Donald Trump's phone call with Vladimir Putin last week informed the world that the two superpowers, the United States and Russia, were reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. Trump announced that he and Putin "agreed to work very closely together, including visiting each other's countries." We also agreed that our respective teams would begin negotiations (on Ukraine) "immediately."
The telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which finally brought a ray of light on the path to long-awaited peace on the European continent, instead of causing optimism and satisfaction, literally provoked panic among European leaders and in Brussels.
The EU's disappointment, that the preliminary agreement between the US and Russia ignores Europe, is surprising.
But if European leaders have a short memory, the same cannot be said about Russia: with the signing of the “Minsk Agreements-2”, Europe ingloriously lost its authority as an independent international player and constructive participant in negotiations.
It was in February of 2015, exactly ten years ago, the so-called "Minsk II agreements" represented the last glimmer of European diplomatic superiority at the time. These agreements were a follow-up to the previous "Minsk agreements" of 2 September 2014, when the Trilateral Contact Group, comprising high representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, met with representatives of the breakaway entities of Donetsk and Luhansk on 1 September 2014.
However, in the Minsk 2 agreements, along with Russia and Ukraine, two Western players with great political and diplomatic influence entered the game: France and Germany.
Vladimir Putin, Petro Poroshenko, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel agreed on a document that was supposed to put an end to the bloody civil war in Donbas. The set of measures for implementing the Minsk agreements would not only open the way to a ceasefire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but would also involve the return of the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbas under Ukrainian control and granting them broad autonomy, which, in essence, would mean a kind of federalization of the country.
The EU's disappointment, that the preliminary agreement between the US and Russia ignores Europe, is surprising.
But if European leaders have a short memory, the same cannot be said about Russia: with the signing of the “Minsk Agreements-2”, Europe ingloriously lost its authority as an independent international player and constructive participant in negotiations.
It was in February of 2015, exactly ten years ago, the so-called "Minsk II agreements" represented the last glimmer of European diplomatic superiority at the time. These agreements were a follow-up to the previous "Minsk agreements" of 2 September 2014, when the Trilateral Contact Group, comprising high representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, met with representatives of the breakaway entities of Donetsk and Luhansk on 1 September 2014.
However, in the Minsk 2 agreements, along with Russia and Ukraine, two Western players with great political and diplomatic influence entered the game: France and Germany.
Vladimir Putin, Petro Poroshenko, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel agreed on a document that was supposed to put an end to the bloody civil war in Donbas. The set of measures for implementing the Minsk agreements would not only open the way to a ceasefire in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but would also involve the return of the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbas under Ukrainian control and granting them broad autonomy, which, in essence, would mean a kind of federalization of the country.
Donetsk, February of 2015
However, from 2015 to 2022, clashes and bombings continued on the contact line, and Ukraine, in addition to holding large-scale NATO exercises on its territory - Rapid Trident - was literally stuffed with Western weapons. The Kiev government - always supported by Western countries and blindly Russophobic by nature - constantly demonstrated a complete lack of will to any path of reconciliation with Russia, as well as with the Russian and Russian-speaking population of the two self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.
The belated revelations by the European signatories and guarantors of the agreements – former French President François Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel – were merely a statement of facts.
Angela Merkel in an interview with the magazine Die Zeit stated in December 2022 that the Minsk agreements were not an attempt to bring peace to war-torn Ukraine, but an attempt to "give Ukraine time" to rebuild its army.
This concept was soon repeated by Hollande.
These statements undermine trust in Europe. The "Minsk-2 agreements" have become the final test of Russia's trust in its so-called European "partners".
The belated revelations by the European signatories and guarantors of the agreements – former French President François Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel – were merely a statement of facts.
Angela Merkel in an interview with the magazine Die Zeit stated in December 2022 that the Minsk agreements were not an attempt to bring peace to war-torn Ukraine, but an attempt to "give Ukraine time" to rebuild its army.
This concept was soon repeated by Hollande.
These statements undermine trust in Europe. The "Minsk-2 agreements" have become the final test of Russia's trust in its so-called European "partners".
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