Angela Merkel on Minsk, NATO and averting war; and more

ANGELA MERKEL ON MINSK, NATO AND AVERTING WAR

                                                        – Guest blog post by RI Board member Robin Collins

The Minsk peace process may have become “dead in the water” by the spring of 2021, as Angela Merkel describes it in her new memoir, Freedom, but up to that point at least, it may also have been the best road forward.

The Minsk agreements were established in 2014-15 by the conflict parties Russia and Ukraine, together with the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic (plus France, Germany and the OSCE) to reach a ceasefire and help resolve the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. For this result, hard compromises were required, and they were never fully realized.

There were also obvious benefits from Minsk I and II, despite their imperfect implementation. Among them was a noticeable reduction in casualties. Writes Merkel:

Civilian casualties had fallen significantly by comparison with 2014 and 2015, as had the number of soldiers killed. Furthermore, it had given Ukraine time to improve the health of its public finances, push forward with political reforms such as the decentralization of state structures, implement the Association Agreement with the EU, and combat corruption. On this basis, Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, continued to pursue negotiations with Russia alongside Germany and France in the shape of the Normandy Format, and also participated in the Trilateral Contact Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

However, there have been many skeptics who believe (or at least claim to believe) that the Minsk accords were never really a genuine effort by those involved to reach conflict resolution. Some have gone so far as to state that France (François Hollande) and Germany (Angela Merkel), two primary Minsk process advocates and mediators, were using the negotiations primarily as a stalling tactic to enable Ukraine to arm itself and militarily succeed against Putin’s invasion. The evidence does not support this accusation.

As I have written elsewhere:

In an interview with the French newspaper Libération, (former French president) François Hollande, stated unequivocally that never “did I suggest that we would have signed the Minsk Agreements to allow the Ukrainians to prepare for war.” He also said in December 2022 that the accords “have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity” to strengthen itself. “The Minsk agreements and the resulting ceasefire didn’t allow the area controlled by separatists to expand. This is one of its merits.” And now “the Minsk agreements can be resurrected to establish a legal framework already accepted by all parties.”

And here:

In her interview with Die Zeit, December 7, 2022, Angela Merkel reiterated that NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia was a bad idea: “Neither of these countries had the necessary prerequisites for this…” But Merkel saw Minsk as a pause to enable a ceasefire and to establish the future peace. It “was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It has also used this time to become [militarily] stronger, as can be seen today,” she added. French President Emmanuel Macron worked hard in February 2022 to convince both Putin and Zelenskyy to comply with the Accords, as he saw them as the “only path on which peace can be built.”

Russian news sources have promoted statements by former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko as if to provide evidence that Minsk “was merely a distraction intended to buy time for Kiev to rebuild its military”, and that this was confirmation “that Kiev hadn’t come to the talks in good faith”, but to recoup from military setbacks. Claims Poroshenko (retrospectively):

Our goal was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war – to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.

It is true that in the summer of 2014, Ukraine was able to put military pressure on the separatist militias in the eastern oblasts, and in response Putin placed Russian troops into the region. Yet, despite difficulties, a draft text was eventually agreed by the parties (known as Minsk II), and it was then submitted to the UN as Security Council Resolution 2202 (2015) on February 17, 2015, where it passed unanimously.

Then-President of Ukraine Poroshenko had agreed to uphold what was termed the Steinmeier Formula, by which elections would be held in the territories controlled by Russian-backed separatists, but according to Ukrainian law, and under the supervision of the OSCE.

Unfortunately, as Merkel underlines, Poroshenko

now joined a crowd of almost ten thousand demonstrators in Kyiv shouting “No to capitulation! No to amnesty!” in a protest directed against Zelenskyy, but more specifically against the Minsk Agreement. Contrary to the agreement, the demonstrators—in common with government and parliamentary representatives themselves—opposed the autonomy of the separatist-occupied regions and any form of amnesty for those in charge there.

Nevertheless, Merkel stresses that French leader Macron, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, Russian President Putin, were committed as she was

to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements, including the transposition of the Steinmeier formula into Ukrainian law.

A stumbling block was that consensus was not achieved on the sensitive subject of border control.

According to Merkel,

Zelenskyy wanted Ukrainian [border] control before the local elections, whereas the Minsk Package of Measures did not allow for this until after they had taken place.

Merkel further wrote:

In the meantime, only OSCE observers were to have access to the border. Putin insisted on the wording of the Minsk agreements. For the sake of the bigger picture, I had advised Zelenskyy not to call the agreed text into question…. I was convinced that there was a chance we could resolve the issue of access to the border without jeopardizing the agreement.

But Zelenskyy stuck to his guns. Perhaps there were domestic policy reasons preventing him from accepting the Minsk agreements in their entirety, especially since his predecessor had now also distanced himself from them.

