The Guardian view on the chances the new Ukraine ceasefire will last
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Version 0 of 1. The Ukraine ceasefire agreement reached after laborious negotiations in Minsk this week may or may not last. Unfortunately, we can be sure of one thing: it will not in itself lead to a real peace. The objectives of Russia, Ukraine, the separatists, the Europeans and the Americans are so divergent they are impossible to reconcile. The reduction in the level of violence if a ceasefire even half holds was of course worth pursuing, in spite of the agreement being deficient in other respects. In just the first five days of this month 263 men, women and children were killed in the fighting zone, and this does not include military casualties. Anything that brings this kind of appalling figure down is obviously to be welcomed, and anything that limits the expansion of the war into areas of Ukraine hitherto untouched even more so. But nothing will be settled and new fighting will be a constant possibility until one side or the other revises its aims, or to put it more exactly, decides what those aims are. The body language of the leaders at Minsk told its own story. They looked as if they did not trust one another. They looked as if they would prefer to be anywhere in the world except in Minsk. They looked as if they were pretending to be in charge but were inwardly aware that they were not. They looked, in a word, hapless. The truth is that they have collectively dug themselves into a hole from which it is proving desperately hard to get out. Nobody planned or wanted to get into this situation, no doubt including Vladimir Putin. But his responsibility is great, even though it is not his alone, and the question of what his objectives are is critical. We know what Ukraine wants, which is full control of its territory and borders. We know what the separatists want, which is also full control, at most with a very nominal nod to Kiev’s authority, of their territory and borders, plus somebody to pay the bills, since they are broke, administratively incompetent, and likely to remain so. We know what Europe wants, which is a deal that will hold, be relatively satisfactory to Ukraine, and halt the slippage of relations with Russia towards permanent hostility. Mr Putin is more obscure. Sometimes he has restrained the separatists, sometimes he seems to have given them the green light for offensive action. They do not have full trust in him, while he has not got full control of them. Sometimes he seems to have had annexation in mind, at other times the evidence has suggested that this is the last thing he wants. Sometimes a grand plan to undermine both Ukraine and Europe as a whole seems to emerge, then there are moments when it looks as if he understands this is too ambitious. Sometimes he seems to want to get back on terms with Europe and America, sometimes not. A man with a secret strategy, or a serial tactician with no strategy worthy of the name? Not easy to answer. What can be said with certainty is that Mr Putin does not want to be seen to lose. His whole political position, in his own country and to an extent in the world, is based on projecting an image of being brilliantly and imperturbably on top of things. His cockiness, his kind of wit, his geopolitical discourses, his physical poise, are all instruments to this end. But this emperor, we may surmise, is secretly aware of the danger of losing his clothes. He may also have an inkling not only that the damage done to his relationship with western countries can never be fully repaired but that the direction in which he has taken Russian politics is a dangerous one. He has conjured up a simplistic black and white nationalism that is useful to him at the moment but which could be very problematic in the future. If the new Minsk agreement fails because he does not deliver his side of the bargain, there will be additional western sanctions, a much wiser way of exerting pressure than the proposal for arms shipments that some are floating in Washington. But something else is needed, something that could be presented in Russia as a victory of sorts but would in fact be, and be internationally understood to be, a serious compromise. Yet it will be a risky business, to try to craft such an outcome with a man who is not trusted by western leaders and who has been so unpredictable in the past. |