The EU cannot say whether Ukraine is fulfilling the Minsk Agreement in full measure. "I cannot evaluate it," representative of the EU Foreign Service Catherine Rey said at a briefing in Brussels. According to her, ‘‘the EU fully supports the Minsk Agreement and the existing formats of negotiations on Ukraine, as well the ‘Normandy Format’ (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) and the negotiations of the contact group.’’
However, Bogdan Bezpalko, Deputy Director of the Center for Ukrainian and Belorusan Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, considers that the Ukrainian leadership isn’t fulfilling a single point of the Minsk Agreements. ‘‘In fact, the Minsk-2 Agreement wasn’t fulfilled at all. If Ukraine doesn’t aspire to any variant of the compromise at all, why should we discuss a Minsk-3 Agreement?’’
According to the expert's opinion, in this situation a Minsk-3 can only mean Kiev’s surrender, which is why they have chosen a tactic according to which they want to get out of the Minsk Agreements: ‘‘They aren't fulfilling the agreements, but trying to get out of them completely and blaming Lugansk, Donetsk and Moscow for it. In order to archive this aim, they concentrate a significant part of their armed forces on the demarcation line – on the front line on the one hand. On the other hand, they are constantly carrying out attacks, the main purpose of which is to provoke Donetsk and Lugansk into active hostilities.’’
Bezpalko noted that the presence of right-wing radicals is one of the factors that affects this situation: ‘‘The right-wing radicals can be without arms. There may be a part of the electorate that could support those people who will remove Poroshenko.’’
The expert considers that the second factor is ‘economic despair’. The members of the group that seized power in Ukraine after the so-called Euromaidan have no money for the heating season, according to them. It means that not only the economy, but also social and economic existence in Ukraine is on the brink of disaster. In this situation it also plays a significant role, as it is much easier to explain that the economic degradation is caused by the war. Especially if there is someone at whom the finger can always be pointed at, saying: "The aggressors are to blame! The matter isn’t in our economic, social and humanitarian policies, or anything else. The matter is that there is an aggressor.’’
According to Bezpalko, the third factor is foreign sponsors: ‘‘They used Ukraine, my home country and my people, in order to destabilize the situation in Russia and the Eurasian space. The country itself and the people can burn in the fire of this destabilization. But it doesn’t matter, as they are just a tool. But they have to perform a certain task. Naturally, any freezing of the conflict won’t be beneficial for the sponsor.’’
If we speak in the framework of diplomacy, in the present circumstances a Minsk-3 Agreement isn’t beneficial for either Russia or Lugansk and Donetsk, or even for the European Union,’’ the expert concluded.