NATO membership

Merkel also makes it abundantly clear that at the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit she was opposed to Ukraine (and Georgia) joining NATO. She would in the end agree to compromise language in the alliance statement where the roadmap to membership (known as the Membership Action Plan or MAP) was removed but the words indicating Ukraine and Georgia would join NATO were agreed. Merkel was compelled to drop the hedge language (that they would join “one day”) which implied membership was tentative and not assured, in order to also remove agreement to an immediate MAP.

In its 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration NATO had welcomed:

Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO…. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership.  Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP.  Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications.

This specificity stands in stark contrast to the significantly weaker 2018 statement which expresses support for “those partners who aspire to join the Alliance,” further pledging in relation to Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and the Western Balkan countries: “We will continue to support them and expect that the upcoming NATO Summit will decide on the next steps to this goal, judging each on its merits.”

But, as Merkel writes of the 2008 statement:

Ukraine and Georgia did not obtain [immediate] MAP status, and the alliance had not split as it had over the Iraq War. I had been desperate to avoid the latter, although I had been forced to make a statement on the prospects of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO. There had been no option but to compromise, even if this compromise, like any other, came at a price.

Ukraine (and Georgia) were dissatisfied (having been denied immediate entry to the alliance), but for Putin even future membership was (in Merkel’s words) like “a declaration of war.” And while not yet a member, this did not preclude other assistance to Ukraine in the form of weapons, and training.  At the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw, a Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine was supported, which would help Ukraine in combatting attacks by separatist militias.

And then in June 2017, Ukraine’s parliament declared membership of NATO a foreign policy objective. Shortly before the presidential election, on February 7, 2019, it enshrined ‘the strategic orientation toward full membership of the EU and NATO’ in its constitution.

First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, [is] between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space…. – Vladimir Putin 2021 essay

The question of whether the threat to join NATO was a central reason for Putin’s 2022 invasion is still up for debate. While NATO’s presence near Russia’s borders was a concern, Putin has more than once defined the actual grievance more specifically as the creation of anti-Russia entities “in territories that were historically ours.”  (See for example Putin’s 2021 essay entitled On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, quoted above.)

Putin was certainly dissatisfied with NATO’s enlargement statement in Bucharest in 2008. He told Merkel at the time, in regard to her veto over Ukraine and Georgia’s immediate membership:

You won’t be chancellor forever, and then they’ll become NATO members. And I’m going to prevent that.

She added in her memoir that her immediate thought was:

Well, you’re not going to be president forever either.

Recall that in 2000, President Putin had discussed with U.S. President Clinton the potential for Russia to join NATO, as we know from the interviews with David Frost in 2000, and more recently with Tucker Carlson in 2024. Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 had lobbed the same idea. Robert Person and Michael McFaul, in their article “What Putin Fears Most” (2022), offer many additional examples of when Russian leadership wanted to collaborate with NATO. Such as:

• Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act in 1997, outlining a broad agenda for cooperation.
• Following the 9/11 attacks, Putin acknowledged NATO’s role and suggested that NATO enlargement would cease to be contentious with improved relations. Addressing the Baltic states’ NATO accession, Putin remarked, “We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations.”
• Putin supported NATO’s invocation of Article 5 at the UN Security Council for the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan, and facilitated military assistance, including allowing U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
• Putin expressed his full understanding of Ukraine’s engagement with NATO and emphasized the legitimacy of NATO and Ukraine’s mutual decisions regarding their relationship; for example:  “I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.” (President of Russia, Press Statement, 2002).
• At the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon, then-President Dmitry Medvedev affirmed cooperation on missile defense (which never materialized) and expressed optimism about future relations with NATO, with no mention of NATO expansion.

Putin’s grievances

By 2022 Putin had articulated many grievances (and concerns), not only NATO acceptance of new members eastward, but also military infrastructure added within new NATO members’ territory. There were also his disagreements over updating the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) (from which Russia subsequently suspended itself in 2007, and then withdrew in 2023.) There was also the intervention in Kosovo without a UN Security Council authorizing resolution, and then contention over NATO deployment of missile defences.  Added to this were significant ethnic conflicts in the Donbas region, “neo-Nazis” in Kyiv, and the violence surrounding the Maidan protests.

But there are also domestic issues, such as Putin’s concerns with “colour revolutions” that might extend into Russia. There were potential threats to his authoritarian regime and the apparent permanence of his presidency. Deflecting internal dissent to Russian nationalist concerns across the border in Ukraine provided a possible opportunity.

Pacta Sunt Servanda (Contracts should be honored)

Whether the Minsk agreements were doomed to fail from the outset, or eventually failed because key parties were either disingenuous or pressured to abandon compromises, is a core area worth exploring.

