Although arguing the statement from Russia made on 2/17/2022 is already useless at the moment (as the war has already begun), I would like to oppose some of the opinions held by Russian officials as there are so much fake information circulated around the world, and many Russians and Chinese believe those fake argument. You can find a lot of truths uncovered by mainstream western media which prove much information from Russia are fake online. There is a statement from Russia’s deputy foreign minister at the UNSC briefing on Feb 17, 2022, which has not been contradicted by western media yet, I suppose it’s because this one is unlike most of Russia’s propaganda which already isn’t convincing to most of the people in the world, some of the arguments made by Russia’s deputy foreign minister in that day are actually hard to controvert for even the U.N officials, or difficult to observe what was wrong because he used many skills to make him sounds right (although it’s the opposite). Therefore, in this article, I will use this statement from Russia’s foreign minister to make my counter-argument to him.
Before making my counter-argument, I think it’s necessary to make a brief about the Minsk agreement because most of the points from Russia’s deputy foreign minister are about this agreement. I will try to make the brief more toward Pro-Russia so it will seem neutral to Pro-Russians although many pieces of evidence prove Russia is the bad guy, then I will proceed to my counter-argument to Russia’s deputy foreign minister’s statement at the UNSC briefing as I promised to. I won’t go into details. You can find a lot of news online to read what are the problems, I will just brief here so my following argument can be understandable.
Brief of Minsk agreement
Here is the thing, Ukraine had prepared to join NATO for years. Putin was concerned about the national security of Russia because he was afraid that NATO’s eastward expansion will eventually lead to an invasion of Russia. Therefore, Russia seized Ukraine’s territories Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk gradually with the reasons of security concerns, Russian language discrimination happened around that time, and anti-nazi (Russia said there were Nazis in Ukraine). The control of territories from Russia led to more subsequent wars then led to the agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end wars in 2014, this agreement is called “the Minsk agreement”.
Problems of the Minsk agreement
Wars between the two parties were not ended by the signing of the agreement.
Problems are the following:
1. The sequence of the execution of terms is not defined in the agreement. Russia claimed one of the terms “ensure early local elections” proceed first, while Ukraine claimed another term “ceasefire” proceed first.
2. Both parties never did a ceasefire, thus the Minsk agreement is never fully completed.After the follow-up memorandum, the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport broke out, and both parties continued to accuse each other of ceasefire violations. [1] https://www.unian.info/war/10391709-almost-entire-grey-zone-in-donbas-liberated-by-ukraine-without-minsk-deal-breach-adviser.html
3. Although Russia signed the Minsk agreement, whenever there was a conflict (violation of the Minsk agreement) between Ukraine and the Russia-controlled areas (ex: Dunbas), Russia said it’s up to Ukraine and the separatist leaders (the leader of the specific area controlled by Russia) to resolve the issue. Russia’s reasons are that Russia is NOT a party to the Minsk agreements, and it has NO obligations under the Minsk agreements. Meanwhile, Russia has never fulfilled the Minsk agreement.[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/17/minsk-agreement-ukraine-russia-peace/ According to Independent UK, “Russia insisted that it is not a party to the conflict and that the agreement therefore does not apply, arguing that it cannot remove armed forces and military hardware from Donetsk and Luhansk given that the combatants are part of the separatist insurgency and are not its own.”[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-minsk-agreement-putin-war-b2039867.html
Result of the Minsk agreement
After both side accused each other of violating the ceasefire term many times, on Feb 22, 2022, Putin declared that the Minsk agreements “no longer existed”, and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse.[4] https://www.news18.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-says-ukraine-peace-agreement-does-not-exist-anymore-4800302.html
After then, the Russia-Ukraine war started.
Now that you understand what the Minsk agreement is, I will move on to my counter-argument to the statement of Russia’s deputy foreign minister at UNSC briefing on Feb 17, 2022 part.
Russia argument – 2022/2/17
On Feb 17, 2022, Russia’s deputy foreign minister made a statement regarding the status of Russia-Ukraine tension. He said Ukraine’s stance is baseless, on the contrary, I found his opinion is the one which is baseless after carefully reading his argument and doing some research on the tension. Here is the following:
(*Note: “You” represents “Russia’s deputy foreign minister” in the following counter-argument)
1.
