Minsk Agreements One Year On: Three Scenarios for War and Peace in Ukraine

One year after the signing of the Minsk II agreement on peace in eastern Ukraine, the ceasefire is holding, heavy weapons have been pulled back from the contact line, the two sides have conducted several rounds of prisoner exchanges, and the security situation on the ground has improved. 

At the same time, many of the agreement's 13 points remain unfulfilled, including the key requirement that Ukraine reform its constitution to recognize the special status of the breakaway Donbass republics.

Initially, the parties, including the Normandy Quartet (Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany), plus the OSCE and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, agreed that Minsk II would be implemented within one year. However, due to ongoing disagreements, the agreement has now been extended into 2016.

So far Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been unable to push constitutional reforms granting the Donbass republics autonomy through Ukraine's parliament, failing to find the necessary majority from his coalition partners.

At the same time, a number of other issues remain unresolved, including the precise conditions for the holding of local elections in areas of the Donbass region outside of Kiev's control. 

For their part, Ukrainian leaders insist that the elections should take place only following a complete cease-fire, and after Ukraine regains complete control over the state border. At the same time, they demand that the political forces which emerged in Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup d'état must be allowed to participate in the local elections.

The leaders of the self-proclaimed republics, on the other hand, insist that the amendments to the constitution must be adopted first, and that control over the border can be transferred to Kiev only after elections.

With the agreement entering its second year, Russia's RIA Novosti presents three scenarios for the future of eastern Ukraine.

Option #1: Full Implementation of Minsk II

Unfortunately, RIA Novosti suggests, "despite the fact that most experts see the Minsk agreements as the only way to resolve the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, they have little confidence in the notion that the agreements can be fulfilled in the current year."

Ruslan Bortnik, the Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management, told the news agency that the agreements will need at least one year, and possibly two, to be realized.

"The Minsk agreements will be fulfilled, in one way or another, perhaps with revisions, but only in 2017 or 2018. Today the conditions for their implementation do not yet exist," the analyst said.

At the same time, many Ukrainian experts believe that Minsk II requires revision. On Thursday, the Ukrainian Institute of World Policy published a report suggesting that Minsk II "does not take account of the best practices of conflict resolution, and does not offer an effective algorithm for resolving the conflict, and therefore needs to be revised."

With some experts speculating on the possibility of a 'Minsk III', President Poroshenko, for his part, insists that there will be no new agreement, suggesting instead that it is necessary to create a 'road map' to implement Minsk II featuring precise deadlines. Given that the ball is in Kiev's court as far as the stalled negotiations go, it's unclear why the Ukrainian president would be so insistent on stricter deadlines.

Option #2: New Hostilities

A second option, Bortnik says, is an escalation and possible re-ignition of the conflict. This option, the analyst emphasizes, wouldn't serve anyone's interests.

"An escalation of the conflict is not out of the question, but its likelihood is smaller than the other options, because such an escalation would not be beneficial to anyone. There are more serious problems towards which both economic and political resources should be devoted. Therefore, a brief escalation may be possible, [but only] as an element aimed at pushing for a political solution."

For his part, Nikolai Sungurovsky, the director of military programs at Ukraine's Razumkov Center, warned that if an escalation were to take place, it is likely to happen before the fall. 

"The scenario for an escalation of the conflict, before the autumn, is, I think, the most likely and dangerous. I believe, unfortunately, that a military option will be implemented." The spark for an escalation, Sungurovsky noted, would likely be connected to the local elections being prepared in the Donbass republics. He did not clarify which side would strike first in such a scenario.

Option #3: Frozen Conflict

The third and most likely option, especially in the coming year, is the 'freezing' of the conflict and the continuation of the negotiation process, RIA Novosti writes.

At the moment, Bortnik notes, conditions are not ripe for implementing the Minsk agreements; therefore, both sides would be best served to continue looking for compromise.

"I think that in the current year, the most likely scenario is a freezing of the conflict. It will not be a palpable freezing, but rather the continuation of negotiations without a concrete result."

For his part, Mr. Sungurovsky also didn't rule out the possibility of a frozen conflict situation emerging. For this to occur, he said, it would be enough for the West to reduce its support for Ukraine's authorities.

"The freezing of the conflict would require the absence of any kind of activity by the West, because on its own, Ukraine cannot cope with the conflict," the analyst noted. The absence of an "active" West, in his words, would lead negotiations into a deadlock, "and the conflict would become frozen." Naturally, Sungurovsky insisted, this option is not desirable for Kiev.

Minsk II Must Succeed, Belarus Insists

In a separate interview with RIA Novosti, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said that the Minsk II negotiations format has already demonstrated its value by halting the hostilities, and emphasized that both sides must continue to push for the agreements' complete implementation.

"The laborious, behind-the-scenes, persistent work of the contact group on the restoration of peace and stability must be fully supported," the minister insisted. 

For its part, Belarus, which offered the platform for the negotiations in its capital for the Minsk I and Minsk II accords, has vowed to do everything in its power to help. "We are ready to provide secretarial, organizational and protocol support, and finances to facilitate the talks, without interfering in the work," Makei noted.