Normalisation at Normandy

Following talks in Paris, Russian and Ukrainian presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to implement a full and comprehensive ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.

December 2019 was the sixth time representatives of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine had participated in the Normandy Format, negotiations aimed at resolving the war in Donbass. Any step towards ending a conflict that has claimed more than 13,000 lives is welcome. But will it be enough to defrost relations between Russia, Ukraine and the EU?

Macron’s move

The agreement, brokered by France and Germany, represents an important development in French President Emmanuel Macron’s vaunted Moscow Strategy. The French president has prioritised improving EU-Russia relations, which have deteriorated since the war in Ukraine and subsequent sanctions against Russia in 2014. Macron’s actions continue France’s policy of positioning itself as an intermediary between Russia and other Western states. In 2015 and 2016, François Hollande co-chaired similar peace talks between Putin and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, while Nicholas Sarkozy was dispatched to Russia following its 2008 war with Georgia.

Part of Macron’s approach has been a reappraisal of EU sanctions against Russia. In May 2018, speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Macron stated that EU sanctions on Russia would not be lifted without progress on Ukraine. If the ceasefire agreement and its implementation are seen as sufficient progress, Macron may take steps towards rapprochement between Russia and the EU.

Likely Resistance

The removal of EU sanctions against Russia will face resistance. Politicians in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, countries geographically closer to Russia than other EU members, oppose a shift in relations without significant compromise from Moscow. Additionally, recent incidents have exacerbated tensions between EU members and Russia. These include the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK, the August 2019 assassination of a former Chechen rebel commander in Berlin and the transfer to Russia of Volodymyr Tsemakh, a person of interest in the Netherlands-led investigation into the 2014 downing of flight MH17.

A move to ease sanctions would also draw criticism from the US. Relations with Russia – already fraught by differences over Ukraine and Syria – have worsened since Russia’s alleged interference in US elections. In a June 2019 interview Putin lamented the state of US-Russia relations which he characterised as “getting worse and worse.” That said, the US and EU do not have identical sanctions programmes. Currently, this is most publicly being played out with the EU’s refusal to follow the US in re-enacting comprehensive sanctions on Iran.

Russia will welcome any relaxing of a sanctions programme that has significantly decreased foreign direct investment (FDI). The Institute of International Finance placed FDI into Russia between 2015 and 2018 (excluding reinvestment) at 0.2% of the country’s GDP, lower than Venezuela’s for the same period. EU sanctions also impact Russian companies directly. In September 2014, state-owned airline Aeroflot’s low-cost subsidiary Dobrolet ceased operations when European partners cancelled maintenance agreements due to EU sanctions.

Crimea remains unresolved

Crucially, Zelensky and Putin’s agreement does not address Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Concerns over sovereignty among EU member states, particularly those that share a Soviet past with Russia, will hinder efforts to remove sanctions without compromise from Moscow. The agreement also does not resolve political differences that remain between Russia and Ukraine, such as the conditions in which elections are to be held in war-torn Donbass.  

All this means that for now, EU sanctions will remain. But while there may have been no geopolitical breakthrough in Paris, a full prisoner swap will see dozens of people on either side of the front lines ring in the new year reunited with their families. That, together with the fact that the talks happened at all and the announcement of a follow-up meeting in Berlin in the spring, is cause enough for modest optimism.