KIEV, Sept 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
scored a big win by exchanging prisoners with Russia, experts say, but Moscow
made him pay a heavy price and will be looking for more concessions.
In office since only May, the political novice managed to fulfil a key
campaign promise by getting 35 prisoners held by Russia sent home.
The ex-detainees, including 24 sailors and filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, were
given heroes’ welcomes when they landed in Kiev — with Ukrainians across the
country gathered around televisions showing them embracing family members and
shaking the president’s hand.
“Politically, it was a major victory for Zelensky,” Ukrainian political
analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said.
The comedian-turned-politician, who swept to power in a shock April
election win, will be able to point to the swap as proof that he is up to the
task of being president.
In exchange for the prisoners, Kiev handed the same number over to Moscow
including Vladimir Tsemakh, a fighter with Moscow-backed rebels linked to the
downing of flight MH17.
Kiev says Moscow insisted on Tsemakh’s involvement in the swap and he was
delivered to Russia despite pleas from the Netherlands.
Investigators have described Tsemakh as a person of interest in the
shooting down of MH17, which was travelling between Amsterdam and Kuala
Lumpur when it was hit by a Russian-made BUK missile over rebel-held eastern
Ukraine.
International investigators in June charged three Russians and a Ukrainian
in absentia with murder in the case. The 298 people on board the plane, two
thirds of them Dutch, were all killed.
– West ‘fed up’ with conflict –
German tabloid Bild described Tsemakh’s handover as a “double victory” for
Russian President Vladimir Putin: “He gets the only suspect in detention….
and Europe loses some of its confidence in Ukraine, which ignored this call
from the Netherlands”.
Kiev needs the West’s continued support in its conflict with Russia, which
is under European and US sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and role in
the Ukraine crisis. Russia took control of the Black Sea peninsula in 2014
and backs the separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has left
more than 13,000 people dead in the last five years.
France and Germany helped to negotiate a peace accord that has yet to be
implemented. Paris has called for a new summit of Putin, Zelensky and the
French and German leaders to take place later this month.
The French foreign and defence ministers were due in Moscow for talks on
Monday.
“It is clear that the West will try to force us to resolve the problem
with Russia. They are fed up,” said a Ukrainian source with good knowledge of
the issue.
Kiev needs to have the courage, the source said, to resist the pressure
and “get the most for ourselves in this situation”.
The focus of the talks will be reviving the Minsk accords, based on an
agreement that was reached in 2014 but failed to stop the fighting.
Although full-scale fighting has subsided, there are still regular clashes
in frontline areas that leave dead on both sides.
– ‘Traps laid by Putin’ –
The agreement called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from
the frontlines, prisoner exchanges, local elections and the delivery of
humanitarian aid.
This would be followed by constitutional changes to give more power to
regional authorities in exchange for the disbanding of rebel forces.
It is unclear on what issues Zelensky would be ready to negotiate, but he
has said resolving the conflict is his top priority.
The war has been a huge drain on government resources and drag on
Ukraine’s economy, and has forced some 1.5 million people from their homes.
Fesenko said major concessions were out of the question, but the risk was
that Zelensky would wade into dangerous waters.
“The West understands that there are red lines Ukraine will not cross,” he
said, but Zelensky needs to be careful not to “fall into traps laid by
Putin”.
Ukrayinska Pravda, a popular Ukrainian news website, wrote that the
exchange had showed Zelensky was “ready to make controversial concessions” to
get what he wants from Russia.
But Zelensky has never laid out a full plan for reaching a peace deal, it
said, “so no one knows what concessions he is ready to make” next.