Committee on the civil dimension of security
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- Update on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and prospects for resolution
- Realities in Donbass and the implementation of the Minsk ACCORDS
IntroductionUkraine, an Eastern European nation of 46 million people, is faced with a choice not between the West and the East, but between the future and the past. The Revolution of Dignity, that shook the country more than two years ago, was first and foremost about changing the fundamental principles underpinning Ukraine’s politics, society and economy. The experience of the first “Maidan” (the “Orange revolution”) in 2004 showed that replacing the “old guard” with self‑proclaimed pro-European politicians does not automatically rid the country of corruption and paternalistic methods of governance. The failures of the ‘Orange leaders’, President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, led to the election in 2010 of backward-looking Viktor Yanukovych, whose notoriously corrupt and authoritarian regime sent Ms Tymoshenko to prison. In late 2013, a much fiercer uprising – the "Euromaidan" – made it clear that the people of Ukraine are determined to make a radical break with the post-Soviet past. As a result, the most reformist government in Ukraine’s history was appointed, followed by the presidential and parliamentary elections where reformist candidates also received landslide support from the people. Regrettably, the Kremlin chose to regard Ukraine’s determination to adopt European political and economic standards as a threat to Russia’s national interests. Moscow launched a poorly disguised aggressive military campaign that resulted in the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, and a protracted armed conflict in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia did so in direct violation of numerous international agreements, most visibly the 1994 Budapest memorandum, under which Russia explicitly pledged to respect Ukrainian territorial sovereignty, while Kyiv agreed to give up its nuclear weapons arsenal. The Kremlin’s feeble attempts to justify its actions by the need to protect the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine do not hold water as there are no indications that the rights of Russian-speakers were in any way curtailed compared with the period of Mr Yanukovych's rule. In fact, many of the leaders of the Euromaidan, as well as Ukrainian army volunteers, are more comfortable speaking Russian. Russia’s actions led to its international condemnation as an aggressor-state, prompting the Euro‑Atlantic community to introduce sanctions and take measures to assist Ukraine as well as the introduction of measures to reassure its Central and Eastern European Allies. Today, Ukraine finds itself confronted with an unenviable task: to fulfil the promises of Euromaidan while trying to rebuff Russia’s aggression. The country’s economy is in shambles and kept afloat thanks only to international financial injections. Yet, Kyiv was forced to increase its defence spending by 16% this year. The ambitious reform process is hampered by resistance from lower levels of bureaucracy and oligarchs. At the same time, the prospects of a ceasefire in Donbass are hazy. On top of that, the country has recently gone through a major political crisis and infighting. The international context is not favourable either as Ukraine‘s Euro-Atlantic partners are preoccupied with Daesh1 and related terrorist threats as well as with the migration/refugee crisis, while Moscow expects concessions vis-à-vis sanctions as a reward for joining the anti-Daesh efforts. The results of the non-binding referendum in the Netherlands (61% against the ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, with a 32% turnout) have created additional obstacles for the country’s aspirations to join the EU. This report will emphasise the need for the Euro-Atlantic community to remain committed to assisting Ukraine on its path of reform and its efforts to defend itself against aggression. At the same time, the Rapporteur will appeal to Ukrainian politicians to end unnecessary political bickering and to focus on implementing the reform agenda. Update on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and prospects for resolution5. Russian aggression and the occupation of Ukrainian territories is the most immediate and fundamental challenge Ukraine is facing. Russia illegally occupied Crimea days after Yanukovych fled the capital in February 2014. Due to internal turmoil and pressure from the international community (afraid of escalation), the new government in Kyiv did not attempt to resist seriously the Russian take-over of the peninsula. Soon afterwards, pro-Russian paramilitaries began taking control in parts of Eastern Ukraine and announced the creation of the fictitious “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk. This time, Ukraine responded with the launch of an armed anti-terrorist operation and, by late summer 2014, had almost driven out the Russian proxies from Eastern Ukraine. However, in August that year, Moscow launched a massive military invasion in the Donbass region and pushed the Ukrainian forces back. International mediation resulted in the signing of the Minsk accords in September 2014. Full-scale fighting resumed in January 2015 as the Russian proxies attacked a part of the Donetsk airport and other sites controlled by Ukraine. The new Minsk II accord was signed in February 2015 only to be immediately breached as the Russian-backed separatists captured the strategic town of Debaltseve. Nevertheless, the ceasefire has largely held ever since, although incidents and shelling continue almost on a daily basis. Shelling from Russian-controlled positions intensified considerably in the first half of 2016; Ukrainian soldiers on the frontlines are still losing their lives. It is estimated that almost 10,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands wounded in the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine. In addition, Ukrainian authorities have registered 1.8 million internally displaced people. 