“Ukrainian neighbors still are not going to implement the Minsk Package.Yesterday Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk said: “There will be no new laws (regarding the special status for Donbas), no direct coordination”………..By the way, she also said that Kiev was not experiencing any pressure from the West regarding implementation of “Minsk”. ” He further quoted the statement from Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council O.Danilov “The fulfillment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s destruction. When they were signed under the Russian gun barrel — and the German and the French watched — it was already clear for all rational people that it’s impossible to implement those documents.”
Ans:
First and the most obvious, the second statement from the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council is already very clear – the Minsk agreement was signed under Russia’s gun barrel, I am very curious why would you even mention it to let everyone know Minsk was signed under Russia’s gun barrel.
Let me go back to the background of the story by repeating my brief of the Minsk agreement, “Russia seized Ukraine’s territory Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk gradually…..The control of territories from Russia led to more subsequent wars than led to the agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end wars in 2014, this agreement is called “the Minsk agreement”.
Do you see it? Russia started the war at the beginning. Ukraine wants to stop war for preventing more deaths of innocent civilians, thus signing the deal. This fact was also conveyed in many articles, I will quote one of them here “at the time the Minsk agreements were brokered, full-fledged war was raging in Donbas, active Russian military personnel and Russian tanks and other weaponry had crossed the border and were directly involved in the conflict, and Ukraine was pressured into accepting unfavorable terms precisely to avoid mass casualties and a serious defeat.”[5] https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-war-minsk-peace-accords/
There is actually a good reason for Russia to justify their invasion of the three Ukraine territories, which was “Russia’s national security concern of NATO, Russia language discrimination, and anti-nazi”; however, two of the reasons (national security, language discrimination) should not be used to justify the action of starting of the war without negotiation even if these reasons are indeed consistent with the fact.
The last reason, anti-Nati, should be a legitimate reason only when there is substantial evidence of Nazis suppressing Ukraine and Russia’s race; Russia has provided no substantial evidence to UN or Ukraine. Indeed, there are stories from Russia about Ukraine’s military suppressing Ukrainians in Russia-controlled areas, while I am not able to confirm that every story is simply Ukraine military or Nazi-mind Ukraine military, these stories are proved to be fake by Western media.
I won’t go into detail here, you can google yourself.
Although I said the first two reasons shouldn’t be used to justify the action of starting the war without negotiation even if these reasons are indeed consistent with the fact. Both reasons should not be concerns of Russia.
For the national security of Russia, you may refer to the first part of this article – the proposal to Russia and Ukraine. For language discrimination, I won’t go into detail here because this is not the main point of your statement. Anyway, I still will explain a little bit about the language discrimination issue later on in this article.
Second, regarding the first statement, you quoted from Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina “There will be no new laws (regarding the special status for Donbas), no direct coordination”………..By the way, she also said that Kiev was not experiencing any pressure from the West regarding the implementation of “Minsk”. ”
For Irina’s “There will be no new laws (regarding the special status for Donbas), no direct coordination”,I will explain in the following second point.
For Irina’s ” Kiev was not experiencing any pressure from the West regarding implementation of “Minsk” “, as an outsider who has no experience in politics, I spent some time to finally understand why you mentioned this part of Ukraine Irina’s statement: Because West normally will want to make the parties in the conflict peace so will mediate between them or put pressure on either of the parties, Russia think West didn’t put pressure on Ukrain for implementing Minsk while seeing Ukraine violated Minsk agreement.
Well as a Russian deputy minister, you definitely know the West has been useless in putting pressure on you Russia to implement Minsk before the war because you Russia said Russia is not a party to the conflict (^^), so why did you blame the West for not putting pressures on Ukraine, while you Russia ignored West’s sincere talk to you for implementing Minsk and used “not a party of the conflict” as an excuse?
You may say that because Russia indeed not a party to the conflict, Donetsk, and Luhansk are the parties to which Ukraine should talk. You may say Russia’s pressure is reasonable because Ukraine signed the deal, Ukraine should follow the agreement, and Russia is not a party to the conflict(^^).
Well, okay then, sounds reasonable, Ukraine and western countries such as France and Germany have been speechless regarding this statement. This situation has been called “an impasse” by western countries and media.I will answer this question in the 2nd point of my counter-argument later on. [6] https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-normandy-format-and-its-relation-current-standoff-russia
2.
