Putin’s smile gives away his ambition
Marathon talks to end Ukraine war end in a deal in which Russia loses little
The only reason, after all, for the existence of ‘Minsk Two’ is that Putin ignored ‘Minsk One.’
The body language said it all. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, grim and exhausted, leaned forward imploringly; Russian President Vladimir Putin, benevolent and relaxed, smiled a cryptic smile.
The photographs of Thursday’s marathon talks demonstrated which of the two enemies has most cause for confidence about the deal that emerged in Minsk.
In fairness, Poroshenko did not go like a defenceless lamb into the conference chamber.
Poroshenko avoided repeating the cardinal error of dealing bilaterally with Russia by ensuring that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande were present to even the scales. But the outcome was woefully unbalanced.
Under the agreement which diplomats now call “Minsk Two,” all of Ukraine’s obligations are detailed and timetabled. Poroshenko has 30 days to begin granting legal autonomy to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, most of which are now in the hands of pro-Russian insurgents. He must rewrite Ukraine’s constitution to formalize the “special status” of this area by the end of this year.
And Russia? What obligations has Putin agreed to shoulder? By Ukraine’s estimate, no fewer than 9,000 Russian troops have been deployed inside its territory: five infantry battalions along with tanks and heavy artillery. While not endorsing those numbers, NATO has confirmed the presence of a sizable Russian force in Ukraine.
One clause of the deal states that “foreign armed formations” and “military equipment” must leave Ukraine — but there is no timetable, no deadline and no means of verification, save for a vague line that withdrawal should happen under the “supervision” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Only last month, Poroshenko, flushed with righteous indignation, told an audience in Davos that the path to peace must start with removing “all the foreign troops from my territory.” He posed the rhetorical question: “If this is not aggression, what is aggression?”
Yet Poroshenko has walked away from Minsk without a deadline for the departure of the Russian troops. On the contrary, Putin clings to the shameless pretence that his forces are not even present.
The rebels who control thousands of square kilometres of Eastern Ukraine are dependent on weapons, supplies — and, indeed, troops and tanks — from over the border in Russia. Without Putin’s direct intervention, Ukrainian forces might well have recaptured the lost territory by now. So another of Poroshenko’s negotiating objectives was to restore Ukraine’s control over the frontier with Russia. If and when that happens — and the flow of help to the rebels dries up — then the balance of the conflict would swing decisively in Ukraine’s favour.
But the Minsk agreement says that Poroshenko will get his border back only after he has delivered full legal autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine must fulfil every pledge down to the last comma. Only then will Russia concede control of the frontier and, perhaps, withdraw its troops. And that is to make the optimistic assumption that Putin has any intention of keeping this agreement at all.
The only reason, after all, for the existence of “Minsk Two” is that Putin ignored “Minsk One.” Thursday’s agreement amounts to Putin promising once again to keep the pledges that he has already made and broken.
Perhaps it will be different this time. One plausible argument suggests that Putin has wrung all he wanted from Ukraine.
His friendly rebels, stiffened by Russian troops, now control a swath of the east, including Ukraine’s industrial heartland and the lion’s share of its coal reserves.
Like Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, a large area of Donetsk and Luhansk now dwells in an unrecognized post-Soviet twilight zone. But those other enclaves are marginal compared with the new black hole in Eastern Ukraine, which has a large population of about three million (although many have fled) and the backbone of the national economy.
Putin’s dominance of the Donbass, as this region is known, gives him the whip-hand over Ukraine. By seizing de facto control of this vital area, he has gone a long way toward crippling Ukraine’s independence and blocking the country’s path toward joining the European Union.
The question is whether this particular success will satisfy him. For, in the end, this crisis was never about Ukraine alone; rather, it has always been about Putin’s consuming ambition to overturn a postCold War settlement that, in his eyes, defanged Russia at its moment of maximum weakness.
So we find ourselves asking a question that has not been posed since 1938: how far do the territorial ambitions of a European autocrat extend? In pondering that conundrum, all we have to go on is Putin’s cryptic smile.