Uladzimir Matskevich: Even a short-term truce made Poroshenko a diplomatic winner

Having achieved a truce during the NATO Summit, the official Kiev provided itself with the more decisive support of the North Atlantic Treaty.

On September 5 an agreement on the ceasefire in Ukraine was reached. However, only during the first day of it the gunmen violated the regime of ceasefire for at least 10 times. There can be no such “coincidences” in politics.

Who needed the truce, and why, if only the official Kiev is adhering to it? Can it be that the truce demonstrates Ukraine’s weakness? What is to come next, after the truce? Why is Lukashenka skimming the cream off his status as a “peacemaker”?

Uladzimir Matskevich, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, answered the questions of the “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- Before the agreement on truce had time to come into force that the gunmen violated the truce more than once. For what purposes are the gunmen using it?

- The initiative to reach truce came from Ukraine, from the President Poroshenko, and the realization of this initiative, even if less than for a day, is his diplomatic win. On the threshold of the NATO Summit in Wales Poroshenko guaranteed himself unanimity of votes, which the participants of the NATO Summit gave to Ukraine, when they agreed to provide more decisive support.

But Russia is going on gambling, pretending that it is not Russia that is fighting at the east of Ukraine, but separatists, Ukrainian gunmen, who are allegedly not subject to Moscow’s and Putin’s decisions.

It is clear for everyone that this is a lie: if Putin orders to cease fire and withdraw Russian army from the Ukrainian territory, the war would immediately stop. So the truce is being used for demonstrating that the gunmen are not subject to Putin, that the gunmen and Kremlin are two absolutely different forces.

Despite such cruel naivety and feigned insubordination of the gunmen to Putin, neither Ukraine nor the international community is accepting DPR and LPR as the party to negotiations. Even if the dialog with them is organized, it only deals with exchange of prisoners of war and release of hostages.

- The final protocol of the Minsk meeting was published only two days later. One of its provisions prescribes to “withdraw illegal armed groups, military equipment, as well as gunmen and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine”. However, what we observe is just the opposite: Russian tanks are moving further into Ukraine, while gunmen are bombarding not only the dispositions of the Ukrainian army, but also settlements. What is the plan that Kremlin’s strategists are implementing?

- The whole run of the war, starting from February, only proves my thesis voiced at the beginning of the year: the main goal of Kremlin is to destabilize situation and weaken Ukraine’s statehood. Strong Ukraine is fatal for the ruling clique in Moscow. Any Ukraine’s successes reveal Russia’s ineffective and corrupted domestic and foreign policy doctrines.

Being unable to seize the so-called “Novorussia” and even some districts in Donetsk and Lugansk areas that are controlled by the gunmen, Russia still goes on escalating the conflict in order to destabilize and slacken Ukraine’s state. Kremlin has been doing so and will do that in the future, all the more than it doesn’t require huge resources. Meanwhile Ukraine has to restore the destroyed factories, plants, cities, villages and infrastructure.

There is one more explanation of Kremlin’s actions. Though not victorious, but prolonged war delays inner crisis in Russia. It is almost for a year now that Putin’s regime manages to avoid discussion of Russia’s inner problems.

- Some experts compare truce to Ukraine’s capitulation…

- It is fully wrong. A short truce is Ukraine’s diplomatic success and doesn’t at all mean that the war is over. The truce is not the end of the war; otherwise there would be no talks about NATO’s help to Ukraine.

The truce is needed, if we think about huge human toll within Ukrainian army, peaceful citizens, and even gunmen and Russian army. Every human life is precious, which means that if there is less fire there will be less human toll.

We can notice Poroshenko’s and Ukraine’s diminutions, encouragement of panic moods – all these actions are inspired partially because of the information war against Ukraine and partially because of thoughtlessness. The fact that many Ukrainians are not that happy to see scarce successes of the anti-terror operation is quite understandable. Everyone wants to end the war as soon as possible and with fewest possible victims, while foot-dragging of the war works against Ukrainian authorities.

- The North Atlantic Treaty refused to help Ukraine as a military block. However, an agreement was reached that the five countries – the USA, France, Italy, Poland, and Norway – will provide Ukraine with high-accuracy weapon. How will the NATO Summit influence the Russia-Ukraine war?

- EU’s and US’ inconsequent policy towards Ukraine has now become morbid. On the one hand, they are afraid that the local conflict will grow into a regional, and then it might as well grow into the World War III. However, tolerance of Russian aggression only prolongs the conflict.

There is one more explanation of West’s indecisive actions, which is the international law regarding such conflicts. NATO has corresponding agreements with both Russia and Ukraine, which say that it won’t provide assistance to the parties in the war. If a NATO country suffered from aggression from the third country, Russia would not even be able deliver weapon there. NATO is tied with obligations, so it abstains from declaring a real war in every way.

But even in the regime of the anti-terror operation it is difficult to deliver weapon. Politicians and diplomats can’t find judicially justified grounds for helping Ukraine.

Russia’s military impudence prevents NATO from break off an agreement with Russia.

However, NATO countries are making certain efforts to help Ukraine, such as deliver ammunition, body armors, and optical instruments and devices, and that is major help for Ukraine in the current situation.

The growing number of violations on the part of Russia enables NATO countries to slightly increase their assistance to Ukraine, even if this help is not of a military character.

Nonetheless, the prolonged war enables Ukraine to modernize its army, so that it won’t be that easy for Ukraine’s eastern neighbor to violate its territorial area in the future. However, modernization of the army is stuck because reforms of the political system are needed, without which modernization is impossible.

We can only be amazed at how wise is the policy that the Ukraine President is leading.

- Lukashenka has used negotiations in Minsk as an advertising campaign. Official propaganda quotes Kuchma and Poroshenko, who thank Lukashenka for the help in the organization of the negotiations, and the Belarusan leader in an interview with “Russia 1” TV channel is introduced as a main peacemaker. What are the dividends that Lukashenka will get from that role, both in Belarus as well as at the international arena?

- The regime is shamelessly exploiting the situation it its propaganda campaign, putting emphasis at the domestic politics. On the eve of the president campaign Lukashenka is growing his authority and gathering points.

But international arena is the other thing. We can’t say that Lukashenka’s image went through serious change at the international arena. Lukashenka has neither initiated nor mediated nor participated in the negotiations, yet political curtseys are heard both from Ukraine and from Europe. However, all politicians and diplomats know what the worth of such curtseys. But naïve consumers of Belarusan propaganda don’t, and take it in all good faith, which is shamelessly used by the regime.

Belarus is already experiencing and will be experiencing international consequences. However, the change of attitude towards Belarus is indirect – no more than the change of attitude to Iran. When the greater dictator, i.e. the bigger threat steps out at the international arena, the smaller threat retreats into the shadow. However, with the appearance of the bigger dictator Belarusan evil doesn’t become smaller, it just hides in the shadow of the bigger evil.