Russia, Ukraine to swap prisoners
Status of Donbass remains uncertain
PARIS: The leaders of Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange all remaining prisoners from the conflict in east Ukraine by the end of the year yesterday, but left thorny questions about the region’s status for future talks.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in their first face-to-face meeting, took part in nine hours of talks in Paris, brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine that broke out in 2014 has killed more than 13,000 people, left a large swathe of Ukraine de facto controlled by
Moscow-backed separatists and aggravated the deepest east-west rift since the Cold War.
The body language between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskiy, a comedian-turnedpolitician elected earlier this year on a promise to resolve the conflict, was chilly. There was no public handshake, and they avoided eye contact.
But the talks did deliver specific commitments. A final communique set out the prisoner exchange and a renewed commitment to implement an existing ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region that has never fully taken hold as well as enhanced powers for international ceasefire monitors.
The sides also said they had agreed, over the next four months, to work towards local elections in Donbass, a major stumbling block up to now. There were no details though on how the votes would be conducted, and Mr Macron acknowledged there were still disagreements on the subject.
“We have made progress on disengagement, prisoner exchanges, ceasefire and a political evolution,” Mr Macron said at a news conference at which Mr Zelenskiy and Mr Putin sat separated by Ms Merkel and himself. “We have asked our ministers in the coming four months to work on this.”
In addition, Mr Zelenskiy said he and Mr Putin had worked out the outline of an agreement that would allow the transit of Russian natural gas to continue across Ukrainian soil. He gave no details. A member of the Russian delegation said officials had been instructed to hammer out details.
However, there was no definitive agreement on the political issues that stand in the way of resolving the conflict. These include the status of Donbass within Ukraine and who should de facto control the border between Donbass and Russia.
Another round of talks in the socalled Normandy format, brokered by France and Germany, will be held within four months.
Ukraine’s industrial Donbass region spun out of Kiev’s control in 2014, soon after street protests ousted a pro-Moscow leader in the Ukrainian capital and Russia sent in armed men to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea Crimea region.
A 2015 ceasefire deal was signed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. But fighting still flares up in Donbass four years on, and a peace deal has been elusive. Monday’s summit was the first time the four leaders have met under the Normandy format since 2016.
Many Ukrainians are concerned about compromising with Russia. They see Mr Putin as an aggressor seeking to restore the Kremlin’s influence on the former Soviet republic and ruin Ukraine’s aspiration for closer European ties.
Protesters who have warned Mr Zelenskiy about making concessions to Mr Putin in Paris were camped outside the presidential administration in Kiev, watching the summit news conference on a big screen.
Mr Zelenskiy, who sparred verbally with Russian journalists at the news conference, said he had given no ground on Ukraine’s sovereignty or territorial integrity. He said he and Mr Putin had disagreed on several issues.
Mr Putin, for his part, is unwilling to be seen to bend to outside pressure and he does not want to be seen to be leaving the Russian-speaking population of Donbass at the mercy of Kiev. He expressed only cautious hope for the peace talks.