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The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the Donbas war fought between armed Russian separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine, with Russian regular forces playing a central part. After a defeat at Ilovaisk at the end of August 2014, Russia forced Ukraine to sign the first Minsk Protocol, or the Minsk I. It was drafted by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with mediation by the leaders of France (François Hollande) and Germany (Angela Merkel) in the so-called Normandy Format.
After extensive talks in Minsk, Belarus, the agreement was signed on 5 September 2014 by representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group and, without recognition of their status, by the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). This agreement followed multiple previous attempts to stop the fighting in the region and aimed to implement an immediate ceasefire.
The agreement failed to stop fighting. At the start of January 2015, Russia sent another large batch of its regular military. Following the Russian victory at Donetsk International Airport in defiance of the Protocol, Russia repeated its pattern of August 2014, invaded with fresh forces and attacked Ukrainian forces at Debaltseve, where Ukraine suffered a major defeat, and was forced to sign a Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, or Minsk II, which was signed on 12 February 2015. This agreement consisted of a package of measures, including a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government. While fighting subsided following the agreement's signing, it never ended completely, and the agreement's provisions were never fully implemented. The former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggested a mechanism of granting an autonomy to Eastern Donbas only after "the OSCE certified that the local elections had followed international standards", called the Steinmeier formula.
Amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022, Russia officially recognised the DPR and LPR on 21 February 2022. Following that decision, on 22 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse. Russia then launched a full invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
In summer 2014, Ukraine launched a counter-offensive, during which it initially reclaimed large parts of lost territory. Russia had been sending special forces operatives, irregulars and small groups of regular Russian forces until late August 2014, when for the first time Russia engaged large numbers of unmarked regular military forces to help its proxies in Donbas. After losing the Battle of Ilovaisk, Ukraine was forced to sign the Minsk Protocol, or Minsk I.
The Minsk Protocol was drawn up by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, which consisted of representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE. Meetings of the group, along with informal representatives of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, took place on 31 July, 26 August, 1 September, and 5 September 2014.
While campaigning in the lead-up to the 2 November elections held by the DPR and LPR in violation of the Protocol, Zakharchenko said "These are historical times. We are creating a new country! It's an insane goal". Donetsk People’s Republic campaign reveals shambolic tendencies, Financial Times (23 October 2014) OSCE chairman Didier Burkhalter confirmed that the elections ran "counter to the letter and spirit of the Minsk Protocol", and said that they would "further complicate its implementation".
Amidst increasing violence in the combat zone, another round of Minsk talks was scheduled for 31 January. Members of the Trilateral Contact Group travelled to Minsk to meet representatives of the DPR and LPR. The DPR and LPR signatories of the Protocol did not attend, and those representatives that did attend were not able to discuss the implementation of the Protocol or memorandum. These representatives asked for the revision of the Protocol and the memorandum. The meeting was adjourned with no result.
After heavy fighting, DPR forces captured the symbolically important Donetsk International Airport on 21 January, the last part of the city of Donetsk that had been under Ukrainian control. Following this victory, Russian military together with separatist forces pressed their offensive on the important railway and road junction of Debaltseve in late January. This renewed heavy fighting caused significant concern in the international community. Ukraine suffered another "devastating" defeat. French president François Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel put forth a new peace plan on 7 February.
The Franco-German plan, drawn up after talks with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and Russian president Vladimir Putin, was seen as a revival of the Minsk Protocol. President Hollande said that the plan was the "last chance" for resolution of the conflict. The plan was put forth in response to American proposals to send armaments to the Ukrainian government, something that Chancellor Merkel said would only result in a worsening of the crisis.
A summit to discuss the implementation of the Franco-German diplomatic plan was scheduled for 11 February at the Independence Palace in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. It was attended by Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande, DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko, and LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky. Negotiations went on overnight for sixteen hours, and were said to have been "very difficult" by the German foreign minister.