Russia deputy foreign minister quoted several statements from Ukraine officials as examples of Ukraine’s not going to implement Minsk –
“On 4 February in an interview to Ukrainian TV Channel “1+1”, Foreign Minister D.Kuleba said the Minsk Agreements could not be implemented “on Russian conditions”, to which he somehow ascribed direct dialogue between Ukraine and Donbas. Though this requirement is clearly stipulated in the Minsk Package.
On 1 February, President Zelensky also reminded the whole world of Ukraine’s intractability. While hinting that there was an “alternative” solution to the conflict in Donbas, he said: “Kiev has varying views on the order of implementing certain provisions of the Minsk Agreements”.
Ans:
So we have two quotes that you used as examples to support your “Ukraine is not going to implement Minsk” opinion.
The first quote from Ukrain Foreign Minister is about Ukraine refusing to implement Minsk “on Russian conditions”. What are Russia’s conditions? It’s the 3rd, 9th terms of the Minsk Protocol, and the 4th, 11th, and 12th terms of the Minsk II protocol, which is about decentralization of Ukraine’s power and local elections in Russia-controlled territories.
So Ukraine refused to implement it, why? What is the problem?
First, if you want to decentralize Ukraine’s power and adhere to the Minsk agreements, you will need to modify Ukraine’s constitutional law. As we all know a country’s constitution law is very important for a country, and can not be modified unless there is a good reason. It’s reasonable that Ukraine has been unwilling to implement these terms.
There is no good reason; Modifying constitutional law in exchange for a ceasefire in Russia-controlled areas is a compromise.
The above explanation is based on an interview of Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Kuleba said”None of Ukraine’s regions will have a right to veto the state’s decisions. That is engraved in stone! Therefore, no special status as Russia is considering it, no veto right will be given,” [7]https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kuleba-donbas-special-status/31683203.html
Second, according to the interview I cited, “Russia has been pushing Kyiv to hold “a dialogue” with separatist leaders in order to provide the territories they control greater autonomy. Moscow says the Minsk agreements allow for this. Kyiv, however, has rejected the notion saying it is a thinly veiled attempt by the Kremlin to federalize Ukraine and ultimately take control of it”, we can know Ukraine treats the Russian attempt of push Ukraine to provide more autonomy to the three Russia-controlled territories as a signal that Russia tries to control Ukraine. [8] https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kuleba-donbas-special-status/31683203.html Why?
Because when you give autonomy to the Pro-Russians in these occupied territories, this means you admit these Russia-controlled regions’ independence.
What does it mean when you admit their independence?
According to a report from Euromaidnpress, “there is extensive evidence that apart from the demand of autonomy for Donbas, Russia is trying to revive the good old idea of making Ukraine a federation, where strategic foreign policy decisions, like EU or NATO accession, would be impossible without the agreement of all its members, to meddle in Ukrainian affairs.” [9] … Continue reading
Furthermore, the reason that Russia was asking for autonomy rights for Russia-controlled regions is that Russia wanted to federalize Ukraine. [10]https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/04/07/putins-federalization-card-in-ukraine-a33715 [11]https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/making-sense-of-minsk-decentralization-special-status-and-federalism/ One of the reasonable speculation from Russia’s federalization goal is as Ukraine Foreign Minister said, this will let these regions have rights to veto the state’s decision. What will happen if these Russia-controlled regions have rights to veto the state’s decision? Russia will be able to infiltrate and influence Ukraine’s every national decision by voting a denial to some plans that most of Ukrainians have been dreaming for, for instance, joining NATO. [12]https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/04/07/putins-federalization-card-in-ukraine-a33715
Another reasonable speculation based on Putin’s statements and Russia’s actions toward Ukraine is that Putin tried to absorb Ukraine, expand his Russia empire, make Russia like the old Soviet Union again. [13] https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-02-24/why-is-russias-vladimir-putin-so-obsessed-with-ukraine-invasion
So there were growing fears that Russia will eventually control Ukraine, and Ukraine will no longer be an independent country. Of course, Ukrainians have been unwilling to implement Minsk. As I explained in point 1 of my counter-argument, Ukraine was forced to sign Minsk under Russia’s gun barrel.
