Peace in Ukraine is fragmented in pieces like a broken Chinese enamel in the sun. Ukraine is where Europeans have been engaged in a senseless slaughter for eleven years now.

To Western Europe, peace has assumed an urgency as the deliberate moves of the United States, US, in pulling the plugs, has exposed that part of the world as being vulnerable like a typical neo-colony.

As late as February 14, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was still bragging that there will neither be a ceasefire nor negotiations as long as there are Russian troops on Ukrainian soil and President Vladimir Putin remains President of Russia. Last week he adopted the hare-brained Western European leaders insistence that even if there is to be a ceasefire, it must cover only the air and sea, not the battle fields on the ground.

However, on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, Zelensky agreed to a ceasefire on all fronts for at least a month if Russia agrees. In a joint statement with the US in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine“expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.”

A ceasefire to which, from all indications, Russia will accede is the easiest step to mending peace in Ukraine. The peace in that country was broken on February 22, 2014 when the extreme right overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych. This second coup in four years against democratic elections was baptised “Revolution of Dignity”. The first was called the “Orange Revolution”. Both coups, which stopped the same President Yanukovych, were staged when pro-Western elements in Ukraine, realised that they could not win democratic elections against pro-Russian Ukrainians.

After the second coup, the Crimea Peninsula held a referendum in 2014 to opt out of Ukraine and join Russia. The pro-Russia regions of Donetsk and Luhansk which have been winning the democratic elections, decided that either the constitutional order be restored or they would opt out of Ukraine. The Ukrainian armed forces was unleashed on them. Also, to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the pro-Russian Ukrainians, a special neo-Nazi army called the Azov Battalion, was created in May, 2014.

This is the origin of the Ukrainian Civil War which rages until today. Also, irregular Russian forces had crossed the border to fight on the side of the rebels.

In September 2014 both Ukraine and the separatists signed a12-Point Peace Agreement in Minsk which provided for a ceasefire, prisoners exchange, deliveries of humanitarian aid, withdrawal of heavy weapons and agreement on co-existence. But the agreement broke down and the civil war continued.

To stop the conflict, Germany and France brokered a second peace agreement called MINSK II. This 13-point agreement, signed by Ukraine, Russia, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe , OSCE, and the leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk provided for immediate, comprehensive ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, OSCE monitoring and dialogue on interim self-government for Donetsk and Luhansk, in accordance with Ukrainian law, and acknowledgement of special status by parliament.

The other points in the agreement were pardon and amnesty for fighters, exchange of hostages and prisoners, humanitarian assistance, resumption of socio-economic ties, including pensions, Ukrainian restoration of control over state border, and withdrawal of foreign armed formations, military equipment, mercenaries. It also provided for constitutional reform, including decentralisation, with specific mention of Donetsk and Luhansk, elections in both regions, and the intensification of the Trilateral Contact Group’s work which included representatives of Russia, Ukraine and OSCE.

However, the Kyiv government refused to implement the agreement, preferring to press with its advantage of a regular military and heavy weapons being supplied by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO.




https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/03/saudi-talks-and-the-bloody-road-to-peace-in-ukraine-by-owei-lakemfa/