western world, the transatlantic set of values - a lot of blurry sentences that are far away.
And on the other side we have the business, we have the industry. The industry is, of course, looking for a good business. And we know that Germany is the most powerful economy of Europe and an important part of its power is about the business relations with Russia. Our business relations with Russia are much-much better and much friendlier than the political relations. And the industry doesn’t complain about a political hate speech against Moscow as long as it doesn’t have any real consequences for the business.
But now we entered the stage that it is not just sort of a hate speech anymore, sort of a harsh criticism, they talk about real sanctions. And you cannot do sanctions without your own industry and your own economy suffering. And as we in Germany import a lot of raw materials from Russia, it will, of course, hit the German economy.
The Americans push for that. And that has also a certain reason, because they also want to push Russia out from the European market. So, the Americans have the strong industrial and business interest to get more on the European market. And for this, they abuse the political question and the political pressure against Russia, to bring themselves more into the game again.
So, we have the industry in Europe, especially in Germany, who realizes what is exactly going on, on the one side. And on the other side, we have the politics with their blurry catalog of values they are always talking about. And the question is simply – when will this blurry catalog be hit by the reality. And by the reality I mean that if those sanctions will work and we will have the first industries going down, the stock exchange market will react and, maybe, we will have a lot of jobless people. So, this will be the moment when politics will have to face those realities.
And then, I think a change might come but, hopefully, it doesn’t need all that. Hopefully, the mainstream politics become wiser before that happens.
We have some signs in Europe. We know that, for example, Angela Merkel, who is very faithful towards Washington (and we shouldn’t forget that last year it came out that Angela Merkel’s phone was tapped by the NSA) and she is full of forgiveness for the Americans, but now we see that this forgiveness might end the moment her lobby in Germany (and she has the strong lobbyists from the industry) starts criticizing her for the politics towards Russia.
So, right now we see Angela Merkel in a really weird situation, because, on the one side, I think, she would do nothing with more pleasure than support the Washington politics, but, on the other side, she is not stupid, she knows very well that she will automatically harm our own industry. And I think this is the reason why she is not reacting as fast, as the American would usually expect it from the German Government or the German Chancellor.
And your forecast for the rest of Europe?
Manuel Ochsenreiter: Not so long ago we had the last European elections and we see that the questions about the peace and war in Ukraine, especially the relations with Russia, but also – we have to speak it out – the Western support for terrorism when it comes to Syria and to Iraq… because these bogeymen terrorists from the Islamic State, these are the people who were the moderate rebels two or three years ago. The people know that and the support for such politics become lower and lower.
And we see, by the way, when we look at the last European elections, that all those political movements and parties who criticized the EU, and in particular the dependency of the EU from the US, they are becoming stronger and stronger. So, we have the political parties from the far left, far right. We have the libertarian parties becoming stronger in Europe. So, all those movements are now becoming stronger.
And if the European mainstream politics will not adjust their political framework to those – let me say – new desires of their own population, it might come to the point (maybe not now, maybe not in the next European elections, but, for sure, in the next ten years) that there will be a change of power in Europe. And those parties who are against the EU, who are against the Euro currency and who are especially against the dependency from the US, who say that we need our own European interest and we shouldn’t automatically connect our interest to the interest of the US, we should handle the US as a normal partner and a normal partner can be punished when he is doing something bad, you can be in good and in bad terms with him – all those parties might become stronger.
And this might then really be a change in the European politics, because, if you ask the people on the street, if you look at the actual polls, they already want it. Right now, they are just not prepared in the majority to vote for those movements and parties, who will stop those politics. So, I think if it goes on like this within the next years, we might have a new European elite which will change a lot on the table”.
