President Zelenskyy believes that changes in the Minsk Accords are a must because the transfer of border control to Kyiv after local elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is absolutely unacceptable to Ukraine. The President made this statement while speaking on Ukrainian Television. “It will be very difficult to do it but we must do it”, he said. “Everything changes in life. Although it’s not my team that has signed the Minsk agreements, we have to fulfill the conditions that the previous power agreed to at that time. I’m sure that there are things that we can and will change. In any case, the handover of control over the border to Ukraine after local elections is not our position. And that’s our final decision”.
As a matter of fact, Zelenskyy is not alone in having such an opinion. During the December 10 joint press conference in Paris, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in favor of adapting the Minsk Accords to modern-day realities. In her words, these agreements are not a “petrified document”. Flexibility is needed for their implementation. Merkel went on to say, “The Minsk Memorandum was signed on September 19, 2014. And considering the recent presidential elections, a question arises: did this deal turn into stone or could it be restored to life?”
For his part, Russian President Putin agreed at the same press conference that flexibility was permissible in some provisions of the Minsk agreements. “You see, the thing is that any deal can allow for some degree of flexibility because sides of the deal can interpret differently certain things written in paper”, the Russian President noted.
However, despite these words said by Putin, a few days later the Kremlin has changed its opinion on the matter and goes back to its former position that no changes in the Minsk accords are possible. Thus, Russian envoy to the Minsk negotiations, Boris Gryzlov claims that any declarations concerning the revision of the document “have a provocative character and can complicate the situation in Donbas”. Gryzlov called the agreements inviolable and stressed, “I emphasize once again that there cannot be and there won’t be any changes in the Minsk agreements”.
As one can see, Russia’s response to attempts of Ukraine to modernize “the Minsk” is quite predictable. But this does not mean that the agreements are not a subject to changes. After all, there is nothing everlasting under the sun. Needless to say that Putin does not want to give up things that could bring him political gains. However, Zelenskyy’s firm position in Paris has shown that without a compromise on the issue of border control there won’t be any elections in Donbas at all. That’s why the sides have to look for a compromise. In this context, of importance was the President’s belief that future negotiations should be a movement on both sides to meet each other. Concessions from Ukraine only are out of the question.
It is difficult to say now whether Russia will agree to look for a compromise or will prefer to keep the conflict “frozen” in eastern Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) in Minsk, Oleksiy Reznikov, has announced the start of amending the Minsk agreements to be finished by the next “Normandy” summit which is due to be held in four months from now.
The newspaper Holos Ukrainy
