[Rooters] Karl-Georg Wellmann, a representative in the German parliament, flew to Moscow Sunday night on a behind-the-scenes mission to help break the deadlock in eastern Ukraine. But when he landed at Sheremetyevo Airport, border officials denied him entry, without any explanation, until 2019. Wellmann, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, had to spend the night in a transit lounge and was escorted onto the first flight home the next morning.Wellmann raised a storm in German and Russian media, and Merkel's government lodged an official complaint with the Kremlin. Although he was known as a critic of Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict, Wellmann said he had been invited by Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council's committee on foreign affairs, and Sergei Glazyev, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin. He didn't have plans to meet with Russian opposition leaders.
It's a worrisome sign when the back channels of German diplomacy clog up. Merkel, the main guarantor of the so-called Minsk protocol, is doing her best to save the shaky peace agreement between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian government. But as the war grinds on as a low-level conflict, the biggest weakness of the deal is becoming clear: None of the parties see it as the start to a lasting peace settlement.
The Minsk agreement, originally signed in September and amended in February, provides useful alibis to all sides: to Ukraine that it's pursuing the reintegration of breakaway regions by peaceful means; to Russia that it's just a concerned, peace-loving neighbor; and to the West that it did everything to end the fighting. With the exception of the rebel representatives -- who are motivated by Mad Max-style mayhem more than nation-building -- all sides tirelessly repeat that "there can be no military solution to the conflict." What nobody can say aloud is that Minsk is also not the solution; it was only intended to stanch Ukraine's bleeding.
Russia occupied and annexed Crimea last year in the power vacuum following then-President Viktor Yanukovych's unexpected flight from anti-government protests in Kiev. When heavily armed pro-Russian fighters then began seizing administrative buildings in eastern Ukraine, the country's provisional leaders launched a haphazard "anti-terrorist operation"; they were soon caught in the dilemma of repeating the Crimean fiasco or provoking a full-scale Russian invasion. The Ukrainians only started to get a grip on the insurgency after the election a year ago of President Petro Poroshenko, who energized the fight against the separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
By the beginning of July, the Donetsk rebel commander, a former Russian special ops officer named Igor Girkin, was complaining that locals weren't interested in fighting and called for direct Russian military assistance. In late August, just as it looked as if the rebel supply lines would be cut, regular Russian troops poured across the border to the rescue, routing Ukrainian forces at the rail junction of Ilovaisk. With his army shattered and the strategic port of Mariupol under threat, Poroshenko sued for peace in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
As a peace agreement, there's nothing wrong with the Minsk document, which includes all the right words about the cessation of hostilities, de-escalation, local elections, and reconciliation. The problem is that Russia plays a double role -- as a disinterested observer on paper and an active party to the conflict in the field. Poroshenko has no choice but to play along in this charade or take the blame for a collapse of the peace process. Western powers cling to the accord because they have no Plan B.
The famous Russian "double role." Shocking! Absolutely shocking I tell you. So totally out of character for the Russians. And yes the absence of a "Plan B." I seem to remember the Champ - Medvedev missile talks. Yes, the ones where 'more flexibility will be available following Champ's upcoming election.' Or was that Plan A ?