Analysis | In Frozen Negotiations over the Donbas, Environment is Everything
In less than a month, it will have been six years since the war in the Donbas froze to a standstill between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). Around 13,000 people have been killed — a quarter of them civilians. Negotiations, meanwhile, do not appear to be making any significant progress. The 2015 Minsk II package was meant to halt fighting in the Donbas, reduce heavy weaponry, open the door to humanitarian aid, and begin the process of dialogue and decentralization in both Donetsk and Luhansk. Instead, both Ukraine and Russia have failed to implement Minsk II.
Negotiations resumed in 2019 when Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky met in Paris alongside German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron in an effort to broker a ceasefire. Three years previous, Ukraine agreed to provide special status to the Donbas region. This special self-governing status for the Donbas region is conditional on elections to be held in the Donbas region under the supervision of the OSCE. Using the Steinmeier formula, both sides attempted to create a framework for free and fair elections in Eastern Ukraine to be verified by the OSCE, and then to settle on a self-governing status for the region. However, there are still major divergences over key issues, notably over control of the border between Donetsk and Luhansk and Russia. While Moscow and Kyiv reached an agreement to withdraw troops by March 2020, it is likely that the public health crisis brought on by COVID-19 will delay further negotiations for the time being, as both governments focus their attention on fighting the spread of the virus.
Most recently, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s new chief of staff, and Dmitry Kozak, Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and current third deputy minister in Putin’s administration, met in Minsk. During the meeting, which took place in March of this year, Kozak and Yermak proposed the creation of an Advisory Council, in which some seats would be granted to Russian-backed separatists. While in the past, Ukraine ruled out all talks with separatists, this appears to represent an opportunity for representatives of the DPR and LPR to meet with Ukrainian representatives to discuss avenues for the resolution of the conflict.
An Environment of Trust and Cooperation
Despite the many issues plaguing negotiations to bring ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine to an end, one aspect that positively contributes to mutual cooperation and goodwill between Ukraine and Russia that is often overlooked is that of environmental cooperation. Both the LPR and DPR are experiencing many significant negative externalities as a result of climate change due to the conflict. These externalities are notable as they are shared problems between Ukraine, the LPR & DPR as well as Russia, including: 1) environmental pollution resulting from disruptions and incidents from large-scale factories, 2) the flooding of mines – particularly the case of Yunyi-Komunar mine where groundwater might be radioactive, 3) pollution of groundwater with iron, chlorides, sulfates, and other heavy metals, 4) disruption of water supply to civilians, 5) destruction of forests and other natural protected areas, amongst other issues.
While these issues are currently localized in the LPR and DPR, they have the potential to spread into other parts of Ukraine and possibly into Russia as well. These shared problems offer opportunities for both Kyiv and Moscow and may serve as cornerstones upon which to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect, cooperation, and goodwill. Because these issues focus primarily on areas of cooperation to resolve environmental issues — as opposed to those of statehood, special status, or other divisive subjects that are sensitive for Ukraine, Russia, and the LPR and DPR — the negotiating parties may be less truculent and more open to compromise.
For example, the parties could work towards systemizing all data on environmental hazards and the situation at large in an open and transparent forum between scientists, rather than politicians. This kind of trust-building is a small step, but could help to develop a more productive parallel dialogue and cooperative atmosphere, if effective. Further, putting scientists in touch with one another on both sides of the conflict would allow for citizens to decrease their fear of ‘the other’ and see one another as people — particularly if done so in a manner that celebrated successes as joint projects between all parties. Once addressed, both sides could then move towards enabling international environmental monitoring and creating partnerships with, for example, Ukrainian scientific institutions, to mitigate some of the more salient hazards.
A Better Path to Peace Negotiations
Traditional peace negotiations tend to focus on the principal issues at hand — often conflict resolution or territorial demarcation. However, by addressing smaller issues first, parties can overcome mutual distrust by establishing a dialogue and atmosphere of cooperation and goodwill. Particularly in long and seemingly intractable conflicts, such as the one in Ukraine, it is evident that a new strategy is needed. Rather than examining different ways to negotiate prisoner releases and the drawback of heavy weaponry, it may be more effective to find common ground on tertiary issues before addressing larger, more principal ones.
Neither Ukraine nor the LPR, DPR, or Russia benefits from continued groundwater contamination and environmental pollution. In fact, all sides would benefit from small concessions and agreements, providing concrete, actionable steps for parties that are likely fatigued from years of stifling inaction and failed negotiations. In rejuvenating the dialogue of peace for the Donbas, the key to cooperation may just lie in the environment that Kyiv and Moscow create for themselves.
Edited by: Cameron Vaské
All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of The International Scholar or any other organization.
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