On Thursday, 5 December, in a speech to the 26th OSCE Ministerial Council, Josep Borrell, the new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained that the Normandy Format summit (involving Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France), scheduled for Monday, 9 December in Paris, “brings hope for a result-oriented increased dialogue”.
According to a press release issued by the European External Action Service (EEAS), Borrell, who met separately with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Vadym Prystaiko, expressed the hope that the summit would be held in a “constructive” atmosphere and would pave the way towards a “sustainable and peaceful resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, in full respect of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. He stressed that full implementation of the Minsk agreements was “essential”.
We fluctuate between hope and despair in Ukraine (see EUROPE 12383/20). “We want the Minsk agreements and the Normandy Format to succeed”, Sergei Orlov, deputy mayor of the city of Mariupol, told EUROPE. “We’re waiting for the conflict to be resolved, but not militarily”, he added.
In Mariupol, a city in the Donbass region that which experienced fighting between Ukrainian and separatist forces in 2014 and 2015 (see EUROPE 11239/17), proximity to the front is now ranked fourth among the population's concerns, behind the cost of services, pollution and transport, according to a survey. Although some of its 462,000 inhabitants left Mariupol because of the fighting, 96,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been registered there, including 55,000 who are thought to be there permanently.
Support required from EU
To assist them, the municipal authorities have built housing, with financial support from the EU. “We have received significant support from the EU, which has put forward a project to provide housing”, said Liubou Galchenko, who works with IDPs.
She said that the EU has co-financed a ‘social dormitory’ project with the city. Of the 8.5 million Ukrainian hryvnias needed (just over €322,000), 8 million have come from European funds (just over €300,000).
“It was an initial experiment. It’s significant because since then the programme has started to expand in Ukraine”, Galchenko added.
Orlov stated that the EU has set up a number of programmes in his city, and that international organisations like the Red Cross and Unicef are working on the programmes with support from the EU.
The city is also suffering as a result of the blocking of the Kerch Strait. Since the beginning of the war, shipyards have reduced their workforce from 1,500 to 600 employees. They hope to receive EU support soon to help them modernise.
According to Larisa Koneva, who works for the shipyards, the shipyards are in negotiations with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). She says they need twenty million euros. The yards are currently waiting for the Ukrainian government to give the necessary guarantees.
“The EU and the OSCE were the first people to show an interest in us”, Koneva acknowledged.
A conflict that is going to continue
300 km further north and three checkpoints away from Mariupol is the city of Kramatorsk, which also experienced fighting. The people of Kramatorsk are pessimistic about the conflict finishing soon.
Oleksandr Kachura, who works for the temporary regional administration in Kramatorsk, says that as long as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is in power, the conflict is likely to continue.
“I don’t expect anything to come from the Normandy Format meeting”, he said, upset that Putin “is imposing his own peace conditions”. He said that bombardments were still occurring on a daily basis and that between five and seven people were being killed every month. The conflict has already left more than 13,000 people dead and 30,000 injured. It is estimated that there are more than 2 million internally displaced people in the country.
And according to Kachura, tensions are higher on the front line ahead of the Normandy Format summit. On 29 November, the 'Parliament' of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) adopted a law establishing the territorial borders of the Donetsk region, which do not coincide with the borders of Donetsk.
The separatists “are not prepared to negotiate”, said Kachura, calling the new law a “provocation”. This loyal Ukrainian official had to leave Donetsk because of the war and the risk of reprisals.
And although Borrell told the OSCE meeting that “the work of the (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission, more than two thirds of whose staff and budget was contributed by EU Member States, (was) invaluable”, Kachura believes the mission is “absolutely useless”. “If it were the other way around, the war wouldn’t have lasted for six years”, he told EUROPE, as several of the mission’s vehicles went past, and pointed out that heavy artillery is still being used, despite having been banned.
The same feeling of pessimism is shared by Iryna Sydorenko, a volunteer in an organisation that makes camouflage nets and other items for the army. “I don't think the war is going to end soon”, she told us in her small unheated room. But, having voted for the new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, she wants to give him “the opportunity to try”. “Ukraine will not give up”, she said, before adding that she had inherited her “fighting spirit” from her Cossack ancestors.
And even if peace returns, reconciliation will take time, as acts of torture and executions have taken place. “I am not angry with anyone, I am sorry for the people on both sides”, said Dionisiy, who is an Orthodox priest. Having been arrested and then released by the separatists, he was forced to flee to France before returning to help with the liberation effort in the Kramatorsk region.
"I’m a patriot; on the front line (where he visits the soldiers), the other side is my enemy”, he added. And he concluded by saying: “As a man, I can't forgive. As a priest, I should forgive”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)