
Analysis: How not to end a war: 3 lessons from the last time Ukraine and Russia agreed a ceasefire deal
The ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States on Tuesday and accepted by Ukraine is part of a plan, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 'to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable.'
It's a promise fraught with risk for Ukraine. The last time it signed a peace accord with Russia, 10 years ago this February, it brought only sporadic violence, mounting distrust, and eventually full-scale war.
'I told President Trump about this,' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview last month with CNN affiliate CNN Turk. 'If you can get Putin to end the war, that's great. But know that he can cheat. He deceived me like that. After the Minsk ceasefire.'
The Minsk accords – the first signed in September 2014 and, when that broke down, a second known as Minsk II just five months later – were designed to end a bloody conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's then-leader Petro Poroshenko were signatories, along with the OSCE.
The accords were never fully implemented and violence flared up periodically in the seven years that followed.
Now, as Ukraine and its allies attempt to forge another path to peace, experts warn the failures of Minsk serve as a cautionary tale for today's peacemakers, and that the risks of history repeating are clear. Here's what we've learned:
In 2015, Western military aid to Ukraine was minimal, and mostly limited to non-lethal supplies, though the Obama administration did supply defensive military equipment. 'The crisis cannot be resolved by military means,' said then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech at the 2015 Munich Security Conference, which coincided with the talks on Minsk II. Her assessment of those diplomatic efforts was blunt: 'It's unclear whether they'll succeed.'
It didn't help that both Minsk accords were signed right after, or during, major military defeats for Ukraine.
The first agreement followed what's believed to be the deadliest episode of the conflict in the Donbas, at Ilovaisk. In late August 2014, hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed as they tried to flee the town to avoid encirclement.
Six months later, Minsk II was signed while fierce fighting raged for another Donetsk town, Debaltseve. That battle continued for several days beyond the initial ceasefire deadline.
Marie Dumoulin, a diplomat at the French Embassy in Berlin at the time, says those defeats put both Ukraine and its allies firmly on the back foot in the talks.
'Basically the main goal, both for France and Germany, but also for the Ukrainians, was to end the fighting,' she told CNN. But, she added, 'Russia through its proxies, but also directly, was in a much stronger position on the battlefield, and so could increase the intensity of fighting to put additional pressure on the negotiations.'
From a military perspective, Ukraine's Western-backed, almost million-strong army of today is almost unrecognizable from the underfunded and under-equipped force that took on the Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
And yet, as Ukraine 'accepts' a temporary ceasefire proposal, it faces a double challenge.
Firstly, Russia, has been inching forward in recent months on the eastern front (albeit at a huge cost to personnel and equipment), and inflicting almost daily aerial attacks on Ukraine's cities. And secondly, the US, Ukraine's biggest backer, has now withheld crucial military aid, in response to a public falling-out between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. The aid is now restored, but the episode has left Ukraine on shaky ground.
'That makes Ukraine's situation now very precarious,' said Sabine Fischer, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. 'Ukraine from… the Trump administration's perspective has become an obstacle to this normalization that they want for their relationship with Russia.'
Experts agree the Minsk accords were put together hastily as violence escalated. Johannes Regenbrecht, a former German civil servant who was involved in the negotiations, pointed out in a recent paper that Ukraine's allies had reached the point in February 2015 where they worried that allowing Russia to continue unchecked 'would have resulted in the de facto secession of eastern Ukraine under Moscow's control.'
With hindsight, experts say, the resulting document left too much ambiguity when it came to implementing the deal. The thorniest issue was how to link the military provisions (a ceasefire and withdrawal of weapons), with the political ones (local elections, and a 'special regime' in the separatist-controlled areas).
'Ukraine was saying, we need security first and then we can implement the political provisions. Russia was saying, once political provisions are implemented, separatists will be satisfied and will stop fighting,' said Dumoulin, now director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. That initial disagreement was an early sign of what Dumoulin and other experts see as Moscow's ultimate intention to use the political provisions of Minsk to gain greater control over Ukraine.
Fischer argues that Trump's desire to end the war quickly suggests the US may not only be at risk of reaching a flawed deal in haste, but may actually be willing to settle for something that doesn't offer long-term solutions. 'Comprehensive ceasefire agreements are not negotiated quickly… they're very complicated, many intricacies… And I don't think that this is what the Trump administration is aiming for,' she told CNN.
In the end, the biggest issue with the Minsk accords, especially Minsk II, wasn't what was in the text, but what wasn't. There's not one mention of 'Russia' in the entire text, despite clear evidence that Russia was both arming the separatists, and sending reinforcements from the Russian army.
'Everyone knew that Russia was involved, but for the sake of the negotiations, this was not recognized,' said Dumoulin. 'The agreements were based on the fiction that the war was between separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk and Kyiv, and that it was ultimately a domestic conflict.'