Following the talks, it was announced on 12 February 2015 that the parties to the conflict had agreed to a new package of peacemaking measures, the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, which is commonly called Minsk II. Some of the measures agreed to were an OSCE-observed unconditional ceasefire from 15 February, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, and constitutional reform in Ukraine.
At the summit, the Minsk participants briefed EU leaders about the talks. During the briefing, they said that President Putin had tried to delay the implementation of a ceasefire by ten days, so as to force Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve to surrender their positions. For his part, President Putin said that the Debaltseve defenders were encircled, and that the separatists expected them "to lay down their arms and cease resistance".
Kommersant reporter Andrey Kolesnikov wrote that implementation of the ceasefire in Debaltseve hinged upon whether or not Ukrainian forces were truly encircled, "Above all, does it exist or not? Vladimir Putin insisted that it the exists and that if a cease-fire agreement is reached, it will be odd if it isn't violated: Those in the kettle will certainly try to get out of there; those who have boiled that kettle will try to collect the foam".
US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on 13 February that the Russian Armed Forces had actively deployed around Debaltseve to assist the separatists in forcing out Ukrainian troops prior to the start of the ceasefire, the 15 February. Russia denied this, and Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia could not assist in the implementation of Minsk II because it was "not a participant" in the conflict.
Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh said that he reserved the right to continue fighting, and that Minsk II was unconstitutional. He said that his Ukrainian Volunteer Corps would continue fighting "until complete liberation of Ukrainian lands from Russian occupants", and promised "death to Russian terrorist-occupiers". DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko said that the ceasefire did not apply to Debaltseve, and that fighting would continue there.
In the week after the fall of Debaltseve to pro-Russian forces, fighting in the conflict zone abated. As of mid-February 2015 a Western journalist visiting Ukrainian side of the front line in Avdiivka reported massive incoming artillery barrages from the Russian side. Having visited cities held by separatist and Ukrainian forces, he reported that both sides placed heavy weapons and munitions in civilian areas.
DPR and LPR forces began to withdraw artillery from the front lines as specified by Minsk II on 24 February, and Ukraine did so on 26 February. Ukraine reported that it had suffered no casualties during 24–26 February, something that had not occurred since early January 2015.
Ukrainian defence minister Stepan Poltorak said on 8 June 2015 that over 100 soldiers and at least 50 civilians had been killed since Minsk II came into effect. According to him, pro-Russian forces had violated the truce more than 4,000 times.
The law was also criticised by some Ukrainian politicians. Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko said that the law was "a vote for de facto recognition of the Russian occupation in Donbas". Vice-parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy said that law was "not for Putin or the occupiers", but to show European Union that Ukraine was willing to adhere to Minsk II.
Later, in 2019, Ukraine's parliament voted to extend regulations giving limited self-rule to separatist-controlled eastern regions, a prerequisite for a deal to settle the five-year conflict there.
On the same day, President Petro Poroshenko responded that if DPR elections went forward in this unilateral manner, it would be "extremely irresponsible and will have devastating consequences for the process of deescalation of tension in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions". In addition, the OSCE said that it would only send observers to elections in the conflict zone if Ukraine invited it to do so. As specified in Minsk II, local elections in DPR and LPR-held territories must be observed by the OSCE to be deemed legitimate.
Amidst a great reduction in violence, following an agreement to restart the implementation of Minsk II that was agreed to on 1 September, the Normandy four held a meeting on 2 October. At the meeting, it was agreed that elections in the conflict zone would be held in accordance with Minsk II. In order to do this, French President François Hollande said that the elections would need to be postponed until 2016, as three months were required to prepare for them. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to use his influence to prevent the DPR and LPR from holding early elections.
Accordingly, the DPR and LPR announced on 6 October that their planned elections had been postponed until 21 February 2016.
