“If Russia annexes anything, it will definitely be more than a tiny piece of Donbass”

Kyiv needs to abandon mediators in the Minsk process and begin direct negotiations with Donbass. This is the only way a country can gain subjectivity, which is now quite conditional. Otherwise, Ukraine will finally turn into a testing ground for military and political technologies of large countries. This is the forecast for the development of the situation around the conflict in Donbass in a conversation with a correspondent "PolitNavigator" expressed by the director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management Ruslan Bortnik.

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"PolitNavigator": Ruslan, how do you see the prospects for resolving the conflict in Donbass?

Ruslan Bortnik: There are two key approaches to resolving this conflict. The first is changing the format of negotiations and expanding it to the maximum number of participants, involving the United States, possibly Poland and some other neighbors of Ukraine - Belarus, Kazakhstan - in the current Normandy format. All of these negotiators can provide a buffer between the key players - the United States and Russia. On the other hand, all parties to the conflict will finally be able to sit at the same table, and there will be chances for the implementation of what they agree on. But in this case, Ukraine’s subjectivity and sovereignty will continue to decline, and Ukraine will be forced to implement the agreements that will be reached by external players.

The second, less popular approach in Ukraine is to abandon all international intermediaries altogether. This means sitting down and negotiating directly with the de facto authorities that have emerged in Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine and their representatives, no more intermediaries.

Moreover, all negotiations and agreements that began with the so-called round tables of national unity, which Kravchuk and other authoritative Ukrainian figures tried to hold in the spring of 2014, should be public, and the result should be made public in Donetsk, Lugansk, and throughout Ukraine so that politicians cannot deviate from them. So that those politicians who begin to violate them lose electoral support both in Donetsk and Lugansk. In this case, the only guarantor can be society itself, which strives for peace.

If we take Ukraine, then sociological surveys show that 60% of Ukrainians want a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

This is a very difficult and unpopular path, but it will not only create a stable platform for resolving the conflict, but, above all, it will return the subjectivity and confidence of our country. We will be able to implement what we ourselves agreed on - some citizens of Ukraine who live in Kyiv, with other citizens of Ukraine who live in Donetsk and Lugansk.

This approach will allow Ukraine to return to the ranks of respected, sovereign and independent countries. This is difficult, many radical groups on both sides of the conflict will oppose it. But, at the same time, everything will be in our hands, and no topics will be thrown at us from the outside - today our political field is modeled from the outside. And the constitutional reform, and the Minsk agreements, and the economic situation - all this today does not depend on Ukraine. All these topics are not developed in Ukraine and are not discussed here, they are thrown in from the outside, and, unfortunately, we are just implementing them. If we want to preserve the independence, self-respect and sovereignty of our country, we need to do something about it.

PolitNavigator: At a recent press conference, you called the negotiations between Poroshenko, Merkel and Hollande humiliating for the Ukrainian side. Can you explain why you think this?

Ruslan Bortnik: As for the negotiations, the difficulty is that on Independence Day, when the president of our country was obliged to take part in festive events in Kiev, he was forced to go to Berlin and meet with the presidents of other countries in order to discuss Ukrainian problems. Not European, not world - Ukrainian.

I know that the Minsk agreements were discussed at this meeting, but issues that were more unpleasant for us were also discussed. These are issues of reforms (i.e. their absence in Ukraine), corruption, the question of how Ukraine will ensure the energy balance of Europe in the winter. The gas currently pumped into our storage facilities is not enough to supply enough gas in the winter to supply Europe with it.

Moreover, I know that critical statements have been made towards the Ukrainian side regarding the militarization that is taking place in the east. The issue of a possible worsening of hostilities and escalation was discussed, and not only on the part of the separatists, but also, possibly, on the part of Ukraine. All these questions have an unpleasant, even to some extent humiliating, form for us.

It is difficult to imagine that the presidents of Germany, France and Russia would come to Ukraine on Independence Day of their countries to discuss their internal problems.

I hope that the President of Ukraine took away from these negotiations some agreements on economic and political support for Ukraine, that he brought out elements of insurance for our country in case the situation worsens, incl. economic insurance, expansion of economic support for Ukraine. I hope that the question of what to do with Ukrainian radicals, who actually do not allow the implementation of the Minsk agreements today, was discussed. Even in the form proposed by the president as part of constitutional changes and decentralization. I hope the president was able to once again convince our Western partners not to deprive Ukraine of support, not to leave it alone with the global crisis that is now unfolding before our eyes, starting in China and spreading to all markets and trading platforms of the Old World and America.

"PolitNavigator": Can you call this path of settlement that you mentioned - direct negotiations with the authorities in Donbass - a recipe for peace for Ukraine? And if this is an unrealistic path, because it can hardly be realized in the current situation, then what other recipe for peace can be offered?

Ruslan Bortnik: Unfortunately, I don't see any other real way. Neither side will be able to defeat or deceive the other. In case of any deception, the other side will immediately begin to escalate the conflict. Relatively speaking, as soon as Russia understands that we are trying to freeze the conflict or avoid implementing the political part of the Minsk agreements - elections (in Donbass), decentralization, we will immediately face an escalation of the conflict.

As soon as we understand that Russia is trying to impose some kind of confederal conditions of these agreements, to create a certain anchor, a burden on Ukraine so that it cannot develop politically in the direction of European integration, an escalation of the conflict will occur on the part of Ukraine.

