Glimmers of Hope Towards Creating Grounds for Peace in Ukraine

Dec. 30, 2019 (EIRNS)—Two small steps have been taken since the Dec. 9 Normandy Format discussions in Paris, where Presidents of Ukraine and Russia met, which create openings to pull the plug on the potential for war created by the British-Obama Maidan coup which brought Nazis to power in Ukraine in 2014.

The first step was the prisoner exchange carried out between the Kiev government and the two self-declared Donbas republics on Dec. 29, in which the Kiev government released 123 prisoners to return home to Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Donbas forces released 76 prisoners, who were handed over to the Kiev government. The exchange was worked out by the Trilateral Contact Group, made up of representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Both Russian and OSCE spokesmen welcomed this humanitarian step, but cautioned that progress requires “the full and comprehensive implementation of the Minsk agreements,” as the OSCE Special Representative in Ukraine Martin Sajdik said. Under the Minsk agreements, Kiev and the two Donbas areas must negotiate directly on settling the issues of conflict, with those agreements then incorporated into the Ukrainian Constitution.

But the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky still refuses to talk directly—under the threat by the Nazi networks still controlling major sectors of the national security apparatus to unleash a Maidan style uprising against the government should it do so. Thus, Schiller Institute co-thinker and Ukrainian Progressive Socialist Party chair Natalia Vitrenko’s emphasis on denazification.

Today’s announcement that Russia and Ukraine have signed a five-year contract for the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe through Ukraine could help strengthen the Zelensky government. President Zelensky reported on his Facebook page that Ukraine will receive more than $7 billion over the course of the five-year contract (which could be prolonged for ten more years), as Gazprom will deliver at least 65 billion cubic meters of gas in 2020 and 40 bcm per year for the subsequent four years.

Alexey Miller, chairman of Russia’s Gazprom Management Committee, called the agreements and contracts signed “a big package deal that restored the balance of interests of the parties,” including settling outstanding court disputes between the two countries’ gas companies. Russian gas will begin to flow through Ukraine as of Jan. 1, 2020, Miller said.

In his Dec. 19 year-end press conference, President Vladimir Putin had spoken of Russia’s willingness to reach a gas agreement with Ukraine, including providing Ukraine with a 20-25% discount, despite the fact that the Ukrainian pipeline route to Europe is longer, and more expensive for Russia, than the new facilities existing or coming online (Nord Stream 1 and 2 and TurkStream). Russia “does not want escalations in the energy sector that can be used to affect the situation in Ukraine,” he explained, and “we are interested in Ukraine getting the resource properly, so that our consumers in Europe are calm about us having normal relations with our neighbors.” Under such an agreement, he suggested, Ukraine could decrease costs for the end consumer, instead of cancelling all discounts as of Jan. 1 as scheduled, which will send gas prices soaring.