On 18 April 2016, the planned (organised by the DPR and LPR) local elections were postponed from 20 April to 24 July 2016. On 22 July 2016, these DPR and LPR elections were again postponed to 6 November 2016.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on 27 March 2016 that Russia was "not a party to the Minsk agreements", and that the agreements were "devoted to two conflicting sides". The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe however said that the Minsk Protocol also includes the liberation of those hostages who have been abducted from the Ukrainian territory and are illegally detained in Russia, e.g. Nadiya Savchenko and Oleg Sentsov. p. 47
On 27 December 2018, Ukrainian news agency UNIAN reported that not a single provision of the Minsk deal had been fully implemented.
In 2019, Ukraine signed up to the Steinmeier formula, while President Zelenskyy clarified, in light of domestic criticism, that they were not capitulating and that special status would only be possible after elections would be held, but only after regaining control of Ukraine's eastern borders.
In December 2019, Ukraine and Russia agreed to implement a "full and comprehensive ceasefire." The agreement followed prisoner swaps and the withdrawal of Ukrainian military in three areas. The two sides agreed to swap the remaining prisoners and disengage military forces in three additional regions. According to Zelensky there was also progress with the issue of gas exports. Russia and Ukraine could not agree on the issues of the withdrawal of Russian-backed troops and the elections in the separatist-held regions.
In July 2020, Office of The President of Ukraine announced that Leonid Kuchma will no longer take part in the work of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on resolving the situation in Ukraine's east. Leonid Kuchma met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 28 July.
In June 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin "agreed to pursue diplomacy related to the Minsk agreement."
A Normandy Format meeting was planned between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in Paris on 26 January 2022. Ukraine fulfilled Russia's condition for a meeting in Paris and decided to withdraw from Verkhovna Rada the controversial draft law on the reintegration of the Crimea and Donbas region, because the law was contrary to the Minsk II.
On 24 August 2022, after a meeting of the Crimea Platform, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that current front lines in the war would not be frozen. "At the point where we are, we are not ready for a ceasefire. We explained that there will be no Minsk-3, Minsk-5, or Minsk-7. We will not play these games, we have lost part of our territories this way … it is a trap".
In May and June 2021, Mark Galeotti proposed "it is time to recognize that the Minsk process has run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue", and suggested that as an external party, the United Kingdom might move diplomacy forward. In a June 2021 interview, Vladislav Surkov, Putin's aide for Ukraine policy from 2013 to 2020, who was removed from his role in February 2020, said that Ukraine "can be reformed as a confederation, with a lot of freedom for the regions to decide things by themselves". He said the country would be severed by the "geopolitical gravity" between Russia and the West, describing the Minsk agreements as an act that "legitimized the first division of Ukraine" in a "reconquest", "the first open geopolitical counter-attack by Russia against". In October 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "if the Americans are genuinely prepared to support the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, this issue can be settled very quickly."
A dispute emerged over the role of the Russian Federation, with the parties understanding Minsk as an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, but Russian officials claiming the role of mediator, insisted that Ukraine negotiate directly with representatives of the self-proclaimed Separatism republics in ORDLO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he has "no intention of talking to terrorists". The Russian side refused high-level talks, and the Kremlin endorsed an October 2021 Kommersant article by former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev entitled "Why It Is Senseless to Deal with the Current Ukrainian Leadership", which some have criticized.
In November 2021, the Russian foreign ministry breached diplomatic protocol by releasing confidential correspondence with negotiators Germany and France.
In January 2022, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said that "The fulfillment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s destruction. When they were signed under the Russian gun barrel — and the German and the French watched — it was already clear for all rational people that it’s impossible to implement those documents." Oleksii Arestovych, a former member of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine said in 2024 that Ukraine never planned to fulfill the terms of Minsk II accords.
Angela Merkel said in 2022 that the agreement had been "an attempt to give Ukraine time"; Reuters reported that Ukraine used this time to strengthen its armed forces. In an interview to Semen Pegov in 2024, former head of DPR Alexander Borodai explained that, in military terms, the Russian intervention in Ukraine should have started already in 2014 but Russia was not ready for that in economic, military and propaganda sense, which is why Russia entered the Minsk Agreements with no intention of complying, but it gave it time to prepare the full-scale invasion.