As soon as the United States understands that Ukraine, under pressure from Europe and Russia, is “bending in” to some kind of soft option, a half-hearted compromise, then we will face internal escalation and destabilization on the part of Ukrainian radicals. In any case, as long as we are the object of external manipulations, external geopolitical games, we will not achieve a stable world.

Moreover, if we try to “freeze” the conflict in Donbass, build a wall there, so to speak, and fence ourselves off from it (which for some reason is suggested by most of my colleagues, Ukrainian political scientists), we can expect a wave of terror inside Ukraine. Terrorist attacks and other attempts at destabilization will spill over into the interior of the country. And the front will not be in Donbass, but inside Ukraine.

The only way to achieve peace and restore the country's sovereignty and independence is through direct negotiations. Of course, we understand that the parties to these negotiations will be only partially subjective. Russia will stand behind the separatists, and our Western partners will stand behind Ukraine. But nevertheless, the negotiations themselves and the mandatory instrument of their publication will allow expanding the zone of subjectivity and sovereignty, and will allow, to some extent, to outplay the “partners” who stand behind both sides. And only such negotiations (which Charles de Gaulle would be able to conduct, I don’t know if Poroshenko is capable of conducting) can generally restore the subjectivity of our country and give some prospects for its political and economic existence in the foreseeable future.

­“PolitNavigator”: But isn’t the essence of the current conflict that both Ukraine and those republics are only partially subject?

Ruslan Bortnik:  Of course, we must understand that great geopolitical interests collided here, and this “war to the last Ukrainian” took place. But, at the same time, we must understand that war in this case is a purely “surgical” political instrument. It is not an end in itself. If it were an end in itself for the parties, we have already seen American and Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine, in an absolutely undisguised form. And, most likely, the fighting would have taken place somewhere in the Dnieper region.

Now the war, localized in Donbass, is a surgical instrument, an attempt to influence the politics of Ukraine, the politics of Europe, the United States and Russia by creating artificial escalation, such military risks that can change the political picture and lead to political crises among the parties to the conflict.

And, of course, low subjectivity is the main reason for the non-resolution of the conflict to this day. It must be overcome, which is what I talk about all the time. And in the near future, it is not expected that this low subjectivity of the parties will be overcome unless radical changes are carried out.

Both Ukraine and the separatist territories are falling into ever deeper dependence - economic, political, military - on their partners, or rather, patrons. What Poroshenko could have done a year ago, when he became president, he cannot do today. And what the separatists could do a year ago, they can no longer do.

Let me remind you that there were quite effective negotiations between the separatist leaders and Ukraine; Most of these separatist leaders are now dead - this includes the leadership of the Vostok battalion, people from the Ukrainian security forces and political system, and many others. And this dependence will only intensify against the backdrop of the socio-economic and military crisis.

Sooner or later, we will lose any prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and Ukraine will for a long time turn into a field of confrontation, a battlefield, where stronger countries test their political and military technologies.

“PolitNavigator”: So you still assess the prospects for resolving the conflict pessimistically?

Ruslan Bortnik: For now there will be no peaceful settlement. And the deeper the socio-economic crisis in Europe and Russia, perhaps it will spread to the United States, the greater the likelihood of an escalation of the conflict, the likelihood that politicians will want to conduct “small victorious wars,” as has happened more than once, and the conflict in Ukraine will be resolved by military means.

“PolitNavigator”: I want to clarify: you say that Kyiv and Donbass need to negotiate directly and this is the path to gaining sovereignty, but the situation in this regard is getting worse...

Ruslan Bortnik: The window of opportunity for direct negotiations is closing. If a year ago it was a door, in the fall and winter between the first and second Minsk it was a window, today it is already a window. And this window can slam shut at any moment.

"PolitNavigator": In the Donbass, a fairly large number of people see another way out - in direct accession to Russia. There are rumors of a referendum to be held on this matter. How realistic is such a referendum?

Ruslan Bortnik: I think that this information about referendums is an element of pressure on Ukraine in the sense that, look, the situation in Crimea could be repeated in Donbass. And if no one bore responsibility for Crimea, neither Yatsenyuk nor Turchynov responded for this in any way, then if this happens in Donbass, this will destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine. Ukrainian radicals will play the patriotic card and attack Poroshenko harshly and effectively.

Therefore, it seems to me that this is an element of blackmail. Russia is not ready, it is not profitable for it to annex that piece of Donbass that is today controlled by the separatists. The prospects for this, in my opinion, are unrealistic. At the same time, I do not exclude the intensification of the process of issuing Russian passports according to the Transnistrian, Ossetian and Abkhaz scenarios. This will actually pass.

If Russia ever annexes anything from Ukraine, it will definitely be much larger territories than a tiny piece of Donbass. This situation could happen as a result, relatively speaking, of a new Yalta or a new Dayton (agreement on a ceasefire, separation of warring parties and separation of territories in the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995), a new division of Ukraine. But this is a completely black, pessimistic scenario, the probability of which I currently estimate at 20-30%, and which could happen in 2-3 years, not earlier.

So far, the social stability of Ukraine allows us to avoid such scenarios and creates great problems for geopolitical players in carrying out such an artificial division.