[The Kremlin is seeking to
establish autonomous republics with their own economic and foreign policies,
while Ukraine has talked only about decentralization. The compact says that
decentralization will be carried out, but the degree of autonomy was left
ambiguous.]
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President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Minsk, Belarus, on Thursday.
Credit
Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters
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MINSK, Belarus — A renewed cease-fire and an overall agreement to
end the war in Ukraine were announced here on Thursday by the
leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France after marathon overnight
bargaining that nearly collapsed at the very end.
The cease-fire is scheduled
to begin at midnight on Saturday, but the 13-point compact appeared fragile,
with crucial issues like the location of the truce line and control of the
border with Russia left unresolved. Over all, there seemed to be no guarantee
that the problems that marred the cease-fire agreement reached here in
September had been ironed out.
The very fact that it took
more than 16 hours of intensive negotiations to reach an agreement, and that
the leaders announced the accord in three separate news conferences, seemed to
highlight the differences that remained.
But after so many hours
spent in the grandiose Independence Palace in Minsk, the Belarussian capital,
all four leaders emphasized that the agreement should be given the chance to
quiet the nearly yearlong conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“It consisted of a long
night and a long morning, but we arrived at an accord on the cease-fire and the
global end to the conflict,”François
Hollande, the French president, said at a news conference in a joint
appearance with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
“What we have on the table
today gives us great hope,” said Ms. Merkel, who unexpectedly began a mediation
effort with her French counterpart last week. However, she added, that there
was much work ahead.
“We have no illusions,” she
said, “A great, great deal of work still needs to be done. But there is a real
chance to turn things around toward the better.”
President Vladimir
V. Putin of Russia and
President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, in their separate briefings,
highlighted those parts of the agreement that matched their demands, while
noting crucial outstanding questions.
“Despite all the
difficulties of the negotiating process, we managed to agree on the main
things,” Mr. Putin said. Those issues included the withdrawal of heavy
weaponry, a promise for constitutional change and “special status” for the
breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, he said.
Mr. Poroshenko, for his
part, emphasized humanitarian issues, like the release of all prisoners,
including Nadiya V. Savchenko,
a female helicopter navigator who was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament while
facing trial in Moscow. All foreign troops, military equipment and mercenaries
should be withdrawn from Ukrainian territory, he said.
But the plan also included
some tripwires, not least the questions about the truce line and the fate of
the village of Debaltseve, an important railroad hub that has been the site of
fierce fighting in recent weeks.
The deal calls for heavy
artillery to be withdrawn at least about 15 miles from each side, and the
biggest missiles even farther. The withdrawal is scheduled to start two days
after the cease-fire and to be completed within two weeks.
Mr. Putin said that Mr.
Poroshenko refused to acknowledge that the separatist forces had surrounded up
to 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Debaltseve, but the Russian leader said he hoped
that consultations between military commanders would settle that matter.
The Russian leader warned
that the situation there carried the potential for renewed fighting, but he
called on both sides to stop the bloodshed.
Even as all sides endorsed
the pending cease-fire, the fighting that has left more than 5,400 people dead
since last spring continued.
Pro-Russian rebel forces
mounted a counterattack on areas east of the coastal city of Mariupol, trying
to retake some of the ground seized in recent days by the volunteer, right-wing
Azov Battalion.
Residents of Mariupol, an
industrial port on the Sea of Azov that is widely expected to be the next
target of rebel attacks if the truce agreed to in Minsk does not hold, said
they could hear heavy shelling throughout the morning.
City and military officials
said the fighting had not hit civilian areas in the city, but had been confined
to small villages to the east.
The status of the
Russian-Ukrainian border promised to remain contentious. Kiev and NATO have
said the border has remained porous, despite attempts at international
monitoring, allowing Moscow easily to supply the two breakaway regions with
men, money and matériel.
The new pact, which calls
for Kiev to assume control by the end of 2015, but only if certain stringent
conditions are met, particularly Kiev’s amending its constitution to allow far
greater autonomy for the breakaway regions.
Russia said such border
control by Kiev should be a lower priority than other issues, including the
constitutional changes and local elections, which the compact says also should
come by the end of 2015.
The Kremlin is seeking to
establish autonomous republics with their own economic and foreign policies,
while Ukraine has talked only about decentralization. The compact says that
decentralization will be carried out, but the degree of autonomy was left
ambiguous.
“This was not simple; in
fact, unacceptable conditions were offered,” Mr. Poroshenko said, calling a new
cease-fire the main achievement. “We did not agree to any ultimatums.”
The nearly four-page compact
was signed by representatives of the separatists, Russia, Ukraine and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe — which monitored the last
fruitless cease-fire effort — and mirrored the September accord.
Aside from the cease-fire,
the agreement called for a dialogue between the two sides on holding elections,
with the talks to start the day after heavy weapons are withdrawn.
It also said that the
Ukrainian Parliament should define by law the territory of the areas to have
self-rule and should pass an amnesty for the separatist leaders. Kiev should
also establish the means to pay pensions and other social benefits that have
been cut off, it said, including linking the banking system back to the
national network.
The peace talks appeared on
the verge of collapse even as they were drawing to a close. News conferences
originally scheduled to announce an agreement were postponed, and the leaders
went back to the bargaining table.
The return was accompanied
by a flurry of Russian news agency reports that Mr. Poroshenko had declined at
the last minute to accept the outlines of the deal relating to the independent
status of the breakaway areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the cease-fire
demarcation line.
When the leaders of the
breakaway regions joined the talks in the morning, they also initially balked
at signing the agreement, according to the official Russian news agency Tass.
Even after the signing,
questions remained about whether the agreement will really end the fighting, or
whether like the last cease-fire, it will be honored in name more than fact.
Russia is believed to be
trying to create a frozen conflict that could be used to destabilize Ukraine
any time it draws too close to the West and prevent Kiev from joining NATO.
“The practical, realistic
expectation is a frozen conflict with no effective control by Kiev over those
areas, but no formal responsibility of Russia,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the
editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.
But the conflict has also
reached a point where Russia would have to commit significant new resources for
any advance, which helped clear the way for a settlement, Mr. Lukyanov said.
The separatists “cannot
advance very much without direct Russian involvement, and Russia does not want
to get directly involved,” he said.
Rick Lyman contributed reporting from
Kharkiv, Ukraine.