Local elections in the rest of Ukraine went ahead on 25 October 2015. Following the postponement, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that if OSCE observers verified that the planned elections to be held in the separatist areas were in accordance with Ukrainian law and Minsk II, the "law on special status" for these areas would come into immediate effect.
On 2 October 2016, the DPR and LPR held "primaries" in which voters nominated candidates for the 6 November 2016 elections. Ukraine denounced these "primaries" as illegal.
Elections for the People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic and the People's Council of the Luhansk People's Republic were organised and held by the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics on 11 November 2018.
General efficacy
American Defense Department official Michael Carpenter said on 2 March 2016 that at least 430 Ukrainian soldiers had died since the signing of Minsk II, that Russia maintained "command-and-control links" over the DPR and LPR, and that Russia was "pouring heavy weapons" into the Donbas. Deputy head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine Alexander Hug said on 25 March 2016 that the OSCE had observed "armed people with Russian insignia" fighting in Donbas from the beginning of the conflict, that they had talked to prisoners who said they were Russian soldiers, and that they had seen "tire tracks, not the vehicles themselves, but the tracks of vehicles crossing the Russo-Ukrainian border".
2016–2022: Steinmeier formula
In 2016, the so-called Steinmeier Formula was heralded. Steinmeier appears to have used Russia's exclusion from the G8 as pressure. Steinmeier proposal "implicitly acknowledged, and was explicitly based on, the Kremlin’s military achievements" of 2014 and 2015. The Formula, proposed by both Russian and European diplomats, encouraged Ukraine to carry out elections in the territory controlled by Russia and to provide Russia-occupied territories with "special status".
Russia's full-scale invasion of 2022
History professor Michael Kimmage criticizes the West's position for it being "the opposite of deterrence" and for its weakness. "Western policy was an invitation for Putin to go further". During 2021, Putin prepared Russia for a full-scale war within Europe. On 15 February 2022, the Russian Duma voted to appeal to President Putin to recognise the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR. The next day, a Russian government spokesman acknowledged that officially recognising the Donbas republics would not be in keeping with the Minsk agreements. However, he also told journalists that Putin's priority in regulating the situation in Donbas is the implementation of mechanisms adopted under those agreements. Russia went on to officially recognise the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics on 21 February 2022. Following that decision, on 22 February 2022, President Putin said that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse, accusing Ukraine of genocide in Donbas in his comments – a statement largely seen as baseless and factually wrong by the wider world, academics studying genocide, and the United Nations. Russia then invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Evaluation
Following the fall of Debaltseve in February 2015, about one-third of the Donbas region remained in separatist control. A few days before the 2022 Russian invasion, French president Emmanuel Macron and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken opined that the Minsk agreements were "the way forward" to end the conflict in Donbas. Blinken added that it was an incomplete step as there were other outstanding issues. The aim of the Russian intervention in Donbas was to establish pro-Russian governments that, upon reincorporation into Ukraine, would facilitate Russian interference in Ukrainian politics. The agreements were thus highly favourable to the Russian side, as their implementation would accomplish these goals.
See also
Notes
Further reading
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Protocol on the results of consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group (Minsk Agreement)
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Memorandum on the Implementation of the Provisions of the Protocol on the Outcome of Consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group on Joint Steps Aimed at the Implementation of the Peace Plan (Implementation of the Minsk Agreement)
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements
Categories: War In Donbas, 2010s In Minsk, 2014 In Belarus, 2014 In Ukraine, Treaties Of Ukraine, Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic, Treaties Of Russia, Treaties Concluded In 2014, Treaties Entered Into Force In 2014, Russia–ukraine Relations, Russo-ukrainian War Peace Process, Organization For Security And Co-operation In Europe, Ceasefires, 21st-century Diplomatic Conferences, 2022 Endings, February 2014 In Ukraine, February 2014 In Europe, Belarus In The Russo-ukrainian War, Military History Of Minsk, Events Affected By The War In Donbas
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