"Minsk Warmed Over" (Stolen from Dan Welch, btw) or My First Impression from the Talks in Moscow on the Fate of Donbass' Anti-Fascist Revolt

On the talks in Moscow between Putin, Merkel and Hollande: the key result is an agreement to try to hammer out an "agreement on the IMPLEMENTATION of the Minsk Agreements." The wording and editing is planned for tomorrow, and the possible agreement might be published (at least in its public portion) on Sunday, if the work succeeds. However, it seems that there is a basic understanding of the will of Moscow and the West to enter a new, somewhat modified phase of the "implementation" of the Minsk deal. The implementation document is said to be based on the proposals of Poroshenko and Putin, which means that it is based on som form of Western demands as mediated and communicated by Merkel and Hollande.

Importantly and tellingly, the negotiations of this new implementation of the Minsk agreements are to be in the Normandy format and NOT in the Minsk format. What it means is that Moscow agreed to exclude the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics from having any part in ironing out the "implementation" of the deal, which could seal the life and status of the two break-away republics. In this way, as before, Moscow signed and gave away even the idea that the two republics are any independent or politically relevant subjects, not to mention "equal partners" in talks with Kiev.

In fact, already in the Minsk process, the two republics were merely treated as added witnesses to the decisions made for them by others, and their representatives were asked to sign on the documents only with their personal names without any titles or names of the republics, which they represent.

http://rusvesna.su/news/1423261929

From the ongoing buzz, one new idea, which Merkel and Hollande brought with themselves to Moscow, also seems to be a proposal to deploy an "international peacekeeping force" (definitely not a Russian or pro-Russian force) in the two breakaway republics, certainly for the eventual benefit of the West and the junta. If true, this too reminds me of the tactic or a part of the tactic, which the US and NATO used in Kosovo. The two republics would effectively become an international or quasi-Western protectorate. The West's and the junta's key demand is to block any assistance coming from Russia, thus to cut off the two republics and sooner or later dismantle them. The other objective along these lines is the demand to bring back Kiev's control (or international pro-Kiev control) over the borders between Russia and the two republics. All other ostensible concessions and promises are being made in order to obtain at least one of these two "'commanding heights," which would allow the West and the junta to change the situation on the ground with Moscow's consent.

Judging from what I've seen in the Russian sources on the subject, there also appears to have been some speculation about the "need" (and the Kremlin's inclination) to run a new "referendum" in Donbass in the place of the original one organized in Donetsk and Lugansk on May 11, 2014, which Putin himself asked not to be held (when already trying obviously to "negotiate a deal" or "a diplomatic solution," as they say) and which Moscow failed to recognize unlike the patently falsified and staged presidential elections in May or the early parliamentary elections in October, the results of which were dictated via the US Embassy in Kiev.Part of the Minsk Faustian Deal does appear to have been some speculation about the "need" to run a new "referendum" there in the place of the one, which Putin himself asked not to be held (when already trying obviously to "negotiate a deal" or "a diplomatic solution," as they say) and which Moscow failed to recognize unlike the patently falsified and staged presidential elections in May or the early parliamentary elections in October, the results of which were dictated via the US Embassy in Kiev.