Outcome of Minsk: Poroshenko given chance to rein in Kiev war faction, but will it work?

Imagine yourself as Petro Poroshenko for a minute: you fly in for a meeting, and you discover everyone is against you, the Europeans, the Russians, even the clever Belorussian with his little smile. The ally and patron is somewhere far away, behind an ocean. You have to run to make a phone call and get instructions. People are openly chuckling when you tell them there is no encirclement at Debaltsevo. They even ask you to leave the room so that Putin, Merkel, and Hollande can speak. You can't believe in the outcome of the negotiations, and even tell the media that "all is lost." A disaster.

But you still remember that your victory can easily be transformed into treachery, and you yourself can be deprived of power and even life. You have to save face, since you are not independent and don't have any genuine power. Your competitor in Dnepropetrovsk already opened a parallel General Staff, and the efforts to disperse the Aidar failed completely. You even destroyed the coalition when you tried to make your friend/godfather the Prosecutor General.

So it's better not to return at all without an agreement. It's even more important not to return without an advantageous agreement. But there isn't one. Because they put in front of you a compromise, and you had to sign on.

Holland and Merkel are beaming, because the plan worked and they believe in its implementation.

But only Lukashenko and Putin, and the DPR/LPR representatives understand what's really going on.

Can you imagine how Poroshenko is supposed to issue orders to the Debaltsevo group after many of its officers had fled? If even Poltorak says that there is no encirclement. How are the Ukrainian soldiers to return to the demarcation line if they are encircled? Breaking out - means violating the ceasefire, staying put means death and capitulation.

You break the ceasefire and Minsk-2 collapses. But try to imagine how these measures are to be implemented.

First. Are the radicals going to agree to pay salaries to the "supporters of terrorism" on Donbass? For them salary non-payment is a victory over Putin.

Second. How do you intend to resurrect the Donbass special status law, after it was voided by the radicals in the Rada?

Third. How is Poroshenko going to command the territorial battalions and volunteer battalions, which are not under his control?

Fourth. How is he going to force his artillerymen to stop shelling Donbass cities?

Fifth. How is Poroshenko going to explain the troop withdrawal?

The answer is simple. He won't. The provisions of the Minsk agreement are impossible to fulfill.

Incidentally, neither Kiev nor the republics plan to cancel their mobilizations. Units will be brought back to strength, and the republics' mobilization is going somewhat better than Kiev's. The war will inevitably continue, but the republics are in a better starting position than Kiev.

Therefore the outcome will be as follows: the ceasefire is temporary and will be violated. It only extends the death throes of the Kiev regime and of Ukraine as a state.

J.Hawk's Comments: Lizan outlines Poroshenko's quandary quite well, but in fact the situation is even worse for him.

For starters, Poroshenko clearly expected that the Minsk meeting would consist of The Leaders of the Free World (Poroshenko included) bringing "Putler's aggression" to heel.

Instead it turned out to be Vlad and Friends putting the hurt on Poroshenko. From just observing the facial expressions and the body language, it was clear that he was on the receiving end of some serious pressure. Lavrov's comment that the negotiations were going "better than super" was an early indication that Poroshenko walked into an ambush. What was the ambush intended to accomplish?

It would appear that Vlad's Friends want Poroshenko to deal firmly with the Party of War in Kiev. It must have dawned on Merkel and Hollande (though the latter probably suspected this already) that the Kiev junta's survival plan consists solely of hoping to provoke a large-scale conflict with Russia that would trigger a new Cold War on the European continent, and result in Ukraine being an "advanced forpost of the Western civilization", an Israel of Eastern Europe of sorts, which in turn would mean billions and billions of dollars of economic and military aid. And the junta has no other plan. It never had any other plan. Its objective from the start was to provoke Russia (starting with "FSB snipers on the Maidan" and the moves to transfer the Sevastopol naval base to the US Navy) into doing something.

Well, they succeeded. Russia "did something". It was only then that they discovered their miscalculation—the West does not have billions laying around to spend on cleptocratic Ukrainians with delusions of grandeur. Undaunted, they continued to escalate the situation, until the Europeans finally decided to step in, lest a full-scale great power war erupt on the European continent. First they apparently successfully convinced the Biden administration to kindly butt out by categorically ruling out deliveries of weapons to Ukraine. Then they pulled the plug on Kiev.

Poroshenko's "mission impossible," as it was evidently communicated to him by Hollande and Merkel, is to rein in the "war party" in Kiev by any means possible and then get on with destroying, excuse me, reforming the Ukrainian economy, Greece-style. It's no longer self-evident that any violation of the ceasefire will be automatically blamed on Novorossia or Russia, as it was in the past. It is totally self-evident that no IMF credits will be forthcoming unless Poroshenko finally starts acting in a responsible manner. Moreover, considering what conditions are invariably attached to IMF credits, Ukraine's ability to wage war will likely quickly decline due to the draconian budget cuts. Whatever Yatsenyuk had planned for this year will likely be significantly reduced if Yaresko is to convince Western donors Ukraine is serious about cutting government spending, and at the moment defense is where most of the money is.

So yes, by all means, try to put yourself into Poroshenko's shoes at this point. His best chance is to convince the "war party" that their best chance is to help him stay in power. This line of argument has the benefit of having considerable merit to it, because should the Right Sector/Turchinov/whoever topple Poroshenko, would the new junta count on any support from the West?

Probably not, but do Yarosh and Turchinov realize it? The assumption Poroshenko and other sponsors of the Maidan made in unleashing the neo-Nazis on Ukraine's political scene was that billions of dollars of Western aid would improve the situation in the country to such an extent that these movements would be starved of popular support. Instead, due to the deteriorating situation and the two lost military campaigns, they are gaining in strength, and their main enemy no longer is located in Donbass.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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