6. On 10 August 2016, Russia’s security services (FSB) announced that they had foiled “attacks” on Crimea by ''sabotage-terrorist groups'' with links to the Ukrainian government, allegedly resulting in the death of an FSB officer and a Russian soldier. Ukrainian authorities rejected these claims as “fantasy”. Following this announcement, President Vladimir Putin accused Kyiv of trying to provoke a conflict in the peninsula and declared that it would make no sense to discuss the implementation of the Minsk Accords given the current security environment. Although at this stage it is difficult to corroborate the veracity of the claims, these incidents might impact the increasingly shaky cease-fire and the progress in the peace deal negotiations. Recent Russian military build-ups between 7 and 12 August in Crimea, with both heavy weapons and missile systems being convoyed to the peninsula, and along the eastern border with Ukraine have strengthened Moscow’s force posture, threatening Ukrainian forces from multiple directions (Weinberg, 2016). In response, President Petro Poroshenko ordered troops to be placed on combat alert. Realities in Donbass and the implementation of the Minsk ACCORDS7. Minsk II – officially the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements – is a 13-point peace roadmap that envisages a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, prisoner of war (POW) exchange, constitutional reform on decentralisation, a withdrawal of foreign fighters, the granting of amnesty, free legitimate elections, humanitarian assistance, economic reconstruction, and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In addition, Minsk II established four specialised working groups with a view to implementing the military, political, economic and humanitarian clauses between the Ukrainian government and the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. The implementation of Minsk II is overseen by the four signatories – France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia (known as the Contact Group on Ukraine and sometimes referred to as the “Normandy format”) – and the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine, which has about 700 unarmed monitors. 8. The record of implementing Minsk II is poor. The late 2015 deadline to fully implement the accords has passed. The OSCE SMM reports ceasefire violations almost daily, particularly increased use of prohibited weapons in the Donetsk region. The security situation has been markedly worsening throughout 2016, and July 2016 has been the deadliest month since the signing of Minsk II with pro-Russian separatists killing 40 and wounding 170 Ukrainians (Stewart, 2016). In its reports, the OSCE SMM does not specifically identify the perpetrators who are breaking the ceasefire, merely indicating the general geographical direction where the shelling is coming from, but Western leaders tend to agree that, by far, most incidents of exchanging fire among the opposing sides have been initiated by the Russian proxies.2 After some initial successes pulling out heavy weaponry, the situation in this regard has been worsening in recent months. The OSCE SMM has observed the trend of weapons vanishing from storage facilities and reappearing in zones where they are prohibited. The particularly worrying aspect is the continued use of indiscriminate heavy artillery such as Grad multiple-rocket launch systems. Kyiv representative in the Minsk peace talks Yevhen Marchuk told the media in July 2016 that Russian and separatist forces in eastern Ukraine had amassed more than 700 modern tanks, ready for combat (Olearchyk, 2016). 9. The presence of heavy weapons in the region also caused a major international incident on 17 July 2014, when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. According to the findings of the Dutch Safety Board, it was a Russian-made Buk missile that took the plane down. The criminal investigation by the Joint Investigation Team (comprising public prosecutors from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium) is still ongoing with the aim of tracking down and prosecuting those responsible. A report is expected to be released in 2016. Independent investigators such as the citizen journalists group Bellingcat published well‑sourced reports clearly identifying Russia as the responsible party: specifically, Bellingcat’s report claims that the Buk missile belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. Russia has used its veto at the UN to block the setting up of an international tribunal regarding the MH17 disaster, which claimed 298 lives. 
