The junta has gone crazy: The losers of the war dictate the terms of peace

First, about my personal attitude towards the Minsk process. I think he is a fiction. Ukrainian society is not split over the issue of Donbass, the “Russian spring,” the loss of Crimea, or even the “Russian attack on Ukraine.” Ukrainian society is split inside. The reason is that the Euromaidan did not represent the entire country. Conventionally, it is part of it. The other part of the Euromaidan did not accept it and condemned it. Naturally, the latter were shocked and frightened by the unexpected flight of the legitimate President and the reign in Ukraine of those whom they condemned, the notorious “Maydowns” who committed their crimes and follies in front of everyone. Each person in that situation chose their side. And whoever did not choose, the logic of the civil war will force him to make a choice.

In the year after the split, the two halves of Ukraine, regardless of even the fighting in Donbass, fled, polarized and reached a dynamic equilibrium. Today's Ukrainian society is two poles: “dill” and “cotton wool”. They seethe on social networks, unleashing storms of bitterness. There is no communication between the two groups, no interaction. No defectors from one camp to another were noticed either. At the same time, the “dill” seized power over Ukraine, and within a year they became a brutal fascist dictatorship, which harshly suppresses and oppresses the “vatniks”. That is why the latter look with hope to the southeast of their country, where fellow countrymen and compatriots took up arms in order to find out through war who owns this state.

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It was on such a stage that the “Minsk process” appeared, when foreign leaders who have no connection with Ukraine, over the heads of the country’s citizens, decide their fate. Everything was exactly the same in March 1918, in Brest. Few people understand what the Minsk negotiations are. Few people know what was agreed upon in Minsk. I will say more: few people read the texts of these protocols. But the further you go, the more acutely you feel that in Minsk they were talking about the wrong people and about the wrong things. Those are the junta and the rebels. About how we can continue to live if we hate each other and want each other to be destroyed. This is the essence of the civil war, alas. But the “junta” is not all of Ukraine. Inside Ukraine there are the two groups of compatriots described above, seized with rage towards each other. Vatniks are beside themselves with the abominations of Banderaism, elevated to the rank of state ideology, Makhnovism in the state apparatus, and the “Titanic” in the economy. And most importantly, the fact that they are oppressed, persecuted and humiliated.

Well, dill is also furious. They have seized power, but they are not allowed to use it. Not only that: they are drafted into the army and sent to be processed by the iron teeth of the artillery of the Soviet rebels of Novorossiya. This is not all the suffering of dill. They are being forced to join the Minsk process. The West does not want to send troops to Ukraine. All of the above are claims of “dill” on social networks. Dill and quilted jackets are annoying. They are everywhere, they are nearby, they are dissatisfied and do not hide their dissatisfaction either in stores, or in queues, or in banks, or in cinemas, or in theaters. Speeches outraged by the deteriorating economy are meeting less and less often in public places. Increasingly, the ranks of the “vatniks” are replenished with neophytes from the undecided “swamp”. The ranks of the rebels are growing. This infuriates the Ukrops, but military defeat in the Donbass cannot be overcome so easily: a victory is needed, which, from the Ukrops’ point of view, is hampered by the very “Minsk process.” Conviction in this illusion gives rise to the same mistake that the opponents of Euromaidan had. They believe that it is enough for the authorities to give orders to the army. I thought exactly the same thing in 2013, regarding Berkut.

So, few people are interested in the essence of the “Minsk pacts”. Few people have read what is written there. And no one except the participants in the negotiations knows what was actually discussed there. But part of these agreements was yesterday's vote in the Rada. The parliament, where the constitutional majority was in the hands of usurpers and rebels, was expected to recognize the “special status” of the territories controlled by the “emperors” of Novorossiya. Combat commanders of the militia. The result, in fact, is this: the amendments introduced by militant deputies actually denounced the “Minsk agreements.”

Why? The territory of Novorossiya was not difficult to determine. But amendments, like the “Lyashko Amendment,” actually repealed the law of September 16, 2014. That is, “special status” was not granted to Novorossiya. Novorossiya is not recognized. The militia is not recognized as a belligerent or rebel force. The conflict is not recognized as a civil war, the solution to the conflict is not in a dialectical connection with the logic and sequence of events: Euromaidan-coup-civil war. Of these “three pillars” the first two points are excluded. Just as millions of “vatniks” are excluded.

It turns out that the war is interpreted not as a civil war, but as an attack by Russia on Donbass, which, of course, is a lie. Yesterday’s “package” denies, or rather, “does not see” the Russian spring, the Odessa and Mariupol pogroms, the ferocious, barbaric shelling of peaceful cities and the mass death of civilians, more than a million refugees.

But that's not all. The amendments introduced yesterday by the “hawks” make the junta the winner and remove the rebel citizens of Ukraine from the political and negotiation process. At the same time, those who lost the war dictate the terms of peace and “special status”: elections according to Ukrainian laws (read: with the participation of Kyiv officials). Disarmament of the armed forces of Novorossiya and the evacuation of volunteer international brigades. This, friends, is nothing more than the “Euromaidan agreement with Yanukovych-2:0”. No one will fulfill such conditions without the demobilization of the Ukrainian army and PR-fascist battalions, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and the withdrawal of troops from Donbass. The height of the junta’s contempt for the rebels of Novorossiya is that the leadership of the LDPR was not even informed of the changes.

Due to the fault of Kyiv, the “Minsk agreements” were given a long life. The fact is that it will not be possible to hold local elections this year if Kyiv does not abandon counterproductive amendments and plans for a “spring offensive”, which is being prepared in full swing, with the participation of all Ukrainian media. Also, the status of “occupied” instead of the status of “special” changes a lot in the system of international, legal coordinates. For example, they make the territory of Novorossiya subject to the jurisdiction of the Hague court, to which the junta is hysterically appealing. Not to mention that elections cannot be held in “occupied” territories.

Moscow's reaction was unambiguous. Russian diplomacy, which signed the Minsk agreements, is also not going to lose its authority. The tail doesn't wag the dog, as they say.

What is the junta counting on? In fact, de jure, yesterday’s vote cannot be considered a violation of the conditions of Minsk-2. And if the unacceptable conditions set by the Rada are not met in Novorossiya, then the rebels will be accused of violating Minsk-2.

However, even political scientists loyal to Minsk-2 (naturally European) say that elections in Novorossiya according to the Minsk version are possible no earlier than two years later. It would be possible to wait, but not in conditions when the mobilized forces of the parties stand where the ruins of Debaltseve and Gorlovka, Snezhnoye and Donetsk are still smoking. Where the blood has not yet been absorbed into the ground, and young grass has not sprouted in its place.