A UN Security Council resolution on Ukraine embodied the international community`s agreement on the Minsk agreements. The EU and the US have also linked the duration of sanctions to Russia to the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The “Stability and Democracy for Ukraine Act,” passed in 2016 by the U.S. House of Representatives, even provides: that the US policy is to “ensure that any relief of sanctions 14 for the Russian Federation is conditional on timely, complete and verifiable implementation of the Minsk 16 agreements, in particular the re-establishment of the 17 controls on the entire eastern border of Ukraine with the Russian Federation. conflict zone.” The Minsk agreements are therefore part of US law. Ukrainian political expert Petro Oleschchouk believes that both Russia and Ukraine saw the agreements as a temporary solution: Russia expected a weakened Ukraine to give in to its demands and Ukraine believed that sanctions would eventually lead Russia to reconsider its position. As a result, the process is deadlocked, but the official position of both sides is that the Minsk agreements cannot be rejected. The Minsk agreements concern only the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk. No, the two Minsk agreements do not mention the MH17 crash and its investigation. The Minsk Protocol, later known as Minsk-1, did not work. Adopted as a compromise decision between the interests of the parties and with “special” positions for pro-Russian forces, it was hastily signed and contained few concrete details. The supplementary memorandum of 19 September 2014 described the process of establishing a ceasefire: the creation of a 30 km long demilitarization zone, prohibited offensives and use of military aviation, as well as outlines of the scale of an OSCE mission, but not broader political issues, such as the timing of elections in Donbass – before or after Ukraine has regained control of its border.
It did not provide a timetable or sequence for the implementation of the measures. Russia has begun to insist that Ukraine implement the political component of the agreements before security measures are in place. The “DNR” and “NRAs” are not recognized as independent states by any authentic country, not even by Russia, which created and controlled them. The Minsk agreements use the term “certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast” (or “special districts… orDLO) to designate areas not controlled by the Ukrainian government. Ukrainian official documents use the same term ORDLO to refer to areas in the two Donbass oblasts or separate terms ORLO for Luhansk and ORDO for Donetsk. Ukraine`s “Donbass Reintegration Act,” passed in January 2018, calls them occupied territories. Although Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 are essentially the same, Minsk-2 gave more details on the measures needed to achieve peace and presented a specific timetable for their implementation. For example, the prisoner exchange should have taken place within five days of the withdrawal of arms, the Ukrainian parliament had to adopt a resolution of the Ukrainian Parliament defining the territory where the special regime enjoys within 30 days, namely that Ukraine should restore control of its borders from the first day after the local elections.
Ukraine should carry out constitutional reform in Ukraine by the end of 2015. decentralisation as a key element and referring to ORautonoDLO.