Slippery. Green. What do the negotiations in Paris mean for Kyiv?
The Normandy meeting, which was so long awaited and on which so many conflicting hopes were pinned, became history.
The main intrigue was the only question: whether Zelensky will sign the political part of the Minsk agreements in the version that suits Moscow. The past summit gave an unequivocal answer to this question: no, I did not sign up.
And judging by the reaction inside Ukraine, one should not expect such a step from any president who may replace Zelensky in the future.
In fact, the parties remained with their own. The satisfaction with the results of the negotiations, translated from diplomatic to everyday, declared at the end of the get-togethers of four, two, and then again four only means that the parties did not agree on anything significant.
The bottom line is that there is only a consensus that this meeting should not be the last, and, therefore, it is necessary to prepare for the next one - in four months. And during this time, there is a chance that it will be possible to somehow achieve a complete ceasefire before the end of this year, 2019.
But Ze confirmed the disengagement of forces in three more points, in addition to Zolotoy and Petrovsky. True, the numerous behind-the-scenes reservations and leaks with references to members of the Ukrainian delegation are confusing - that Kyiv will not be able to guarantee this same divorce on its part. That is, it turns out to be yes, but on the other hand, it seems to be no. Very comfortably.
And four months later, the parties promised to return to the topic of elections in the uncontrolled Donbass, which had so far been put on pause due to incompatible positions regarding the transfer of control over the border.
Putin insists on observing the order written in the Minsk protocols - first the elections, then the border. Zelensky does not want to hear about any elections until the territory is in every sense under Ukrainian jurisdiction - with Ukrainian parties, media, election commissions, police and courts, to which the election results and violations can be appealed.
At the same time, the final communiqué included a wish that it would be nice to make the notorious “Steinmeier formula” part of Ukrainian legislation. But no one knows how to do this practically, not even Putin. After all, if we sum up all the reservations stated by Ze, then all that remains of this very formula is the name, and the essence is emasculated to complete zero.
Another plus, as it were, can be considered the general commitment of the parties to the previously signed Minsk agreements, written into the final document. However, as practice shows – the best criterion of truth – both earlier and now, declarations of such commitment to “Minsk” did not at all prevent Ukraine from rowing vigorously in exactly the opposite direction from it.
But, nevertheless, even without having essentially decided anything on the issue of peace, Zelensky benefited from the very fact of the meeting in almost all respects.
And the point is not even that, according to almost all surveys, personal communication and direct negotiations between Ze and Putin are approved by the majority of Ukrainians, who for the most part want the end of the war.
The point is, and this is much more important, that the Ukrainian delegation was only formally playing to an external audience. The Ukrainian president could not say anything fundamentally new to either Merkel, Macron, or, especially, Putin. Therefore, his target audience at the final press conference were not fellow presidents or even journalists from various media outlets. His words were not even addressed to his own voters.
The addressees of this message were only and exclusively representatives of the “war party”, who at that moment arranged a night vigil under the windows of the presidential office in Kyiv in anticipation of the “zrada”. So they were told several times: there is no hostility, the performance is over, you can leave until next time.
To reassure the nationalists, Zelensky even pulled out the trump cards he had hidden just in case, declaring that he would not allow federalization, which is what the right was going to protest against, among other things.
The results of the summit showed that Ze’s policy does not have any significant differences in Donbass issues from Poroshenko’s policy. So what are we fighting against? Thus, the nationalists who protested against peace and for war were made fools. “It’s funny to look at the hopeless attempts of the gunpowder robots to find Ze’s “zrada” and position themselves against it. Since there are no differences in the real policies of Poroshenko and Zelensky, but Zelensky is clearly more successful within the framework of the same model (does not cause rejection in the South-East, there is no factory in Lipetsk, no connections with Medvedchuk), etc.,” observers in Kyiv reasonably note.
So Poroshenko miscalculated: There is no zrada. There will be gas transit. The prisoners will return home. The disengagement of troops will continue. Of course, not much, but in contrast to the complete stupor of peace negotiations under Pyotr Alekseevich, even this can be sold to the average person as a major success.
A side effect was the collapse of the domestic political shares of Yulia Tymoshenko, who hastened to break away from Zelensky in favor of cooperation with the extremely unpopular Petro Poroshenko in the hope of a quick “zrada.” And it turned out that it was in vain. The same set of theses could have been calmly voiced while being in the shadow of the still popular president, rather than by getting involved with gunpowder characters who were extremely odious even by Ukrainian standards.
Also not far from the truth are those observers who point to another image advantage for Ze from this meeting - an agreement on an exchange before the new year, if such an exchange does not fall through for purely technical reasons, will undoubtedly add points to him in the eyes of those who are yearning for on successful figures at the head of Ukraine.
The emphasis on details that are now being massively promoted by pro-presidential telegram channels and experts is also intended to create the appearance of success: a handshake with Putin (“man, you weren’t afraid”), the very fact of a personal meeting with a Russian counterpart, designed to demonstrate that the current owner of Bankova, whatever one may say , more successful than his predecessor, with whom the Kremlin saw no point in talking about anything.
Finally, the pro-government LOMs are already discussing the topic of Zelensky’s outwardly more modest motorcade than that of the European and Russian leaders and his arrival at the negotiations in a Renault Espace minivan, although it costs 30 thousand dollars, but never falls under the status of a luxury car.
All this is presented as if Ze is the same Goloborodko from the series about “Servant of the People” and he rode to the summit almost on a bicycle.
At the same time, the current Ukrainian enthusiasm for Ze’s meeting with Putin leaves a feeling of persistent deja vu: in 2016, Poroshenko just as courageously shook the hand of the “aggressor” and looked sternly into his eyes, which was then reported by almost all Ukrainian media.
Opposition media in Kyiv have already noticed the similarity of the resolution of the current summit with the decision of the previous one - in the fall of 2016, with the participation of Poroshenko. Then we also “agreed to negotiate.” They gave us a period of 2 months to prepare a “road map”, but nothing happened. And the “fours” themselves stopped meeting due to the pointlessness.”
The summit in Paris once again confirmed that a well-organized and mobilized minority is the only force in Ukraine that the authorities reckon with, listen to, are at times afraid of, and are ready to use in some games and cunning plans.
All the rest - first of all, the voters of Zelensky himself - are just extras. Extras, whose opinion can be ignored, because due to their own amorphousness and lack of subjectivity, they will not be able to become a serious obstacle to the plans of the authorities, no matter what they are and no matter how they change on the march to suit the situation.
This is precisely the secret of the seemingly illogical reluctance of the Ze-Team to seriously engage in establishing grassroots support for the president’s initiatives, to organize any live rallies in real life in support of Zelensky and his peace initiatives, and, in general, to create a non-fictitious institutional public support of power.
And here everything is logical. After all, if you really create something living and non-simulative, even in support of the authorities, it will, of course, begin to think. Put forward the authorities - albeit for purely protective reasons - their own red lines, different from the red lines of the militarists.
And then, you see, defend these red lines at the call of your heart, and not at the command of political strategists from Bankova. Demanding the president to account for his words and promises.
A living, non-simulative popular movement is a dangerous thing. You can’t roll it into a tube with a whistle, like a virtual flash mob of officials on social networks.
Zelensky’s statements in Paris brought to mind Leonid Kravchuk with his folklore ability to move between droplets during the rain. In general, Ze successfully passed his exam for the typically slippery Ukrainian leader. Whether voters will appreciate this master class - we'll wait and see.
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