How Does Ukraine’s Civil War End?

Ivan Katchanovski predicts that attempts “to solve the conflict in Donbas by force will lead to mounting casualties among civilians, Ukrainian forces and armed separatists”:

Even a military defeat of separatists is unlikely to end the conflict because it reflects significant regional divisions since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, including a history of separatism in Crimea and Donbas. And Russia, with significant military, political, and economic leverage over Ukraine, is there to stay.

An internationally mediated negotiated settlement — which would include international investigations of the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane and other mass killings — could preserve Donbas as a part of Ukraine. An example of one such peaceful resolution of an armed conflict between separatists and the central government is in Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia. A negotiated settlement can also stop an escalation of the civil war in Ukraine and the growing conflict between the West and Russia. But such a peaceful resolution in Ukraine is not very likely to happen.

Maxim Eristavi’s report suggests that fighting won’t stop anytime soon:

On Friday, Putin called again for peace talks—but nobody in Kyiv is listening at the moment.

The Ukrainian public and its leaders insist they will go all the way to defeat the rebels.“It is time to put an end to this aggression, and the world should join us in the eliminating of terrorists. It doesn’t matter where they are,” Oleksandr Tyrchynov, the speaker of parliament said in a public statement, most likely hinting at a possible military campaign along the Russian border.

The war has its political upsides. Local analyst Yuriy Romanenko told me that the new ruling elite has the same core problem as the old one—corruption—which makes Western countries especially wary of providing more assistance, absent major economic and political changes. It also makes Kyiv less willing to compromise. “But the second they realize that they are losing the Eastern Ukraine war, peace talks will probably have a big comeback moment,” Romanenko said. “It’s an easier thing for them to do than go through painful reforms.”

But, even if Kyiv wanted a peace deal, it’s doubtful that many of the rebels are capable of negotiation. For example, Motyl does a close reading of rebel leader Pavel Gubarev’s “Methodological Guide for Struggle Against the Junta.” His take-away:

Is compromise possible with the likes of Gubarev? Probably not. He detests Ukraine and Ukrainians, and his agenda consists of little more than terrorism. Can Russian President Vladimir Putin control him? That, too, is by no means clear: fanatics such as Gubarev are by definition uncontrollable.

If so, the Poroshenko government may have no choice but to attempt to crush Gubarev and his militant groups. The bad news, for Kiev, is that Gubarev is implacable and is willing to die. The good news is that his manual clearly, if unintentionally, reveals that the militant groups are isolated, on the run, and in constant fear of exposure. His open admission that “[w]inning people’s confidence will not be easy” hardly reflects deep popular support. As the document stresses, the terrorists cannot trust the local population, not even the local criminals who in the early days of the insurgency actually comprised a significant portion of the fighters. Nor can they rely on their own comrades to remain silent, if captured, for more than a “few hours.”