Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted a meeting of his Russian, French, and Ukrainian counterparts (“Normandy” group), on November 6, in Berlin, to lift the December deadline on the implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This move, a foregone conclusion, may turn the armistice implementation into a protracted stalemate, with Russia holding the upper hand (see EDM, November 10).
With this move, Western powers and Russia are shifting the emphasis from the military to the political clauses of the Minsk armistice. Highly unusual for an armistice, and unprecedented among the post-Soviet era’s conserved conflicts, the Minsk documents are largely …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation
