Paris and Berlin conveyed their dissatisfaction to Kyiv in a harsh manner
Russia’s consent to the postponement of local elections in Donetsk and Lugansk removes the main irritant of the West - representatives of the EU and the United States have repeatedly made it clear that holding separate elections in the DPR and LPR, not coordinated with Kiev, would be regarded as a blatant violation of the Minsk agreements, which could result in tougher sanctions against the Russian Federation, writes Kommersant.
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The publication indicates that Kyiv now has to convince the Verkhovna Rada deputies to adopt extremely unpopular laws among them on the special status of “certain districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” on the rules for holding elections in these territories and on amnesty.
At the same time, the newspaper’s diplomatic source in one of the European countries that participated in the Paris meeting says that the EU perfectly understands the essence of what Kyiv hopes for.
“We have no illusions: the goal of the Ukrainians is to delay the implementation of the Minsk agreements so that there is a reason to extend sanctions against Russia,” says the European diplomat. “They want to create maximum problems for Moscow, sometimes to the detriment of the peace process in their own country... It was the Ukrainians who slowed down the withdrawal of weapons with a caliber of up to 100 mm from the contact line.”
The publication’s interlocutor also added that recently France and Germany have repeatedly and in a very harsh form conveyed to the Ukrainian authorities their bewilderment with some of their decisions. In particular, the French and Germans regarded the introduction of a ban on flights to Ukraine by Russian airlines as “a demonstrative attempt to inflame passions and create artificial tension a few days before the Paris summit.” In addition, the diplomat claims, Petro Poroshenko’s speech in New York at the UN General Assembly session was also regarded by Paris and Berlin as “unnecessarily confrontational.”
In connection with the postponement of the implementation of Minsk-2, the question arises about the fate of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the EU, the publication points out.
“Theoretically, they are tied to the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which means, as the Ukrainian side continues to hope, they should be extended after they expire in January next year,” Kommersant summarizes. – At the same time, the bet in Kyiv, apparently, will be placed precisely on achieving an extension of the sanctions. However, the meeting in Paris showed that in the context of de-escalation in Donbass, the West can move away from the previous harsh pressure on Russia. Considering the fact that Kyiv is too openly seeking to extend sanctions against the Russian Federation, and Moscow, on the contrary, has recently demonstrated a restrained approach, it cannot be ruled out that Russia will eventually be able to achieve some easing of the sanctions regime.”
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