Geneva Mirage

About how the parties were preparing for negotiations and how it all ended

Before the negotiations. Geneva, Hotel "Intercontinental", April 17, 2014/Photo: Eric Bridiers/EPA/ITAR-TASS

On the evening of April 17 (in Moscow it was about 9 yesterday), the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went to journalists after 7 hours of negotiations behind closed doors at the Intercontinental Lux Hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva (the hotel itself, where Hillary Clinton presented him as a gift a symbolic red button with a mistake in writing). The minister was in high spirits, smiled a lot. Everyone was waiting for the sensation. At least the word "agreement". But another word sounded - “Declaration”, about which any diplomat will say that it implies the smallest level of obligations. “We adopted a declaration with the conditions of de -escalation of the situation in Ukraine,” Lavrov announced, after which it became clear that this was not even a plan. And yet…

Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry, head of European diplomacy Katherine Ashton and and. O. The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrei Deshchitsa agreed on the disarmament of all kinds of armed groups (including the “Right Sector”), returning to the owners of captured administrative buildings, the liberation of all illegally occupied public places in Ukrainian settlements, amnesties to protesters, with the exception of those who committed serious crimes, and sending the monitoring mission of OBSS to Ukraine. That's perhaps that’s all. Not a word about the annexation of Crimea, about the future structure of Ukraine, about the presence (or absence) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukrainian territory and on the presidential election on May 25.

On April 18, the day after Geneva, pro -Russian activists in the east refused to disarm and leave the administrative buildings they occupied, Kyiv warned that he would not withdraw troops from the east. Moscow even stated that the Geneva Declaration is, first of all, about the disarmament of the Maidan. Say, in Kyiv everyone did not understand ...

Everything returned to their own

The Swiss police "guard" the place of negotiations. Geneva, April 17, 2014/Photo: Martial Trezzini/Ap/East News

Kyiv, first of all, insisted on the termination of the Kremlin’s support for armed groups in eastern Ukraine: Andrei Doshchitsa promised to present in Geneva evidence of Moscow’s involvement in events. Kyiv also demanded to withdraw Russian troops from the Ukrainian-Russian border, withdraw the decision of the Federation Council on the possibility of introducing a contingent into Ukraine. And the last demand that seemed completely fantastic is the withdrawal of troops from Crimea and the return of the peninsula to the jurisdiction of Ukraine. However, the optimism of Kyiv was added by a small assignment of Moscow, which no longer insisted on participating in negotiations by representatives of the Ukrainian southeast.

On April 16, on the eve of the meeting, Andrei Deshchitsa met in Geneva with Katherine Ashton: “We did not come empty -handed, we have a plan, and we count on your help.” - "Certainly! Great!" However, to the question of the kids - and whether Lavrov will definitely come, Ashton, as they say, did not answer the unequivocal “yes”: on the eve of the meeting in the press, the probability of a tripartite format of the meeting was still exaggerated, without Moscow participation.

But the child has repeatedly stated that Kyiv was ready for a tripartite format. At the same time, he emphasized: although Ukraine no longer considers relations with Russia partnerships, the dialogue must be developed. “I would call our relationship difficult. But communication is necessary, dialogue is necessary, contacts are needed, since without this the further development of relations is impossible, ”said and. O. Minister in an interview with the Russian BBC service on April 13.

From the side, the kids gives the impression of a beginner in diplomatic matters and a little clumsy. But this impression is deceptive. The 48-year-old native of the Lviv region, who graduated from the Ivan Franko Lviv State University, and then the magistracy in Canada (humanitarian and political sciences), who speaks in English and Polish, in the last two years, until the appointment of February 27 to his current post, worked as an ambassador for special instructions and the special invoice of the current chairman conflicts. “Andrei is a tough negotiator who is extremely reluctant to compromise,” a source in the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine told The New Times. At the negotiations in Geneva, according to the interlocutor of the magazine, the kiddown was supposed to demand an immediate termination of the “Russian special operation” in the east of the country, as well as the promises of Moscow not to impede the presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25. In exchange for this, Kyiv was as if ready to give an obligation not to take active actions to return Crimea.

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"Sergey Lavrov came to Geneva to win time, Russian diplomacy is trying to delay the introduction of sanctions"

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The same sources told the magazine about Kyiv’s expectations regarding the retaliatory requirements of Moscow for the federalization of Ukraine. The child was not going to agree to this under any kind. But in exchange, it was ready to propose reforms that significantly expand the rights and capabilities of local self -government bodies. In particular, it was about the election of governors and the new redistribution of the collected taxes, according to which most of the funds would remain in regional budgets.

Hello, weapons?

John Kerry flies to Geneva: Press Britting aboard the aircraft. April 16, 2014/Photo: US Mission/POO/Anadolu Agency/Getty images/Fotobank,
John Kerry and Andrey Deshchitsa. Geneva, April 17, 2014/Photo: US Mission/Poo/Anadolu Agency/Getty images/Fotobank
Sergey Lavrov is constant with one of the colleagues. Geneva, April 17, 2014 /Photo: Jim Bourg /Reuters

The prototype of the future declaration began to loom in a couple of hours after the start of work in Geneva.

Kiev was supposed to begin to fulfill the obligations to disarm various formations, including the “right sector” and “self -defense of the Maidan”, Kyiv should have begun immediately, the terms of the Ukrainian authorities Russia, the USA and the EU were tough: “A couple of days, the very end of the next week”. For the successful implementation of “Homework”, Ukraine expected the prize: “Additional financial support”, and it was stipulated that Kyiv could receive money from the IMF only if all disagreed citizens with machine guns are pacified.

The Ukrainian authorities immediately said approx. From Kyiv, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk sent a special signal to Geneva, declaring his readiness to go to decentralization of power, and asked to lay down the weapons and supporters of the Maidan, and the separatists of the southeast. In return, Yatsenyuk promised an amnesty to all the detainees.

Sergey Lavrov, according to eyewitnesses, in Geneva radiated peace, from the outside it might even seem to be going to insist on anything other than constitutional reform in Ukraine, the implementation of which, according to Moscow, should trace the Americans.

“Russia was forced to sign a document without a single item of the agenda on which it insisted. There, in the declaration, there are no mythical words about the “protection of the Russian -speaking population”, especially “federalization,” says the political observer of the Liga.net portal Sergey Vysotsky, he considers the results of Geneva to be successful for Ukraine. - What does Kyiv lose? Nothing. They demanded to disarm citizens - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and so he is engaged in this with all his might. "

But immediately after Geneva it became obvious: to fulfill the obligations taken by Kyiv will be very difficult. “First of all, the weapons should be folded by terrorists in the Donbass and Feesbashniki. We do not have illegal, only registered pistols and guns. Why should we take them to someone? " -the press secretary of the “Right Sector” Artem Skoropadsky was perplexed. The same approach is on the other side of the barricades. Denis Pushilin, a member of the leadership of the Donetsk People’s Republic, said that the opponent should start the process of disarmament: “They have more weapons. And they began to arm themselves first. ”

He is not going to part with weapons and "Self -Defense of the Maidan." “According to our data, militants from the east are going to Kyiv to arrange provocations. How can we add up weapons now? " - I was surprised in the answer to the question of The New Times, one of the centuries of the organization, introduced by Alexander.

The promises of the promises taken in Geneva and the experts surveyed by the New Times are doubtful. “Self -defense groups in eastern Ukraine play the role of power there. We need to negotiate with them, ”Ukrainian political analyst Alexander Pali said The New Times. - And in order for them to free the captured buildings, it is necessary, as they demand, to hold a referendum and change the constitution. This is not solved in a week. ”

Yuri Romanenko, the head of the Kyiv center of Stratagem, also agree with Palya: “Moscow tactics - show that Yatsenyuk and Turchinov are not able to fulfill agreements. That's why Lavrov smiled there in Geneva. ” The expert also draws attention to the conversation of Kerry and Lavrov behind closed doors closer to the evening of April 17, where the children were not invited at all: “In Geneva, no one asked Ukraine what is profitable for her and what was not. As the head of the Polish Foreign Ministry once said, Radoslav Sikorsky, in politics everything is like at a dining table: either you eat, or eat you. ”

One way or another, the Secretary of State Kerry already made it clear: if Washington does not see the immediate fulfillment of the agreements reached by protesters in the east, an already prepared package of additional sanctions will be introduced immediately against Russia. “Sergey Lavrov came to Geneva to win time, Russian diplomacy is trying to delay the introduction of sanctions, and it turns out, it succeeded,” the Freedom House executive director David Kraimer sarcastically remarked in a conversation with The New Times. The expert, according to him, "would be very surprised if armed people in the East really released the captured buildings and everything would return to the zero option." Craimer is sure: the events went too far, one meeting in Geneva will no longer be able to stop the further escalation.