We don’t know for certain whether a fully implemented Minsk process, enhanced through the assistance of the OSCE, would have prevented Putin’s invasion and subsequent annexation of the Donbas. Likewise, it is unclear whether Putin actually desires broader Russian expansion outside the Donbas and Crimea, or even beyond Ukraine, given so many contradictory views about his military capabilities, and ambitions.  (For example, see: Graham, What Does Putin Want in Ukraine?;  Mearsheimer, Playing With Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation; McFaul et al., Faulty Powers: Who Started the Ukraine Crisis?).

Angela Merkel is particularly helpful in navigating these questions by her insistence that war and invasion might have been avoided if all the players had committed to talks and negotiations, reasonable compromise and adherence to agreements. In her view, absent these elements and associated security arrangements, increased armaments and further militarization of the conflict would assuredly follow for Ukraine and the separatists, in addition to Russia.

She writes that former US President Obama was clear that

if the negotiations in Minsk were not successful, the United States would supply at least defensive weapons to Ukraine. I expressed my concern that any delivery of weapons would strengthen the forces within the Ukrainian government who hoped only for a military solution, even if that offered no prospect of success. However, I also understood that we should not leave the Ukrainians exposed to Russian violence without any means of defense. It was a dilemma.

Nowhere does she hint — despite widespread reporting to this effect — that Germany (or France) was undermining the peace so that Ukraine could succeed militarily. In this context, she writes:

a Ukrainian military victory over the Russian troops, was an illusion. Consequently, […in 2014], I had said publicly, and not for the first time, that there would be no solution without talks and without diplomacy. That did not mean, I continued, ‘that Ukraine must not defend itself when its territory is invaded, but ultimately—and incidentally, this is not the only part of the world where this is true—diplomatic solutions must be found.’

And then:

I could even go so far as to say: there will be no military solution.

Merkel and Common Security

The respective charters of the UN and the OSCE include the obligation to resolve disputes peacefully through diplomatic means, a central ingredient of “common security.” Merkel doesn’t use the words “common security” anywhere in Freedom, but she implicitly advocates for it through her regular references to the OSCE, to the supremacy of face-to-face negotiations (that were disrupted, possibly consequentially, by COVID), the importance that all sides of a conflict stick with the agreements that they sign, and the rule of law.

When the Minsk agreements appeared to be failing, she tried to set up a new summit with Putin at her last (June 2021) European Council meeting. Supported by France, however, the Poles, Estonians and Lithuanians were “vehemently” opposed, and so it didn’t happen. She met with Putin separately later that year, but by then Putin saw her as a lame duck preparing to exit from politics. Enthusiasm for what had been agreed at Minsk dissipated and soon the “full scale” invasion ensued.

Merkel writes:

A direct exchange of views was particularly crucial when negotiating with politicians from countries with non-democratic governments, due to the stark difference between our respective outlooks. Finding even a minimum of common ground demanded continuous dialog; otherwise, there was always the risk that one side or the other would be caught up in their own narrative. And the [COVID] virus hastened this process. Lines of communication were severed. In the shadow of the pandemic, foreign policy changed. The lack of face-to-face contact led to alienation, and the failure to forge new compromises.

Merkel ends by insisting that Ukraine needs to retain its sovereign powers, and she is clear that

Russia cannot win the war.

Nonetheless, she also insists:

Deterrence is one side of the coin: it must go hand in hand with a willingness to engage in diplomatic initiatives.

End of guest blog post by RI Board member Robin Collins.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN ZUNES ON SYRIA

While it was the advancing military forces of Hayat Tahrir al Sham who marched into Damascus as Assad and his family fled, there are indications that it was unarmed civil resistance led by the resurgent popular committees and local councils… that actually wrested control of much of the local governance from the regime, particularly in Daraa and As-Suwayda provinces in the south. – Stephen Zunes in conversation with Daniel Falcone

For an incisive commentary on the overthrow of Assad and his regime, including the role of the unarmed civil resistance, see the interview with Professor Stephen Zunes entitled The Ousting of the Brutal Assad Regime Brings Euphoria and More Questions (Daniel Falcone, counterpunch.org, 11 December 2024).

GAZA UPDATE

DO NOT ENGAGE IN TRADE AND BUSINESS COOPERATION THAT SERVES TO PERPETUATE ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE – Norwegian FM Espen Barthe Eide

The above statement is the headline of a notice by the Government of Norway to Norwegian companies clarifying and updating their obligations in light of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

Whither Canada?

We have called on Canada for concrete actions, not just words, to help bring an end to the horrific Gaza conflict and the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel.

We reiterate our call for Canada to immediately recognize the state of Palestine and we further call on the Government of Canada to issue a notice to Canadian companies to ensure they do not engage in trade and business cooperation that serves to perpetuate Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.

TO STOP THE GAZA WAR AND END THE ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE, CONTINUED DIRECT PRESSURE ON THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA FROM CANADIAN CITIZENS IS ESSENTIAL AND EFFECTIVE.

CLICK HERE FOR LINKS TO GOVERNMENT MINISTERS AND OPPOSITION CRITICS AND YOUR LOCAL MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.