Frozen conflict zone is likely outcome of Ukraine ceasefire

The weariness of Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko after some 17 hours of tough talks seemed to seep through his people, as most greeted a new ceasefire deal with resigned shrugs and smiles that could only be called sceptical.

“How did this all begin?” asked Nadezhda, a teacher in the eastern city of Kharkiv. “Ukraine had a revolution and said it wanted to be with the West, maybe even to join the European Union or Nato. And Russia said ‘No, that’s not allowed. So [President Vladimir] Putin took Crimea and started this madness in Donetsk and Luhansk.”

Ukraine now wanted more than ever to move West, away from Russia, and Putin was still determined to stop it, she explained between tired sighs. “So nothing has changed. Maybe this deal will give us a little break from the fighting, but that’s all.”

A hiatus from daily killing is the best most Ukrainians dare to hope for, given the abject failure of the first Minsk ceasefire agreed in September. That deal reduced but failed to halt the fighting. As the intensity of the killing increased again, Russia has allegedly ramped up its support for the rebels, just as it did last summer in an offensive that forced Poroshenko to the negotiating table.

In August, according to the US and Nato, Russian troops surrounded and routed Ukrainian forces at Ilovaisk; five months on, a grimly similar scenario has taken shape near another major rail hub, called Debaltseve. This week, the commander of the US army in Europe, Ben Hodges, said Russia’s military was directly involved in the fighting there.

Ukrainian analysts say Moscow insisted the ceasefire start late on Saturday night to give separatist forces [and their alleged allies] enough time to take Debaltseve. Ukraine refuses to surrender the town and, if it becomes a bloodbath over the next 36 hours, the truce could be dead before it begins.

Poroshenko said peace could only be achieved when Ukraine regained control of its entire border with Russia and could stop arms and fighters flowing to the separatists.

However yesterday’s deal states that Moscow will only let Kiev retake the frontier after constitutional changes are complete and local elections in rebel areas have been held – with both elements subject to the approval of the Russian-controlled militants.

The “Minsk 2” deal looks, at best, like a step towards making eastern Ukraine a “frozen conflict” zone like Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, and Transdniestria in Moldova – all of which are run by Moscow-backed separatists.

A ceasefire could take the issue of more EU sanctions against Russia off the table, dampen growing US enthusiasm for arming Kiev and allow Ukraine to focus for a while on vital reforms and saving its economy with much-needed western help, which includes a €35 billion aid package agreed yesterday. But Moscow is not reconciled to Ukraine’s westward pivot, and the Minsk deal did nothing to ease Russia’s fears of Nato creeping closer to its borders.

So if the new pro-western Ukraine looks like becoming the stable, more prosperous and less corrupt place that most of its people dream of, then Russia’s proxy pseudo-statelet in the east can be expected to explode, piling military, financial, political and social pressure back on to a fragile, post-revolutionary Kiev.