Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

With other leaders, Putin was outspoken and even thuggish. In August, he told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (who had been inaugurated in June) that ‘if he really wanted to invade, he had 1.2m soldiers armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry. They could be in Kyiv in two days – or in Tallinn, Vilnius, Riga, and Bucharest.’[56] In a call with Barroso the following month, he employed similarly inflammatory rhetoric, reportedly saying he could ‘take Kyiv in two weeks’ if he wanted to do so.[57] While there was some truth to Putin’s statements, and one can sense the frustration that must have prompted them, the effect was to aggravate tensions.

Without the prospect of a diplomatic resolution, Moscow had to significantly increase its involvement on the battlefield, since its rebel proxies in the Donbas were increasingly outmanned and outgunned. By the end of August, the Ukrainians were about to encircle the two oblast capitals and retake border crossings, which would have finished off the insurgency. The US administration was split between those who feared Russia would respond to such a move with overwhelming force and others who were ‘saying [the Ukrainian forces] should take one of those towns and then sue for peace, to prove to [Putin] that he can’t win’.[58] While the debate between these groups raged inside the Washington Beltway, the US was effectively sitting on the sidelines, neither deploying its significant leverage to push the Ukrainians to end the offensive nor encouraging them to continue it.

Just as the separatist forces seemed on their last legs, Russia intervened more directly. Backed by the Russian military, including artillery shelling from across the border and a 3,000-troop reinforcement, the separatists counter-attacked, moving south and capturing towns and cities towards the Sea of Azov. Ukraine’s army suffered a calamitous setback in the town of Ilovaisk, when its forces were caught in a pincer by units wielding advanced weaponry, widely assumed to be Russian regulars. Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers were killed or went missing.

The Russian hammer blow made it clear to Kyiv that outright military victory over the separatists was impossible. It more than anything drove the Ukrainians to the negotiating table – or, strictly speaking, the long-distance telephone, as Poroshenko and Putin hashed out a deal in several hours-long conversations in late August and early September. It was formalised in a 12-point protocol signed in Minsk on 5 September. The agreement called for, inter alia, a ceasefire monitored by the OSCE; the decentralisation of power within Ukraine, one point of which would be a law on ‘special status’ for rebel-held areas of the Donbas, giving them powers similar to those called for in the document of 15 March; a permanent OSCE presence along the Ukraine–Russia border; release of all hostages and prisoners; an amnesty law for combatants; early local elections in rebel-held areas; and the withdrawal of unauthorised armed groups and equipment. Together with a more detailed memorandum signed later that month, this set of arrangements came to be known as Minsk I. The basic trade was peace and withdrawal for Ukraine’s acceptance of the central demands of the Russian 15 March document.

Although many of the provisions of Minsk I were never put into effect, it did prompt a sharp decline in violence, from 756 fatalities, or 42 people per day, in the 18 days before the agreement was signed, to 331 deaths in the month following, or about 11 per day.[59] Hundreds of captives were also exchanged. Nonetheless, fighting continued in hotspots like the Donetsk airport, and both sides used the respite to reinforce their positions on the front lines. None of the political components of the deal were implemented, while endless diplomatic conclaves debated the meaning of the vague commitments that had been made. Moscow decided to force the issue again in early 2015, when the separatists, backed by a second direct Russian intervention, once again forced Ukrainian government troops to flee. By early February the separatists had gained control over an additional 300 sq km of terrain, including what was left of the Donetsk airport.

In a bid to end the renewed violence and avert a broader war, Merkel and French President François Hollande visited Kyiv and Moscow in early February to lay the groundwork for new talks, which were held in Minsk on 11–12 February. After 16 hours of non-stop negotiations, Poroshenko, Putin, Merkel and Hollande finalised a list of ‘implementing measures’ to enact the principles of Minsk I. This 13-point document came to be known as Minsk II.

Stalemate