Russia’s war against Ukraine became a strong wake-up call for the West. It easily refuted a long-nurtured assumption about the impossibility of a new large-scale war in Europe. Moreover, the invasion challenged the global non-proliferation regime, showing that an exchange of nuclear weapons for security assurances is not an optimal security choice. It also demonstrated an imperfection of the global and European security architecture, lacking tools to either prevent or stop blatant violations of the foundations of international order, committed by a nuclear country and United Nations Security Council member. Not least, the outbreak of a large-scale war in Ukraine is illustrative of the fragility and non-enforceability of contemporary politico-legal peace agreements, such as the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The Minsk I and Minsk II agreements sought to resolve the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which started in early 2014 after Kremlin-backed rebellions in Ukraine’s Donbas region and the creation of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” (“DPR” and “LPR”). Both agreements were developed by the Trilateral Contact Group (“TCG”) on Ukraine, bringing together Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe. Though the leaders of the “DPR” and “LPR” were informally engaged in some of the TCG’s meetings, they were not signatories of the agreements. This was because Ukraine did not recognize “LPR” and “DPR” and their leaders as an independent negotiating party due to Russia’s de facto control over the region and its self-proclaimed governors. The TCG peace talks were additionally facilitated by the Normandy Format, where Ukraine and Russia negotiated with the mediation of French and German leaders.
Both the Minsk I agreement and its more detailed successor Minsk II represent “a shopping list” of security and political measures aimed at a ceasefire and gradual reintegration of the Donbas into Ukrainian territory. While the security block focused on ceasefire and the withdrawal of illegal armed groups and heavy weapons, the political arrangements concerned the decentralization of power in Ukraine and broad autonomy for the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”. Though in theory, the agreements offered meaningful steps to reconciliation and the reintegration of breakaway regions, the practice of the Minsk Peace Process was prone to endless challenges and an eventual deadlock. The key practical obstacle to the agreements’ implementation dealt with the lack of the Parties’ consensus about the sequencing of implementing security and political measures, as well as specific steps to the items’ implementation and the verification of implementation. Logically, the TCG and the Normandy Format had to be the venues to agree on the mode and detail of implementation, yet they ended up as forums for the Parties’ blaming each other for non-compliance and exercising political pressure, including Russia’s pressure to push Ukraine to direct negotiations with leaders of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”. A consequence of both the agreements’ hybrid politico-legal nature and the disagreement about the sequencing of measures had been the lack of a mutually agreed way to establish the violations of the Minsk agreements and enforce them.
A series of unsuccessful attempts to revive the Minsk Peace Process in January-February 2022 ended with President Putin’s recognition of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR” on 22 February 2022 and invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
The Minsk Peace Process offers some important lessons for peacebuilders. First, it demonstrates how fragile peace agreement are easy to break amid the absence of enforcement mechanisms and the leeway of third parties to support the implementation process. Second, this case shows how much the Parties’ genuine intention to resolve the conflict and political will matter. Political will is inevitably central to making contemporary peace agreements work, as there are no effective international mechanisms to ensure the Parties’ compliance with such agreements. Third, the experience of Minsk I and Minsk II must be remembered during negotiations to end of the current war. Any freezing of the demarcation line, vague reintegration provisions, and unspecific security assurances to Ukraine from the West will be nothing as a respite before the new war. If the model used in the Minsk agreements repeats itself, the region will be even more fragile. The new peace agreement thus needs to include clear obligations from the parties and sequencing of steps to be taken, including the definition of targets to be achieved (e.g. withdrawal of troops and weapons from specific areas), the ways to verify the targets’ achievement and enforcement mechanisms that shall be supported by the international community.
Maryna Rabinovych
Maryna Rabinovych works as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Agder with the project “Lowering the bar? – Compliance Negotiations and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement”, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. She holds a PhD (magna cum laude) in Legal Studies from the University of Hamburg, an LL.M “European and European Legal Studies” from the University of Hamburg and Eropa-Kolleg Hamburg, as well as an LL.B from Odesa National University. Prior to joining the UiA, Dr. Rabinovych worked for two leading Ukrainian the Kyiv School of Economics and the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”.
