Can Ukraine and Russia be persuaded to abide by Minsk accords?
In the often acrimonious back-and-forth between Russia and Ukraine in recent years, “fulfilling Minsk” has become something of a meaningless mantra: all sides agree to abide by the 2015 Minsk accords in public, but neither has any real intention of implementing the provisions of the agreement.
Yet in his intensive peacemaking efforts this week, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, appears to be pinning his hopes on a renewed attempt to breathe life into the seven-year-old agreement.
“The solution of the Ukraine question can be only political, and the basis of the solution can only be the Minsk agreements,” said Macron in Moscow on Monday.
The next day in Kyiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reaffirmed to Macron what he has been saying for months: Ukraine is committed to fulfilling the Minsk accords, as long as this happens in the way Kyiv interprets them.
Privately, however, Ukrainian officials are more downbeat. “Minsk is impossible to fulfil. It would lead to the destruction of Ukraine as a state if we did,” said one high-ranking government official. [Continue reading…]
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The White House has approved a Pentagon plan for U.S. troops in Poland to help thousands of Americans likely to flee Ukraine if Russia attacks, as the Biden administration tries to avoid the kind of chaotic evacuation conducted in Afghanistan.
Some of the 1,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Corps being deployed to Poland to bolster that ally will in coming days begin to set up checkpoints, tent camps and other temporary facilities inside Poland’s border with Ukraine in preparation to serve arriving Americans, U.S. officials said. The troops aren’t authorized to enter Ukraine and won’t evacuate Americans or fly aircraft missions from inside Ukraine, officials said.
Instead, the officials said, the mission would be to provide logistics support to help coordinate the evacuation of Americans from Poland, after they arrive there from Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, likely by land and without U.S. military support, the officials said. Roughly 30,000 Americans are in Ukraine, and if Russia attacks, some of them as well as Ukrainians and others would likely want to leave quickly, the officials said. Russia has been building up troops along the Ukraine border for months, and Western officials have said an invasion could come within weeks, while the Kremlin has said Russia doesn’t plan to invade Ukraine. [Continue reading…]