Now let’s talk about the second quote from Ukraine Presiden Zelensky “Kyiv has varying views on the order of implementing certain provisions of the Minsk Agreements”.
According to my brief of Minsk – “1. The sequence of the execution of terms is not defined in the agreement. Russia claimed one of the terms “ensure early local elections” proceed first, while Ukraine claimed another term “ceasefire” proceed first. “, Ukraine wanted the ceasefire to be executed first, and you accused Ukraine not implement Minsk because of Ukraine’s view on the order of implementation is different from yours.
Okay, so Ukraine wants a ceasefire first.
Although the sequence of implementation was indeed not defined in the agreements, let me ask you, isn’t it reasonable?
You ceasefire first in order to prevent more death of innocent civilians, then you move on to execute other matters. What on earth is the idea of starting a local election first before preventing more civilians from dead justified?
I really don’t understand you Russia’s logic.
I watched much news about you Russian soldiers killing civilians, and abandoning your fellow soldier’s corpses on the battlefield, I guess Russia’s logic is that human life is like a blade of grass.
In addition, I saw the news about you prepared “predetermined and without alternative candidates” for your local elections to make people vote, so people have no choice but to vote for the candidates you proposed. I wonder if all people die, where the hell you are going to find people to vote for you? What will be your excuse to make your positions legitimate if people are all dead? [14] https://khpg.org/en/1541719404
See, I really don’t understand your logic, I even can’t come up with an excuse that you may use.
Ok, all of your efforts of quoting these four statements from Ukraine officials in Points 1 and 2 is to support your opinion “Ukraine is not going to implement Minsk”, now let’s go back to this.
According to Yale Macmillan, in an interview with Putin, which was conducted before the 2022 war, Putin raised a similar issue as you did. Furthermore, according to this news, “Time after time in recent weeks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, and Putin made it clear that the key to resolving the situation in and around Ukraine is the full implementation of Minsk 2”, we can know how important of implementing Minsk by Ukraine to Russia had been clearly stated many times in interviews by Russia officials.
When it came to the question – ‘Do you intend to invade Ukraine?’”, Putin said “Ukrainian leaders first say that they will implement the Minsk agreements and then they denounce them and say they will never do this because ‘this would destroy the Ukrainian state. Well, will they or won’t they? This is the question…. the Minsk agreements were coordinated and endorsed by a resolution of the UN Security Council. So, will they comply with the agreements or not? Or will they make some other attempt? ” with his adaption of a well-known saying from Shakesphere to convey that the implementation of Minsk is important for him to deescalate the potential war (Also Shakesphere is not relevant to the topic but I couldn’t help to point out).
The reply of France president Macron to Putin was “We continue working within the framework of the Normandy format to ensure full compliance with the Minsk agreements”, so western countries had been trying to resolve the tension by helping to ensure the full implementation of Minsk. However, after then, the tension was still not relieved. [15] https://macmillan.yale.edu/news/after-flurry-high-level-diplomacy-and-another-long-normandy-format-meeting-threat-war-ukraine
It seems reasonable that Ukraine signed the deal, it should obey the deal in order to make peace; however, in my above brief and the following counter-argument, you can understand one of the reasons behind the conflict is that Russia and Ukraine have different views of which term in Minsk has to be implemented first, and you should also understand now that the implementation of ceasefire term first is undisputedly reasonable. Not to mention, Ukraine did start to implement those decentralization and local election actions you requested. Although the revisement of Ukraine constitution or other measures may not like what you want, this shouldn’t be the reason for you to not put down your guns and stop making more innocent deaths. It’s about human life, you have to ceasefire first. [16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
Furthermore, many news has pointed out that Pro-Russians also violated the Minsk agreement more than 4,000 times based on a study with evidence, so it is not a one-sided fault of Ukraine.[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements [18] https://khpg.org/en/1608809712
Although Russia has stated that it is not a party to the conflict and Ukraine should talk to the Pro-Russia leaders, many news has evidence to confirm that Russia secretly send weapons into the Russia-controlled regions which are under the Minsk agreement, then the Pro-Russia soldiers of those regions used weapons from Russia to create wars (possibly by following Russia’s orders). Thus, Russia is definitely part of the conflict, and it created a hopeless situation.[19] https://khpg.org/en/1608809712 [20] https://khpg.org/en/1540757123
Here is what was happening – Pro-Russia leaders started a war with Russia’s weapons and said Ukraine must revise the constitution law first, Ukraine thought the first action should be a ceasefire and understood the mastermind who supported Pro-Russians actions is Russia, so Ukraine/western countries went to Russia, Russia said “Russia is not a party to the conflict and Ukraine should talk to the leaders of those areas (^^)”, then Ukraine had nothing to choose but to deal the issue with Pro-Russian leaders. Nevertheless, we all know it’s not going to work because Russia will back these leaders and continue the war.
