Europe|As New Ukraine Talks Begin, What Is the State of Europe's Only Active War? - New York Times
Fighting raged there through the summer of 2014 until a cross-border incursion by the Russian military, still unacknowledged by Moscow, turned the tide in mid-August, leading to the first of two cease-fire accords that neither side observes.
While often described as a low-intensity conflict, and overshadowed recently by the war in Syria, the daily skirmishing along the line of control is vicious and lethal: The Ukrainian Army’s mortality rate of more than two soldiers per day for the duration of the conflict is higher than the United States Army’s during the Iraq War.
So far, the war has killed nearly 10,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides, according to the United Nations. The Ukrainian military said one soldier was killed on Wednesday.
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Alexander Ermochenko/European Pressphoto Agency
What is the biggest issue in dispute?
The thorniest issue in the talks will be Russia’s military presence in eastern Ukraine, large but almost wholly unacknowledged by Moscow.
At the semiregular four-way negotiations with the three other leaders — known as the Normandy format — Mr. Putin has refused to acknowledge the deployments, according to a senior Ukrainian diplomat who was not authorized to speak publicly about the sessions.
The question of withdrawing Russian weaponry was raised in talks several times, the diplomat said, and Mr. Putin responded consistently with a single phrase, “This is Russian-made weaponry, but we do not own it.” During a call-in show last December, however, Mr. Putin edged closer to an admission. “We never said there were not people who carried out certain tasks, including in the military sphere,” in eastern Ukraine, he said.
Some soldiers dressed in Russian military gear, but for the missing flags on the uniforms, stroll across the border in full view of European cease-fire observers.
In 2014, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of a rebel group, the Donetsk People’s Republic, said Russian soldiers were on vacation in Ukraine, as they “preferred to spend their vacation not on the beach, but with us, among their brothers.”
Any compromise will revolve around massaging the issue of the Russian presence. In diplomatic parlance, this is discussed as the sequencing of implementing the 14 points of the cease-fire accord known as Minsk II, signed in February 2015.
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Alexander Ermochenko/European Pressphoto Agency
What does Ukraine want?
The Ukrainians want the Russian Army to withdraw before implementing the political settlement outlined in Minsk II. The cease-fire accord would grant the rebel regions some autonomy after local elections as well as influence in Ukraine’s national government in Kiev through seats in Parliament.
“I don’t understand how free elections can be held with Russian forces now in Donbas,” Mr. Poroshenko said in Norway this week, referring to the Ukrainian region that is home to two strongholds of pro-Russia separatists.
Ukraine Crisis in Maps
The latest updates to the current visual survey of the continuing dispute, with maps and satellite imagery showing rebel and military movement.
What does Russia want?
After the street protests in Ukraine that toppled the pro-Russian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, in 2014, the Russian Foreign Ministry articulated Moscow’s demand: Ukraine should decentralize authority to grant autonomy to generally more pro-Russian populations in the east, a de facto weakening of the pro-Western central government. This became the eventual requirement detailed in Minsk II.
To achieve those goals, known as the political package of Minsk II, Russia has agreed to a pullback of its forces — referred to in the accord nonspecifically as “foreign” troops — in eastern Ukraine only in conjunction with Ukraine amending its Constitution to decentralize power.
Speaking on a state visit to India this week, Mr. Putin said that the military and political aspects of the agreement must proceed “at the minimum in parallel,” and that Ukrainian objections on security matters were “only a pretext to do nothing in the political sphere.”
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Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
What’s the best hope for a breakthrough?
To break the gridlock, an idea floated by European diplomats ahead of the talks on Wednesday was a “security lite” option: the withdrawal of heavy weaponry to field storage sites rather than back to Russia as a precondition of political reform, according to Hryhoriy M. Nemyria, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament.
The Europeans, he said, want Ukraine to take this deal, particularly given the many other Russian-related security issues.
France, Germany and the United States have national elections in the next year, so the political calendar means “there are voices saying we need a quid pro quo,” Mr. Nemyria said. “To preserve nuclear cooperation, we might have to sacrifice the push for democracy in Russia’s neighbors.”
A minority in Ukraine’s Parliament, but one that is large enough to block a deal, opposes any concessions and could scuttle the entire settlement, even if Mr. Poroshenko reaches an agreement in Berlin. The constitutional amendments require a supermajority in the chamber. Ukrainian nationalists say they would prefer to fight or to call Russia’s bluff, as a full-scale war would carry risks for Mr. Putin as well.
“We all have to understand that Russia will never give up,” said Oksana Syroid, a deputy speaker and opponent of the Minsk II accord. “Unfortunately, Russia has started this so-called hybrid war not to have it resolved in talks.” Europe, she said, should see the inevitability of a military deterrent, and a threat wider than just in Ukraine. “Good diplomacy needs strong tanks.”
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Aleksey Filippov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
What is the fate of the sanctions against Russia?
The talks in Berlin will come just a day before European Union leaders gather for a regular summit meeting in Brussels at which Italy has reportedly insisted on a discussion about whether to loosen sanctions.
Ms. Merkel has indicated that if the Russian bombardment of Aleppo constituted a war crime, further sanctions against Moscow might be in order.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany has voiced criticism of the Russian behavior, even as his party, the Social Democrats, strives to extend a hand to Moscow. That outreach attempts to recall the days of Willy Brandt, the former chancellor of West Germany, and his Ostpolitik, the tactics of which are said to strike a chord with voters as elections approach.
Ms. Merkel cautioned on Tuesday that a breakthrough was unlikely. “No one should expect miracles from the meeting,” she said, noting also that Russia’s conduct had made matters worse. “The situation has become even more disastrous as far as humanitarian matters are concerned, and that is quite clearly because of Syrian and Russian air attacks on helpless people, hospitals, doctors,” she said.
On Monday, Ms. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, made clear that her government, made up of her conservatives and the Social Democrats, considered sanctions to be an option.
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