A map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine on 16 September 2016, according to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine 10. Russia continues to ignore the Minsk II requirement to withdraw foreign troops from Eastern Ukraine. There is ample evidence of the presence of Russian troops and weapon systems in Donbass; the capture of Russian POWs by Ukrainian forces; NATO satellite imagery; observations by Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Mark Breedlove to the statement by Alexander Hug, deputy chief of OSCE SMM, that OSCE monitors have observed evidence of Russian soldiers and weapons in the area since the beginning of the conflict. Russian democratic activists, such as Lev Shlosberg and Boris Nemtsov, have conducted thorough investigations of the participation of Russian soldiers in the fighting in Ukraine. Even President Vladimir Putin caused a stir when he admitted, in a press conference in December 2015, that Moscow “never said there were not people there [in Ukraine] who carried out certain tasks including in the military sphere” (Reuters, 2015). Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, warned members of the NATO PA to make no mistake: Russia is running the military operation in eastern Ukraine. Elements of its regular and Special Forces are the key military actors. These forces are using modern means and capabilities supplied by Russia, and Donbass has effectively become a testing ground for Russian equipment, including for new artillery systems. It is also a terrain for Special Forces training and a battlefield where the Russian military is trying out new tactics. Russia has also deployed three new divisions near the border and is establishing a presence that could be designed for military occupation or large-scale military actions. Reportedly, Russia is also tightening its control of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk territories by replacing the majority of the first cohort of separatist leaders and appointing curators from Russia’s security services. Since late 2015, Moscow has been increasing its financial support to the entities and has begun bankrolling pensions and salaries, mostly for local officials and the separatist military forces. It is estimated that Russia spends about USD1 billion a year to sustain these breakaway territories (ICG, 2016). 11. The OSCE monitors regularly face threats and bullying from pro-Russian militants who prevent monitors from doing their job.3 Militants also continuously deny the OSCE SMM and Ukrainian border authorities access to a large part of the Russian-Ukrainian border alongside the separatist-controlled Donbass. Russia has sent about 50 “humanitarian convoys” across the border to the “people’s republics” in Donbass without the consent of Kyiv (UNIAN, 2016). The Ukrainian side suspects that these convoys are delivering weapons and ammunition to the rebels. As a result of Russia’s failure to fully implement the Minsk II, EU member states decided in June 2016 to extend economic sanctions against Russia for six more months. 12. Kyiv’s record of implementing Minsk II is more tangible: Ukraine’s cooperation with OSCE SMM is extensive. Nevertheless, Ukraine has yet to implement fully the decentralisation reforms envisaged by Minsk II. This is seen as a critical measure for reassuring pro-Russian populations in the east of Ukraine that they will retain an adequate degree of self-governance. The relevant amendments to the constitution were passed on first reading by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) in August 2015. This step was widely praised by the international community and its institutions, including the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission (European Commission for Democracy through Law). In December 2015, the EU provided over EUR100 million to Ukraine to support these decentralisation efforts. 13. However, the second reading of the decentralisation amendments to the Constitution failed to gain the necessary 300 votes in the Verkhovna Rada. The opponents argued that these amendments would grant special status to separatist-controlled regions, violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity and enable Russia to continue interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs. Faced with pressure from the international community, the Ukrainian leadership is exploring new ways to adopt this critical legislation. It must be noted, however, that Kyiv has already markedly empowered regional and local authorities by transferring greater budgetary powers to them. These steps taken by Kyiv to reinforce local authorities – applicable in the entire country, not only eastern regions – should be taken into consideration when assessing Kyiv’s record of implementing the decentralisation clause of Minsk II. It is difficult to expect Kyiv to adopt further decentralisation legislation while the pro‑Russian opponents fail to implement the most important clauses of Minsk II, namely the ceasefire and the flow of Russian support across the border. 14. A very significant shortfall when it comes to the implementation of Minsk II is the failure to hold local elections in the separatist-controlled territories. Holding local elections that would be seen as legitimate by both Kyiv and the local pro-Russian population could effectively end the conflict and restore peace in Donbass. