Author: Vladimir Socor/Eurasia Daily Monitor

Russian-Ukrainian “peace” negotiations have been in permanent session since March 14 by video conference, with a sense of urgency and in secrecy. Multiple, specialized working groups and consultative groups meet online on a daily basis, with plenary sessions scheduled to be held on Mondays from March 21 onward. On March 21, the 26th day of...

Part 1 (Part 2) Russia imposed the Minsk “agreements” on Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 through military force. Ukraine’s government and civil society regard the terms of those documents as inimical to the national interests. They spent these seven years resisting, evading and asking to change those terms. Throughout this time, Russia has repeatedly said...

Part 2 (Part 1) The Joseph Biden administration has recently learned the Russian Minsk-speak, chapter and verse. Following direct discussions with Moscow (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 20, December 8, 9, 14), the White House and State Department have adopted key parts of Russia’s specific terminology regarding the Minsk “agreements.” And based on this terminology,...

Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia held a one-on-one video-conference on December 7 – their fifth direct dialogue (three by telephone, one in person, one by video) in the 10 months since Mr. Biden took office. The U.S. president initiated both the in-person meeting in Geneva on June 16...

Part 1 Russian diplomacy is testing its rogue-state practices on its Western diplomatic counterparts, and finds them malleable. On November 17, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov unilaterally publicized the confidential messages recently exchanged between himself and his German and French counterparts, Heiko Maas and Jean-Yves Le Drian, regarding a possible relaunch of negotiations in...

Part 1 The Joseph Biden Administration has apparently decided to work with Russia toward a political solution to the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas. On October 13, U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland capped a three-day visit in Moscow (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 14), conferring with Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration...

Part 2 According to Kremlin-connected analyst Fedor Lukyanov, the Joseph Biden Administration had to work hard with Moscow to make Under Secretary Victoria Nuland’s visit possible. The United States seeks a mutually accepted modus vivendi with Russia regarding the Donbas problem; and Mr. Biden’s team is prepared to exert its influence on Ukraine to cooperate...

The Kremlin has published an open letter to and about Ukraine, replete with insults and threats. An official public document in such a style seemed inconceivable in contemporary international relations, but the Kremlin has turned the inconceivable into fact with this letter. Published in the Moscow daily Kommersant (“Why It Is Senseless to Deal with...

On September 17-19, elections to Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) were unlawfully staged in the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine’s east (Donetsk and Luhansk) as well as in annexed Crimea. Elections to the Russian Duma were also held unlawfully in Trans­nistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia – territories seized from Moldova and Georgia, respectively. The voting demonstrated Moscow’s systematic use of illegal “passportization” of citizens of other countries in territories forcibly seized from those countries. Russia uses mass-passportization as a form of annexing populations without necessarily declaring the annexation of the territory to Russia (see accompanying article in Eurasia Daily Monitor, September 23).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelens­kyy is reverting to his earlier, forlorn hopes of improving relations with Russia through a personal meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president is eager to meet Mr. Putin “any time, any place” – whether bilaterally or in the framework of a “Normandy” summit (Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France). The chief of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, is negotiating the conditions for a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting in either of those formats. This track ended badly for Mr. Zelenskyy in 2019 (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, October 3, 16, 17, December 5, 2019).