After citing the difficulties caused by Russia which Ukraine faced, let me answer your concern of “Ukraine is not going to implement Minsk”.
The answer is – Forget about Minsk. Minsk is impossible to implement.
Why? Do you know what the situation is like? It’s like a programming loop.
You start walking from A, A told you to go to B, B told you to go to C, then C told you to go back to A, then A told you again to go to B….things keep repeating to happen in an endless circle. As a human, you know going to Russia again is useless because Russia will tell you to go back to discuss with Pro-Russia leaders again, but if it’s a computer, the computer will just enter into the circle again, thus creating a repeating circle (loop). You tell me, how the hell the situation can be resolved by Minsk if you Russia has intentionally made Minsk and the whole situation as a loop?
There is one way to not enter into this endless circle under this circumstance, the way is to revise Ukraine’s constitution law as Pro-Russia leaders suggested. Nevertheless, we all know the risk of doing that is to make Russia move closer to its goal – absorbing Ukraine.
By the way, if there is anyone including you who still doesn’t understand what a loop is after reading my explanation above, here is what a loop is like (click the text).
If you still can’t understand why the above animation of a mouse is like a loop, just interpret the Minsk situation as “an impasse”, as media and professors have interpreted, because “an impasse” is what it appears on the computer screen, there is no end result coming up, meanwhile, the computer keeps running the loop in the background.
In addition to this, first, if your answer of “You tell me, how the situation can be resolved by Minsk if you Russia has intentionally made Minsk and the whole situation as a loop?” is to make Ukraine part of Russia, well, okay then, then I really have nothing to say.
Second, we should forget about the Minsk agreement, stop insisting on its implementation and make a new one. According to Professor Volodymyr Vasylenko, the Minsk agreements are actually not legitimate according to international law. First, the signatories on behalf of Ukraine and Russia did not have official powers, which violated articles 2 and 7 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Second, the signing of the agreement was imposed by Russian force as I explained in Point 1 of my count-argument – it was just as Ukraine said “it was signed under Russia’s gun barrels”. [21] https://euromaidanpress.com/2021/09/13/how-ukraine-can-escape-the-trap-of-the-minsk-protocols-and-return-to-international-law/ There are more points, see here.
I know the reason that leaders of western countries continued using Minsk at that time, despite there was a professor pointing out we can discard Minsk because of its illegitimacy, is that Russia admit Ukraine’s sovereignty in Minsk (Based on the history of Ukraine, Putin once said Ukraine is not a country, and Ukraine should be part of Russia). Nevertheless, it will be a waste of time to continue going into this endless cycle as I explained above; The effort will result in nothing.
Plus, we shouldn’t be concerned about whether Russia admits Ukraine’s sovereignty or not. I will explain in the latter part of this article after completing my counter-argument to Russia’s deputy foreign minister.
Read Part 2 here.
Support me with donations and by following me on social media.
Every article I wrote is gone through days of deep research and thinking by me before it is written. If you like my articles, kindly support me, so I can write more quality articles.
( *Note: The unit of donation on the page is U.S dollars. )
If you like this article, please share the article to your social media page, so my article can be accessed to more people.
Please also follow me on social media by clicking the links at below, so my latest articles can be reached out to you.
Follow My Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin
Reproduction of the article without permission is prohibited.References
Chrissy Slora
The articles published in this website are all written by Chrissy Slora. Chrissy Slora aims to make people learn about how the world can be better and provide her intelligent and wise insight by writing about various topics from technology to issues happening in the world. Follow her on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin