About the lack of Publicity cannot complain of the Ukrainian President Volodimir Selenski is currently: He and his country play in the Impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump involuntarily a main role. On the home front the Selenski use is, admittedly, a little, on the contrary. There, he fights practically without American support, in small, painstaking steps towards peace in Eastern Ukraine.

Yesterday in Moscow has released the vessels, which were seized at the first direct armed confrontation between Russia and the Ukraine a year ago. The former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on the West to send ships of war, and the war called home right.

Since then, the climate has changed significantly. The old President has heated up the Situation with a lot of small steps, constantly, tries to be successor to Selenski to de-escalate the situation with many small steps. The return of the three ships he can claim as a personal success. In September, came in the framework of a prisoner exchange already the of Russia, detained a 24-mariners-free.

The Russian coast guard tows the confiscated Ukrainian ship: The bridge in the Background connects the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula. Photo: Reuters

at the beginning of December to meet Volodimir Selenski and Vladimir Putin in Paris for the first time in person, together with Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It would be the first Meeting in the ‘ Normandy Format since October of 2016.

So the hope is as big as it has been for years that something is moving in the war in Eastern Ukraine that has cost more since 2014, more than 13’000 people. Over 30’000 people were injured, two million driven from their homes. On the wish-list of Ukrainians for peace, is in the East, therefore at the very top.

Kiev is a bridge build

For the softening of the fronts has made the Kiev Russia to a number of concessions. It started with that Selenski has banned his troops back zuschiessen, if the Russian-backed rebels will attack you. The announced truce holds still, but is referred to by international observers to have been the “most effective”.

were Then drawn along the front line at several points the troops back in order to create a buffer zone between the parties to the conflict. In Stanizja Luhanska, where a wobbly wood the rebel areas of the bridge with the Rest of the Ukraine Association. Many people, especially Old, is regularly on the front line, their retirement pay. After the withdrawal Selenski ordered the construction of a new, safe pedestrian bridge, it is now virtually finished.

2015 was blown up the bridge in the air – in the year 2018, it looked even more so – today the construction is almost finished. Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov ()

And this is only the beginning: Selenski wants to make the front line, which is mutated in the last years, more and more of a strictly guarded border, permeable: people should not have more hours in the cold, or heat, or in an open field to wait if you want to change the page. Kiev wants to open up more passageways, the mine fields.

The President is now fighting for the hearts and minds of the people in Eastern Ukraine, threaten to Kiev after five years of war to slip away. The majority of people in the rebel areas want to return, according to the polls somehow, in the Ukraine. However, more than 60 percent of the respondents identify themselves with the Ukrainian state.

A “very painful way”

The solution to the conflict don’t want to reinvent the Selenski new, it is based on the Minsk agreement of 2014 and 2015. In addition to the ceasefire, in particular, a special status for today’s rebel areas from within the Ukraine belongs to it. “We believe that progress is possible,” says foreign Minister Vadim Pristajko. “This is the only reason that we walk this very painful path.” In October, had declared that Kiev is ready to follow the so-called Steinmeier formula: The then German foreign Minister, had suggested that elections in the rebel territories to be held under Ukrainian law and under international control.

After that, the territories should have special status in Ukraine and Kiev control over the border to Russia. The Minsk agreement before writing the individual steps, but not their order. While Kiev called for the ultimate withdrawal of Russian troops and the control over its state border, before thinking of elections, knocked Moscow on the opposite way. How far Selenski has given in on this thorny question of the Russian withdrawal, it will show only in Paris.

“you are urging us to make progress.”Vadim Pristajko, Minister of foreign Affairs of Ukraine

however, it is Clear that the Ukrainian President is under intense pressure. The West looks with the new man in Kiev the Chance for change. The Poroshenko’s increasingly nationalist rhetoric caused Stagnation should finally be finished. “You are urging us to make progress,” complains the Minister of foreign Affairs Pristajko. “We hope that you will urge the Russians to do exactly so.” In Ukraine itself, the uncertainty and the fear of a “capitulation” in front of Moscow is large. The President should make “unacceptable” concessions, is the claim of many Ukrainians.

Nationalist parties have suffered in the elections in the summer of a collection. Selenski has a majority of citizens behind and controlled the Parliament. However, the nationalist circles have immediately brought thousands of people with burning torches to the streets to protest against any Yielding to Moscow and against decentralization of Ukraine. As Poroshenko 2015 brought a law to the Parliament, marched radical in front of the representatives of the people. A policeman was killed and the template be suspended.

Three against one

Selenski says that the territorial integrity of Ukraine is inviolable. He firmly believe that Ukraine “could save not only their people, but also their territory,” he said to the prisoner exchange in September. By this, he meant not only the Eastern Ukraine, but also Russia’s annexed Crimean Peninsula that is not part of the Minsk peace agreement.

Here is Russia is beating just as unforgiving on the annexation of the Ukraine on the return. “Selenski will find it very difficult,” commented the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who has been negotiating the last few years for Kiev with the separatists. Because he’ll need to be in Paris the same against the claims of three people to fight back: Macron, Merkel and Putin.

Created: 19.11.2019, 18:58 PM