Donbass – especially Donetsk – and security guarantees. The last mile is being played out on these two key nodes. Not only for Ukraine but for all the actors in the field. Having control of Donbass, for Vladimir Putin, means being able to claim to the Russians that he has won the war, justifying the million dead and wounded as well as an economy plagued by inflation.
The guarantees, however, will determine whether Moscow’s appetites for the rest of the country – and in general for its neighboring countries, such as the Baltics – will be crushed or not.
The issue of recognition and Zelensky’s position
The original 28-point peace plan read as follows: «Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral and demilitarized buffer zone, recognized internationally as territory belonging to the Russian Federation: Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone».
The red line, for Volodymyr Zelensky, lies in the word “recognition” and it is precisely here that European mediation efforts have been concentrated. The Ukrainian president has made it clear several times that he cannot cede territories (officially) and that, even if he could, a referendum would be necessary.
Under penalty of political death (and consequent loss of immunity). The fallout point could be the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces, a future for the area as a “no man’s land”, international monitoring.
The topic of guarantees follows closely. Because Ukraine has fortified Donetsk since 2014 and if it hands over the defensive lines to Russia (or exposes its side to future blitz) the road leading to the Dnipro river is paved. The 28-point plan, on future security architecture, was very vague.
The scheme is now based on the model of Article 5 of NATO, but with precise clauses. Because Kiev wants to avoid a Budapest 2.0 protocol (giving up nuclear weapons in exchange for protecting its territorial integrity).
The role of the USA cannot be secondary and this is where the Coalition of the Willing (Paris and London in the lead) has worked a lot. “We will not leave Ukraine alone as others have done with Afghanistan,” assured the President of the European Council Antonio Costa in a clear reference to the United States.
The crux of Russian assets and the distance between the US and the EU
Last but not least, the fate of Russian assets. Given that everything concerning Europe and NATO has been removed from the original 28-point plan, the positions between the US and the EU on assets remain distant.
The plan designed by the Commission to give that money to Kiev has become the cornerstone of European political viability, which otherwise has not touched the ball on the negotiations front, except to limit the damage.
As EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has reiterated several times, the asset strategy serves to send three messages: to Ukraine, to show that it will not be abandoned; to Russia, to show that it will have to pay for its war; and to the USA, to show that Europe has cards to play.