There is no direct parallel today but there is, experts say, a risk Moscow is now using the false narrative that Zelensky is illegitimate because he failed to hold elections – Ukrainian law clearly states elections cannot be held during martial law – to rebrand the war as something that should be solved internally in Ukraine, and ultimately bring about regime change.
And even more concerning for Ukraine is that the US has taken a similar line, with Trump last month labeling Zelensky 'a dictator without elections,' although he subsequently appeared to distance himself from that statement.
The failure of the Minsk accords leaves no doubt as to the risks of perpetuating such falsehoods.
Back then, the fiction that Russia wasn't an aggressor or party to the conflict, along with insufficient pressure on Moscow in the form of sanctions or the provision of lethal military supplies to Ukraine, ultimately meant Minsk never addressed the root cause of the conflict.
'The fundamental contradiction of Minsk,' wrote Regenbrecht, 'was that Putin sought to end Ukraine as an independent nation… Consequently, he had no interest in a constructive political process.'
There's no evidence that that position has changed. In his speech on February 21, 2022, three days before the full-scale invasion, Putin described Ukraine as 'an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,' before claiming, 'Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood.'
In January this year, one of his closest aides, Nikolai Patrushev, said he couldn't rule out 'that Ukraine will cease to exist at all in the coming year.'
And so, even amid US promises of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and forcing them to accept territorial losses, the negotiating teams in Saudi Arabia have so far, it seems – just like their predecessors in Minsk – come nowhere close to tackling that core issue.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Bloomberg
16 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Gabbard Warns Global Nuclear Annihilation Is Closer Than Ever
Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, released a video Tuesday warning that the world is closer to nuclear war than ever and accusing unnamed political elites of trying to foment conflict between world powers. Gabbard didn't cite any countries by name but her remarks echoed longtime claims by Russian officials and, more recently, by far-right commentators in the US who have warned that a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's strategic bomber fleet earlier this month made nuclear war more likely.


The Hill
17 minutes ago
- The Hill
Vance on LA unrest: Newsom should ‘look in mirror' and stop blaming Trump
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday tore into California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for suggesting the unrest in Los Angeles is a consequence of federal involvement in state and local law enforcement efforts. 'Gavin Newsom says he didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' Vance wrote in a post on X, attaching two photos that he said were taken before Trump ordered the National Guard to protect border patrol agents in California. One depicted rioters appearing to attack a 'border patrol' van, and another depicted a car set ablaze. The Hill was not able to verify the authenticity of the photos. 'Does this look like 'no problem'?' Vance asked. Vance suggested Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass 'fomented and encouraged the riots,' with the goal of promoting mass migration into the U.S., adding, 'It is their reason for being.' 'If you want to know why illegal aliens flocked to your state, stop accusing Donald Trump. Look in the mirror,' Vance said. 'If you want to know why border patrol fear for their lives over enforcing the law, look in the mirror.' Vance pointed to California's Medicaid expansion last year to low-income undocumented immigrants as an example of a policy that has 'encouraged mass migration into California.' Newsom has since proposed ending new Medicaid enrollment for undocumented adults, but his proposal faces resistance from the state legislature. 'Your policies that protected those migrants from common sense law enforcement. Your policies that offered massive welfare benefits to reward illegal immigrants. Your policies that allowed those illegal migrants (and their sympathizers) to assault our law enforcement. Your policies that allowed Los Angeles to turn into a war zone,' Vance continued. 'You sure as hell had a problem before President Trump came along. The problem is YOU,' Vance added. Vance's post is the latest in a back-and-forth between the administration and Newsom, who has resisted Trump's extraordinary steps to deploy 4,000 National Guard troops to the area and mobilize 700 active-duty marines. Newsom has insisted that the situation was under control before the Trump administration escalated tensions by making a provocative show of force. He accused Trump of 'intentionally causing chaos, terrorizing communities and endangering the principles of our great democracy.' After Trump suggested his border czar arrest Newsom, the California governor responded by saying, 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America.' 'I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,' Newsom added Monday afternoon. Vance then replied to Newsom, saying, 'Do your job. That's all we're asking.' 'Do YOUR job. We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved. Rescind the order. Return control to California,' Newsom responded, prompting Vance's latest response.


Axios
19 minutes ago
- Axios
Newsom denies Trump spoke to him before deploying more National Guards
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday said President Trump did not speak with him, despite deploying national military personnel to respond to Los Angeles protests. Why it matters: Trump claimed that he had spoken with the governor and criticized his handling of the rallies against Immigration and Customs Enforcement's actions. "There was no call. Not even a voicemail," Newsom said on X. "Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn't even know who he's talking to." Driving the news: Trump, speaking to the media on Tuesday, said he last talked with Newsom "a day ago." "Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job," Trump said. "He's doing a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death." Reality check: California authorities have not reported any deaths during the protests. A total of 72 people have been arrested over the past weekend, with five police officers being injured, according to local media report on Monday Context: The Marines deployed to LA have not yet responded to immigration protests.