Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have jointly prevailed on Ukraine to sign another armistice with Russia’s proxy forces operating in Ukraine’s east (Kremlin.ru, Osce.org, February 12; see EDM, February 12). Signed on February 12, in Minsk, Belarus,... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow during the night of February 6–7. Merkel and Hollande had conferred with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv during the preceding night, eliciting his consent to a... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande conferred during the night of February 5–6 with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv. The three leaders and their advisory teams discussed a proposal from Russian President Vladimir Putin for an armistice in Ukraine, and a... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The breakdown of the Minsk negotiations process (see Part One in EDM, February 4) had become obvious even before its final collapse on January 31. Moscow, along with the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (“DPR” and “LPR,” respectively)... MORE

Russia’s and its proxies’ military advantage (see EDM, January 22, February 3) is increasingly shaping the Minsk process of negotiations to Ukraine’s detriment. That process maintains the fiction that Russia is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine. Ukraine’s official position in Kyiv and... MORE

Russian and proxy forces are attacking Ukrainian positions at multiple points along the frontline since mid-January 2015, bringing to bear superior armored forces, unmatched heavy firepower and electronic warfare support. These offensive operations are mostly positional and attritional for the time being, with a distinct... MORE

A new phase of Russia’s war is ongoing since mid-January in Ukraine’s east. This phase has broken the informal “silence regime” that had taken effect since December 9, which had mainly restrained the use of heavy artillery and multiple missile launchers. It is on these... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing a cheating game with the West and Ukraine, not only hollowing out the Minsk armistice agreements (see EDM, January 22, 23, 27), but even shifting the agreed-upon demarcation line on the ground and on the map. Kyiv is alert... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped to see the Minsk armistice process rehabilitated at the “Normandy Group’s” January 21 meeting in Berlin (see EDM, January 22, 23). Prefacing that meeting of the German, French, Russian and Ukrainian ministers of foreign affairs, Merkel declared: “The Minsk... MORE

Foreign affairs ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, Sergei Lavrov of Russia, Pavlo Klimkin of Ukraine, and Laurent Fabius of France—representing the so-called “Normandy” group of countries—met in Berlin on January 21. Germany convened the meeting amid an upsurge in Russian-led attacks on Ukrainian positions along... MORE