Second of a series
The Minsk Agreement, so-called for having been crafted in the capital of Belarus, was supposed to have addressed the simmering war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which is populated by Russian-speaking residents. The low-intensity conflict pits separatist leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk against Ukraine.
There were two attempts to broker peace in the Donbas region with the first signed on September 5, 2014 and dubbed the Minsk Protocol that was participated in by the Trilateral Co ntact Group on Ukraine, composed of Russia, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and with the high profile participation of Germany and France.
This first attempt at peace, however, failed to stop fighting, and a second pact was made, called the Minsk II signed on February 12, 2015. This called for withdrawal of foreign armed groups, arms, charter reform and decentralization of Donetsk and Luhansk and also elections, according to Prof. Bobby M. Tuazon who is a director for Policy Studies of the think tank Center for People Empowerment and Governance.
“Sadly, the agreement has not been enforced by Ukraine,” according to Tuazon. In fact, Ukraine even revised its Constitution by providing for its Nato membership. “That was the final straw for Russia with the red line crossed,” Tuazon asserted, “with the red line crossed and a gun pointed to its head triggering the deployment of troops and tanks near its border with Ukraine.”
What followed was an incensed Vladimir Putin declaring that the Minsk Agreement no longer existed and crying foul over the incursions at its very doorstep. “You promised us in the 1990s that [Nato] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly,” Putin said and thus Russian forces crossed into Ukraine on February 24 after the recognition of both Donetsk and Luhansk.
For Russian Ambassador to the Philippines Marat Pavlov, “Russia’s concerns were not taken into account. Attempts to negotiate security guarantees with the US last December came to nothing. They rejected Russian proposals so we have no choice but to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics and commence our special operations.”
According to the Russian envoy, for the past eight years, his country has been negotiating for a political solution in the Donbas region so that they remain inside Ukraine. But he said that the Ukraine regime “has put the territories under siege and switched off the banking systems, food supply and payment of pensions.”
Pavlov also said in the forum organized by Integrated Development Studies Institute to present a balanced view of the Ukraine crisis, that “Kiev authorities have bluntly said they will not fulfill the Minsk Agreement whereas Russia was accused of failing to fulfill this agreement.” He also echoed that the so-called “civilized West” turns a blind eye to these events for all these years.
Prof Tuazon provided a historical perspective to the Ukraine conflict. He said that after the end of the Cold War, Nato was surprisingly not disbanded and even went on an eastward expansion, a key worry for Putin as the expansion has gone to the very doorstep of Russia.
Tuazon pointed out that from 1990 to the present, the US and Nato launched their eastward expansion and built up with thousands of troops deployed by many of the 30 Nato member-countries in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.
This expansion, which included the deployment of tanks and air forces, was flagged in 1995 by William Burns, then a political officer in the US Embassy in Moscow, Tuazon said. Burns, who is now the CIA director of US President Joe Biden, had expressed alarm then that the regional defense bloc’s expansion towards Russia is a “policy error” and “will trigger possible retaliation from Russia.”
Henry Kissinger had similarly echoed the same sentiments, Tuazon said, during the IDSI forum, while Vladimir Putin voiced his alarm with the threat as early as 10 years ago. Putin said that it would provoke the Russians.
And true enough, the Russian forces crossed the border. For Pavlov, that special operation was intended “not only for the security of Russia but also for the security of Europe.”