The authors write:

• Although there is now a recognition that the conflict in and around Ukraine involves many actors at different levels, this was insufficiently reflected in the mediation efforts between 2014 and 2022, which ultimately failed to prevent the escalation from hybrid to conventional war. This is not to suggest that mediation, in whatever format, could have accomplished this, but it is to caution against (albeit without dismissing) a fatalistic view that, with the benefit—and bias—of hindsight, now constructs a narrative that condemns mediation efforts as having enabled Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Rather, the point is that understanding why mediation at the gray-zone stage of the war was insufficiently effective may help to prevent a similar failure in the future if and when the current conventional war “slips back” into a hybrid disguise. Three points stand out in this context. 
  • First, the principal political framework of mediation—the Normandy format—focused too narrowly on just one aspect of the complex blended conflict in and around Ukraine. 
  • Second, while this pretense may have been helpful in keeping Russia engaged and thus in facilitating the relative, albeit temporary, successes of OSCE mediation in the Trilateral Contact Group, it meant that mediation failed to address two other, closely connected dimensions of the broader conflict, namely between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and the West. 
  • Third, when it became evident that the Minsk agreements were unimplementable—Ukraine having been forced to sign on to arrangements that unfairly favored Russia and denied democratic forces any meaningful voice—Ukraine ’s partners not only stopped supporting their implementation outside the Normandy and TCG formats, but also failed to propose alternative formats through which a more adoptable and functional agreement could have been mediated.

Read the full article on PONARS Eurasia website.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine shared under a public licence.