Negotiations in the Minsk Contact Group on political issues are so configured as to push Ukraine into recognizing the Moscow-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR), first de facto and then de jure, through local elections and a “special status.” For its part, Ukraine shows increasing tenacity in resisting that push.
The political group’s February 24 meeting in Minsk illustrated those opposite efforts. The military and security situation on the ground is inseparable from the political issues, although that situation is being discussed in a separate Minsk group. Russian and “DPR-LPR” forces harass Ukraine through attrition warfare, threaten with …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation