The Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve were encircled when Minsk II was signed. The separatists and Putin already basically said they weren’t going to let this one go, but I guess everybody pretended they didn’t hear that and so they just did not mention it in the agreement.
This is a problem right? No side wants to give up land. If the fighting had stopped there, that would have created a little exclave full of starving Ukrainian soldiers. How do you deal with this exactly, without talking about it? One side has to give in. Either Ukraine withdraws or the separatists withdraw from the encirclement. Since the separatists were winning there already, they forced the Ukrainians out.
Fighting did die down everywhere else, and there as well once the Ukrainian troops broke out. I guess the Ukrainians were hoping they would get to keep it if they hold on to it by their fingernails. In any case, this isn’t the main reason the agreement tanked.
“They were encircled” is not even slightly the same as “it doesn’t count if we kill them during a ceasefire”. If the agreement was implemented then Ukraine would have pulled out because there’d be no more reason to fight. It’s not an exclave of Ukraine if the regions in question are autonomous parts of Ukraine. Instead, a bunch of soldiers got killed by a side that had literally just agreed to stop shooting.
There was a proposal to let them leave, but for whatever reason that wasn’t agreed upon. So the separatists kept attacking and Ukraine mounted a rescue mission. They should have cleared up what to do about it in the agreement, but they didn’t.
Your point was that it was the Russians/separatists fault that Minsk II failed, because of Debaltseve, but I don’t think that’s fair. The Debaltseve issue, and the fact that it wasn’t addressed in the agreement, was, even at the time, in Western media and in Russia, criticized. After Ukraine broke out and Debaltseve was captured, fighting was massively reduced even there, and heavy weaponry was pull backed from the front line, so that wasn’t the thing that sank Minsk II.
The Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve were encircled when Minsk II was signed. The separatists and Putin already basically said they weren’t going to let this one go, but I guess everybody pretended they didn’t hear that and so they just did not mention it in the agreement.
This is a problem right? No side wants to give up land. If the fighting had stopped there, that would have created a little exclave full of starving Ukrainian soldiers. How do you deal with this exactly, without talking about it? One side has to give in. Either Ukraine withdraws or the separatists withdraw from the encirclement. Since the separatists were winning there already, they forced the Ukrainians out.
Fighting did die down everywhere else, and there as well once the Ukrainian troops broke out. I guess the Ukrainians were hoping they would get to keep it if they hold on to it by their fingernails. In any case, this isn’t the main reason the agreement tanked.
“They were encircled” is not even slightly the same as “it doesn’t count if we kill them during a ceasefire”. If the agreement was implemented then Ukraine would have pulled out because there’d be no more reason to fight. It’s not an exclave of Ukraine if the regions in question are autonomous parts of Ukraine. Instead, a bunch of soldiers got killed by a side that had literally just agreed to stop shooting.
There was a proposal to let them leave, but for whatever reason that wasn’t agreed upon. So the separatists kept attacking and Ukraine mounted a rescue mission. They should have cleared up what to do about it in the agreement, but they didn’t.
Your point was that it was the Russians/separatists fault that Minsk II failed, because of Debaltseve, but I don’t think that’s fair. The Debaltseve issue, and the fact that it wasn’t addressed in the agreement, was, even at the time, in Western media and in Russia, criticized. After Ukraine broke out and Debaltseve was captured, fighting was massively reduced even there, and heavy weaponry was pull backed from the front line, so that wasn’t the thing that sank Minsk II.