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on procedures for such elections. Separatist authorities refused to participate in Ukrainian local elections on 25 October 2015 and initially intended to hold elections on their own terms on a different date. Bowing to international pressure, the separatists agreed to postpone the elections until 2016. However, the parties to the “Normandy format” have not yet been able to agree on the terms of these elections. The Ukrainian side legitimately demands that they be conducted under Ukrainian law and with the participation of Ukrainian political parties, electoral officers, observers and media. Also, people who have been forced to flee from the region due to the armed conflict should be allowed to vote in the elections. The separatist entities reject most of these demands and argue that the Ukrainian side first has to adopt constitutional amendments granting special status to these entities. It is uncertain, however, that the separatist leaders would agree to hold the elections under Ukrainian law even if such amendments were adopted. While the concept of the “Russian world” and “Novorossiya” (the term used by Moscow to define predominantly Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine) have largely disappeared from the Kremlin’s rhetoric, in reality, separatists in Donbass and their patrons in Moscow are not prepared to accept the return of Donetsk and Luhansk to Kyiv’s jurisdiction. Furthermore, the agreement on the procedures for the elections would be void until the most important precondition – security for voters and observers – is ensured. At this stage, the prospect of a secure environment in the occupied Donbass is, unfortunately, very slim. During the NATO PA seminar in Kyiv in June 2016, Ukrainian officials said that holding elections now in occupied Donbass would be akin to the fake referendum held in March 2014 in a Crimea crawling with “little green men”. 15. Very limited progress has been made towards granting amnesty to the figures involved in the Donbass conflict. Kyiv remains reluctant to accept blank amnesty and immunity for all the Russian proxies. A law on "exception from criminal and administrative responsibility for the events in Donetsk and Luhansk regions" was approved in September 2014 but never signed by President Petro Poroshenko. In order to investigate and prosecute crimes committed against humanity throughout the country, Ukraine has accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Separatist forces demand that amnesty be granted before the local elections are held. 16. The exchange of POWs and the return of Ukrainian political prisoners from Russia has been mostly ad hoc, and an “all-for-all” exchange has yet to happen. Iryna Herashchenko, President’s Envoy for Conflict Settlement in Donetsk and Luhansk, told NATO PA members that 80 Ukrainian soldiers have been freed. That said, there are still at least 112 hostages being held by the militants, according to Herashchenko, and some are in very poor health. 17. The illegal trial of captured Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko and sentencing to 22 years in prison has drawn wide international attention and condemnation of Russia for this injustice. The absurdity of the trial4 stood in sharp contrast to Savchenko’s personal bravery. While in captivity, she had announced a dry hunger strike in protest against her illegal detention. The international community, including members of the NATO PA and its President Hon. Michael R. Turner, has repeatedly called on President Putin to make both a humanitarian gesture and a sign of commitment to the Minsk Package by releasing Nadiya Savchenko. In May 2016, she was finally released in exchange for two Russian intelligence operatives held by Ukraine. 18. The socio-economic and humanitarian situation in the separatist-controlled regions is dire. Most of the local population is barely surviving, and prices for goods are two to three times higher than in the rest of Ukraine. There is a severe shortage of medical supplies. Corruption is flourishing and apart from Russian salaries and pensions, the illegal production and smuggling of coal seems to be the only lucrative source of income there. The international community has persuaded Kyiv to ease up on restrictions to the freedom of movement between the separatist-held territories and government-controlled areas and to revisit the cumbersome registration procedures that have impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid. However, Russian proxies in Donbass have increased pressure on humanitarian organisations. Humanitarian access to the Donetsk and Luhansk territories under their control has been restricted. By October 2015, Médecins Sans Frontières was told it could no longer work in these territories; the organisation was accused of using psychotropic drugs to conduct espionage (ICG, 2016). The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) also had to stop its work in the separatist-controlled region of Luhansk. 19. In July 2016, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report which said there has been "limited accountability" in eastern Ukraine for arbitrary killings and torture by separatist fighters and Ukrainian soldiers. According to the report, “impunity for killings remains rampant, encouraging their perpetuation and undermining prospects for justice" (RFE/RL, July 2016). 20. Moscow’s plans vis-à-vis Donbass are unclear. The status quo bears a significant economic, military and political cost for Russia. Some analysts suggest that the appointment of Russia’s political heavyweights – former Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov and the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Kozak – as Russia’s senior representatives on the issue of Donbass is a sign of the Kremlin’s willingness to find a face-saving way out of the current situation and to reach an agreement on the conditions for returning this region to Ukraine’s jurisdiction (Aslund, January 2016). On the other hand, the possibility that this will turn Donbass into yet another frozen conflict is also plausible (Pifer, 2016). Unfortunately, Kyiv also lacks a coherent strategy to reintegrate the region. Kyiv’s reliance on sticks rather than carrots drives the local population away from the rest of Ukraine. While the people of Donbass never expressed separatist tendencies prior to Russia’s incursion, and these tendencies are absent in the Kyiv-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, many in the occupied territories are now associating their future with Russia. This is due to a combination of factors including a sense of hostility towards Kyiv, fierce propaganda originating from the Kremlin, and the financial dependency on Russia’s budgetary injections. 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