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Ukraine Crisis and Mediation Not Business As Usual

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Ukraine Crisis and Mediation Not Business As Usual security and human rights 27 (2016) 327-341 brill.com/shrs Ukraine Crisis and Mediation Not Business as Usual Christian Schläpfer (former) Political Advisor to the Special Representative of the osce Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine (until February 2016); Currently employed by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland Abstract This contribution examines mediation efforts undertaken by the Organization for Se- curity and Cooperation in Europe (osce) in the context of the current crisis in and around Ukraine. It describes the establishment and evolution of the Trilateral Contact Group (tcg) and the mediated peace talks on the conflict in eastern Ukraine – the Minsk Process. Drawing from the author’s insider perspective, it sheds light on the unique aspects of the framework compared to classical mediation processes. It argues that, due to its connectivity with high-level diplomacy as well as its ability to adapt to a constantly evolving conflict, the Minsk Process represents a valuable, flexible, at times untypical, mediation framework. Keywords Ukraine crisis – mediation – osce – Trilateral Contact Group – Minsk Process – Minsk agreements *** * Christian Schläpfer received a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2008 and a Master’s degree and PhD in History from the University of Cambridge in 2009 and 2013 respectively. His doctoral research focused on counter-subversion in early Cold War Britain. ** The author is expressing a personal point of view in this contribution. The opinions stat- ed in this text should not be regarded as the official position of Switzerland, of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs or of the osce. © nhc, 2017 | doi 10.1163/18750230-02703009 Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:09:24PM via free access <UN> 328 Schläpfer On 6 June 2014, then French president François Hollande hosted foreign digni- taries to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy. Together with his German counter-part, Chancellor Angela Merkel, he seized the opportunity to arrange the first official face-to-face meeting between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the newly-elected Ukrainian presi- dent, Petro Poroshenko, both of whom attended the ceremony. The encounter, however, was not about the ending of the Second World War; it was about the dangerous and worrisome escalation of yet another conflict on the European continent: the crisis in and around Ukraine. The four, who have since become known as the “Normandy Four” (or “ Normandy Format”), decided to establish the Trilateral Contact Group (tcg) with the task of defusing mounting tensions in eastern Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Russia each designated one representative; the third member of the group, it was decided, would be a Special Representative (sr) appointed by the Chairperson-in-Office (CiO) of the Organization for Security and Coopera- tion in Europe (osce).1 The osce had already taken the lead in responding to the crisis by establishing an essential new monitoring presence on the ground as early as March 2014, and was recognised by both Russia and Ukraine as an impartial facilitator for dialogue. The tcg was borne out of crisis and designed as a rapid response mecha- nism, a first platform for dialogue. It took up its activities just two days after the Normandy meeting.2 Unsurprisingly, the structure set up in June 2014 can hardly be described as a textbook blueprint for a mediation process. In light of this, this article examines some of the particularities of the osce-led media- tion efforts in the context of the Ukraine crisis and elucidates upon some of the specific challenges that have been encountered to date. In particular, it describes a process that was transformed, in response to a constantly evolv- ing conflict, from a relatively informal dialogue platform into a fully-fledged mediation process through which commitments and their implementation are discussed in a structured manner. Further, it shows how it benefited from direct links to high-level diplomacy as well as osce presence on the ground. 1 The composition in June 2014 was as follows: Ambassador Pavlo Klimkin (Ukraine), Am- bassador Michael Zurabov (Russia) and Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini (osce cio). They have been succeeded since by President Leonid Kuchma (Ukraine), Ambassador Azamat Kulmukhametov and, since December 2015, Boris Gryslov (Russia) and Ambassador Martin Sajdik (osce cio). 