Research paper
Published 22 May 2020
Updated 17 December 2020
ISBN: 978 1 78413 400 6
The Minsk agreements rest on two irreconcilable interpretations of Ukraine’s sovereignty: is Ukraine sovereign, as Ukrainians insist, or should its sovereignty be limited, as Russia demands? Instead of trying to resolve an unresolvable contradiction, Western policymakers should acknowledge the starkness of the Minsk conundrum.
I am grateful to James Nixey, Orysia Lutsevych, Ľubica Polláková and Anna Morgan in the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia Programme for their encouragement and support. Jake Statham and Anna Brown copy-edited the manuscript, and gave me invaluable advice and help. Sincere thanks go to several people who offered thoughtful and trenchant comments on an earlier draft of this paper: Kirk Bennett, Laurence Broyd, Alexander Hug, Donald Jensen, Rebecca Loughna, James Sherr, Kataryna Wolczuk and two anonymous reviewers. Any errors are of course mine.
