Spiegel Online Details Harrowing Minsk Talks

On Feb. 14, Spiegel Online published a detailed account of the Minsk talks, providing an hour-by-hour picture of just how fragile the negotiations were, and how intently the four leaders worked to reach the ceasefire that is now in effect.

According to the account, there were two factors that drove Merkel and Hollande to press for a deal. First, they were both convinced that the Obama Administration’s plan to arm the Ukrainian armed forces would lead to escalation and a possible direct U.S.-Russian confrontation over Ukraine. Second, they were aware that as many as 8,000 Ukrainian troops (out of a total of 30,000 troops in the Ukrainian Army altogether) were trapped and surrounded in Debaltseve, a town on a crucial highway in the east of the country.

Merkel flew to Washington to meet with President Obama on Feb. 9, to press for him to drop the plans to send arms to Ukraine, and to also press him to revive communication with Russian President Putin. According to the Spiegel account, Obama did call Putin on Feb. 11, and the two leaders talked for 90 minutes.

Ultimately, after nearly 17 hours of non-stop negotiations in Minsk, the deal was secured when Putin spoke privately by phone with the leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk and got them to agree to the ceasefire terms. At 8 AM local time on Thursday, according to Spiegel, OSCE special envoy Heidi Tagliavini had told the four heads of state that the pro-Russian leaders rejected the ceasefire deal in Contact Group talks that were going on in Minsk in tandem with the Normandy talks. Putin turned the tide and the deal was signed by the four heads of state and the Contact Group.

According to the Spiegel account, over the course of the negotiating process, German Chancellor Merkel had gone through a serious change of mind, and recognized that the danger of war was so grave that an all-out effort to reach a diplomatic deal was paramount.