Since the Minsk II negotiations of February 2015, Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic
community have leaned toward freezing the conflict in the Donbas as a possible “exit
strategy” and way to avoid dangerous escalation. Moscow, however, pursues an
endgame that includes devastating Ukraine’s economy, destabilizing the government,
and, finally, effecting another regime change in Kyiv.
After the direct intervention of Russian troops in August 2014, Ukraine was forced to
accept that there is no military solution to the conflict. At the same time, the government
continues to rearm, reorganize, and deploy its military forces in the east. Kyiv also
maintains an economic blockade of separatist controlled territories while refusing to
recognize their leaders as equal parties in dialogue (thus trying to avoid the West’s
“5+2” negotiation approach in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria). While the
Minsk accords appeared to promise a way out of this dead end, they have proved
impossible to implement for political, economic, and geopolitical reasons.