2 osce, osce Chairperson-in-Office, upon request of Ukrainian President, appoints Swiss diplomat to accompany talks between Ukraine and Russia, Bern, 8 June 2014. Retrieved on 5 December 2016, http://www.osce.org/cio/119608. security and humanDownloaded rights from 27 Brill.com10/03/2021 (2016) 327-341 01:09:24PM via free access <UN> Ukraine Crisis and Mediation 329 Moreover, it highlights how the process unusually tackles crisis management and conflict resolution in parallel and the specific challenges this poses to the mediator. Lastly, it explores the importance of the public’s perception of the process and the challenges and opportunities for the mediator in communi- cating with the press. It is, however, beyond the scope of this contribution to expand in detail on any concrete results achieved; regular statements by the cio sr as well as meeting records of the un Security Council provide publicly available and up-to-date information on the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements.3 This contribution is therefore a case study that sheds light on one particu- lar process about which there is little information publicly available. While specific discussion of the academic debates surrounding peace mediation more generally is beyond the present remit, this contribution hopes to pro- vide a valuable example for future research.4 But it is worth stressing here that the wealth of insight provided by academic research enriches and arguably influences methodological approaches used by the osce and is captured in internal reference guides.5 Before describing the mediation framework in Ukraine and examining its specificities more closely, it is worth recalling the regional and historical con- text. The post-Soviet space, after all, has produced a number of compar able 3 Recent statements by Ambassador Sajdik: osce, Press Statement of the Special Representa- tive of the osce Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Martin Sajdik, after the consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group, Minsk, 26 April 2017. Retrieved on 14 May 2017, http://www .osce.org/chairmanship/314286; osce, Press Statement of the Special Representative of the osce cio, Ambassador Martin Sajdik, after the consultations of the tcg, Minsk, 12 April 2017. Retrieved on 14 May 2017, http://www.osce.org/chairmanship/311461; osce, Press Statement of Special Representative of the osce Chairperson-in-Office Sajdik after Meeting of the Trilater- al Contact Group in Minsk, Minsk, 29 March 2017. Retrieved on 14 May 2017, http://www.osce .org/chairmanship/308876. For the most recent reports of the un Security Council: United Nations, Meeting of the Security Council, 2 February 2017, S/pv.7876. Retrieved on 14 May 2017; United Nations, Meeting of the Security Council, 28 April 2016, S/pv.7683. Retrieved on 5 De- cember 2016, http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3 -CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_pv_7683.pdf. 4 For a useful overview of the current state of research, see: Allard Duursma, “A current litera- ture review of international mediation”, International Journal of Conflict Management, 2014, Volume 25 (1), pp. 81–98. For a general description and conceptualisation of mediation in the context of the osce, see for example the Organization relevant reference guide: osce Conflict Prevention Centre, Mediation and Dialogue Facilitation in the osce: Reference Guide, Vienna, 2014. 5 Exchange between academia and the osce is, for example, facilitated through the osce Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions. security and human rights 27 (2016) 327-341 Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 01:09:24PM via free access <UN> 330 Schläpfer conflicts: Transnistria, on Ukraine’s western borders, or Abkhazia, South- Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the southern Caucasus. It is only natural that actors involved in the conflict, as well as external observers, immediately com- pare and contrast developments in and around Ukraine with the broader post- Soviet context in a search for deeper understanding and lessons-learned. While a comprehensive comparison would, undoubtedly, be a valuable e xercise, for the purposes of this paper, it suffices here to simply highlight that there are sig- nificant differences. For example, in eastern Ukraine the area over which the government lost control does not coincide with any historically entrenched, cultural or administrative fault lines, which might have existed before the con- flict. Prior to the eruption of the conflict, there were no clear linguistic, ethnic or political differences between the areas on either side of today’s so-called contact line. Moreover, the conflict area in Ukraine is four times larger than Transnistria. The number of people directly affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine is six times as large as the population of Transnistria or, even more starkly, some 40 times larger than the population of South Ossetia.6 And the two countries represented in the tcg, Russia and Ukraine, are geographically the largest states in Europe. In other words, the conflict in eastern Ukraine liter- ally has another dimension. Still, there are also similarities. Just like the osce, the Russian Federation has been involved – to a greater or lesser extent – in all of the respective formats set up to mediate a peaceful settlement. The cru- cial outcome of all of these conflicts is that none of them have yet been fully resolved. Perhaps most astonishingly, the spectre of these “worst practices” has thus far had no significant direct impact on the peace process in Ukraine, in so far as it has not explicitly emerged as an issue in discussion during the formal 6 I am indebted to Ambassador Martin Sajdik for this observation.
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