AN agreement has been reached in Minsk to cease fire in Ukraine from midnight Sunday, February 15. Russian President Vladimir Putin commented yesterday that a compromise decision was taken over the disengagement line. Kiev’s troops are to pull back heavy weapons from the current frontline. The self-defence forces will pull back from the line as it existed in September, when the previous ceasefire agreement was signed.
The security zone separating the warring parties will be at least 50km wide for artillery over 100mm calibre, 70km for regular multiple rocket launchers and 100km for heavier weapons with a longer range, like Tochka-U ballistic missiles, the document states.
The weapons pull-out must be completed in no longer than 14 days.
The agreed document also provides for the withdrawal of all ‘foreign troops, heavy weapons and mercenaries’ from Ukraine under Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) monitoring. ‘Illegal armed groups’ would be disarmed.
The agreement also repeats the points of last year’s truce, including political reform in Ukraine to ensure special status for its rebel provinces and the settlement of the border guard situation. The special status provision requires Ukraine to adopt legislation which would provide permanent privileges to Lugansk and Donetsk Regions, currently self-declared republics, by the end of 2015.
The terms of the ceasefire are spelled out in a document signed by members of the so-called Contact Group, which includes representatives from the self-defence forces, Kiev, Russia and the OSCE.
The members of the ‘Normandy Four’ – Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande – supported a joint declaration describing the result of their work.
Putin said that Kiev’s unwillingness to hold direct talks with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics was among the reasons why it took so much time to reach an agreement. ‘They may be unrecognised, but we have to deal with real life here, and if everyone wants to agree and have sustainable relations, direct contacts are needed,’ Putin urged.
Poroshenko announced that the agreement involves exchange of all prisoners, which is to be completed within 19 days.
The national government’s control over the borders between Donetsk and Lugansk Regions is to be fully restored a day after municipal elections, which would be held in the regions as part of the constitutional reform.
Kiev however refuses to negotiate with the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk directly, and the parties have not agreed on the document on Ukraine ‘reconciliation’ yet.
Putin also said that Kiev needs ‘Constitutional reform that covers the rights of people living in east Ukraine. There are several conditions and positions in the political settlement. The first is a constitutional reform that takes into consideration the legal rights of people living in Donbas.’
The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that so far there is ‘no good news’ coming from the reconciliation talks on the Ukrainian crisis in Minsk, but ‘there is some hope’.
The key to understanding the tentative agreements that have been reached in Minsk is that the Ukrainian army, its right-wing militias and the mercenary forces that it has brought in from the US and other countries have received a very bad beating at the hands of the self-defence forces that have been mustered by the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, supported by Russian and other volunteers.
Kiev’s forces badly need resting, retraining and reinforcing and so will greatly benefit from being moved back to western Ukraine.
The US is already moving a large number of A10 tank busting aircraft and 300 pilots to Europe, where they will be much closer to the conflict.
The plan is, provided the ceasefire begins and holds, to retrain and greatly reinforce the Ukrainian army so that it will be able to attack Lugansk and Donetsk later on this year with overwhelming ground and air forces at its disposal.
Meanwhile, all ceasefire breaches will, no doubt, be put down to Russian bad faith.