Why and How a Combined UN/EU Peacekeeping Mission Could Disentangle the Donbas Conundrum

Abstract

How to solve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the Donets Basin? Until now, the international community – the OSCE, and especially Germany and France, within the so-called Normandy Format – has been trying to mediate bilateral talks between Kyiv and Moscow. The activities of the so-called Contact Group, with considerable support from Berlin and Paris, have led to the wellknown Minsk Agreements. With the delay, these agreements have, in combination with other factors, such as the collapse of world energy prices and growing effects of Western sanctions on Russia, achieved a decline of military activity since summer 2015. Yet, the agreements have neither led to a full ceasefire, nor to any serious steps towards a return, under Kyiv’s control, of the occupied areas and the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Donbas.