The practice of hybrid negotiations on a
hybrid settlement of a hybrid conflict
Preface
Once I heard the claim that russia started the full-scale war because Ukraine did not proceed with the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Supposedly, if Kyiv had agreed to fulfill the Minsk agreements — to grant Donbas a “special status” in the form of autonomy — then the war would not have happened.
I am convinced that this is manipulation. The night of February 24, 2022 clearly showed the true plans of the kremlin regarding Ukraine: either the destruction of its statehood, or a “Belarusian scenario” of puppet sovereignty. “Special status” was also needed for this. And “Minsk” or war are merely different instruments for achieving the same goal. The first did not work, so putin turned to the second.
Moreover, as a result of the open invasion, we achieved the consolidation of the nation (at that moment) and the support of the West. But the legalization of moscow’s puppets in the form of a “voluntary” granting of “special status” to the areas of Donbas occupied by russia in 2014 would inevitably have led to an internal political crisis and, probably, the collapse of the country. “Western partners” would have called it a “civil conflict”, and we would have been left one-on-one with russia. Moreover, for putin, such a path to achieving his goals would have been much cheaper than the one he chose.
Yes, eight years of negotiations did not allow us to avoid casualties and destruction, but we gained time. Another question is how effectively we used that time…
By “we”, I mean not only the authorities and the people of Ukraine, but also our “Western partners”, because it was we who allowed putin to believe in his permissiveness and impunity. Today I am convinced that the full-scale war could have been avoided if the Ukrainian state had not suffered from an inferiority complex, and if the “Normandy contact group” had wanted to end the conflict rather than “stabilize” it — if we, through joint efforts, had not cultivated in putin a god complex…
But let us return to “Minsk”. To convey the atmosphere and mood of that time, this book is based on my Facebook posts, articles, and interviews from the year and a half when I was a member of the delegation. However, the devil is always in the details, and at that time, as a member of the diplomatic team, many details had to be omitted in public statements so as not to harm the process. Today, official status no longer binds me, and the process has long since ended. So, on these pages, you will see “Minsk”… I wanted to write: “as it really was”, but reality, like truth, is different for everyone. Therefore, you will see the negotiations with russia as I saw them, from the inside. And as they were not shown to you…
1. How it went
The most unpleasant part of this was having to watch how insignificant people, who have no real power, absolute puppets, act out a script not written by them, yet pretend to be independent politicians. Moreover, they behaved in an outrageously brazen, provocative and, I would say, boorish manner — that is, demonstratively disrespectful toward others: they answered questions that were not addressed to them, lectured, got personal, insulted…
In this, perhaps, lies the special, calculated cynicism of the kremlin — to force you to listen to and watch for 6–8 hours (and sometimes more) people who are limited. Not in the sense of being stupid, because some of them are actually quite intelligent. They are limited in a different way: some by the bounds of their intellect and a “soviet” worldview, others by the blinders of “power” and vanity — after all, they are now “ministers”!
In any case, there was nothing sincere about them. Those people were simply performing their function: deliberately playing their role badly, intentionally provoking irritation in the audience. Therefore, being in contact with them for a long time was psychologically difficult. But that, apparently, was precisely the point…
December 17, 2020
The shouting began as soon as I started speaking. “Who is he?”, “Why is he being given the floor!?”, “Madam Grau, why are you…”.
They began to press Leonid Kravchuk far too crudely. Moscow wanted the Verkhovna Rada to adopt some kind of resolution intended to approve measures of the “Unified Plan for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”, which the TCG planned to develop. Kravchuk said that we cannot take on obligations for the Ukrainian parliament, we do not have such authority. Sometimes he is overly diplomatic. The issue was not our authority, but rather — who are they to demand anything at all from our parliament, especially something that is not in the Minsk documents! But he decided not to escalate and took the blow upon himself.
They interpreted this as him making excuses. And making excuses is a sign of weakness. And immediately, the whole pack pounced on the “weak one”. Deinego and Nikanorova (“foreign ministers” of the “LNR” and “DNR”) mockingly asked whom he represents in the negotiations: the state or himself personally, what he is “even doing here” if he is “unauthorized”, and so on. I was sitting next to him and offered Mr. Kravchuk to respond in his place. He gave me the floor.
To stop their manipulation, I simply began quoting excerpts from the Minsk documents, where it is clearly stated who the members of the TCG are, who is a party to the conflict and a party to the negotiations. The powers of the “representatives of the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts” are also outlined there… — I was just quoting the Protocol, the Memorandum, the Package of Measures. And then it started! They began shouting, interrupting me and each other.
— Madam Grau, who is he, why is he being given the floor?
— I am the same representative of the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as you, only legitimate, a member of the Ukrainian delegation.
“Minister” Nikanorova rolled her eyes, jumped up and ran off somewhere. And her brother, who represented the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the security subgroup and, as it turned out, headed an entire “administration” of Pushilin (the leader of the “DNR”), was outraged that I equated myself with their “ministerial” status. With a face distorted by anger, he hissed: “… some motherf****r”…
The Nikanorov family. The “minister” and the “head of the administration of the head of the “DNR” on the right
Ambassador Grau, the representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office who was moderating the meeting, asked me to stop.
— Are you depriving a representative of internally displaced persons, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, of the floor? — I clarified.
— Well, you can see what is happening…
And I fell silent. Now I regret it. I did not have enough of their boorishness to continue. At that moment I still thought that there were some boundaries in the diplomatic process. As it turns out, I had invented those boundaries myself.
Neither the OSCE nor our delegation reacted in any way to the obscene insult of a participant in official negotiations. I thought that I misheard, but others heard it too. If the OSCE was making an audio recording (russia definitely was, Gryzlov, the head of the russian delegation, admitted it himself), then it remained in the “annals of history”. Though these “annals” are of no concern to anyone, if it is more convenient not to notice — such is real diplomacy…
For those who do not like to read long texts, one could stop here. This is everything you need to know about the Minsk process.Of course, not every TCG meeting took place at such intensity, but this case illustrates the general atmosphere and, so to speak, the lines of behavior of the parties very clearly.
I was prepared for a professional discussion, arguments at the level of documents, a clash of interpretations and intellect, but instead encountered outright rudeness. And I faltered. Although, if we model the development of the situation, had I continued speaking or responded appropriately to the rude outburst, they could have simply disrupted the TCG meeting and blamed our delegation for it.
And they would have also said that because of me the POW exchange did not take place, the opening of the checkpoints did not happen, or even that the conclusion of a ceasefire was disrupted… Of course, they were not going to do any of that anyway, but I and the Ukrainian delegation would have been made the scapegoats. In such moments, one has to weigh personal pride against the interests of the team, and in this case — the country.
By Serhii Harmash, editor-in-chief of OstroV